Film School Rejects - State of the Movie Fan Union

[Sawyer]

http://filmschoolrejects.com/opinions/state-of-the-movie-fan-union-2015.php

All that accuracy.

 

[Eddie Dean]

Haha, Devin Faraci. What a ****ing baby.

 

[Sawyer]

It's disappointing to read that many of the trades seem to be playing into this nonsense game just so they don't get left behind.

 

[dude stannis]

Haha, Devin Faraci. What a ****ing baby.

As you can guess, he had a dummy spit about it.

 

[Eddie Dean]

That's what I was referring to.

 

[dude stannis]

That's what I was referring to.

I didn't realise they'd made an update. But still, what was said originally wasn't even that bad.

 

[DA_Champion]

Devin Faraci is a great writer who ultimately does far, far more good than harm.

I blame the fans and the internet fan community. The article is correct, we're far more excited about irrelevant **** such as the next Spider Man outfit than we are in really thinking about old movies, where old is defined as anything available on blu ray.

We're kind of drug addicts. We're just looking for the next high.

 

[AndrewGilkison]

Aside from the fact that we have more superhero movies being made now, what exactly has changed? Hasn't on-line and geek fandom always followed superhero movie productions? We've gone from having to read about Superman: The Movie or Batman 89 in a Starlog magazine to reading AICN to find out about the X-Men movie in 2000 and the Spider-Man movie in 2002 to now trying to decipher mysterious twitter accounts or reddit posts. Nothing has really changed except the volume of movies to speculate over and sites in which to read rumors and speculation.

 

[DA_Champion]

Andrew,

There was an excellent film website, The Dissolve, which recently closed ita doors due to lack of funding. It's causing consternation.

They were trying to do things differently, they had retroactive reviews of a lot of older movies, stuff that is 1, 10, and 50 years old. They focused more on analysis of story than on where the scratch marks are in the suit. They didn't receive enough funding, possibly because there was less interest in this higher-level analysis.

Personally I agree it sucks that the dissolve closed and I think this will reduce the intellectual level of discussion of film on the Internet.

 

[dude stannis]

I can't recommend http://outlawvern.com/ enough. You could wake up tomorrow morning and find an insightful review on some obscure 70's grindhouse movie, and then something equally insightful on whatever this weeks major release is.

 

[Black Narcissus]

Roger Ebert was a great film writer.

Faraci is meh to me. Critic Hulk is way better than him.

 

[Lencho01]

I still don't understand why people hate Faraci so much anyway. Just one dude with his own opinions and such. And the hate always seems to be in relation to DC/Marvel stuff, when dude doesn't even love every thing Marvel puts out.

Anyway, the site has a lot of interesting stuff going on their outside of simple recycling info from other sites or the trades.

 

[Sawyer]

I'll say this: I dislike Devin slightly less than I dislike El Mayimbe.

 

[DA_Champion]

Does El Mayimbe contribute anything productive?

 

[dude stannis]

Roger Ebert was a great film writer.

Faraci is meh to me. Critic Hulk is way better than him.

I'LL READ ANOTHER FILM CRITIC HULK ARTICLE WHEN HE STOPS TAKING SIX PARAGRAPHS TO INTRODUCE HIS POINT AND THEN SPENDS THE REMAINDER OF THE ARTICLE TELLING PEOPLE THEY'RE WRONG FOR ENJOYING THINGS.

ALSO MAYBE DITCH THE ALL CAPS. JUST MAYBE.

I still don't understand why people hate Faraci so much anyway. Just one dude with his own opinions and such. And the hate always seems to be in relation to DC/Marvel stuff, when dude doesn't even love every thing Marvel puts out.

Anyway, the site has a lot of interesting stuff going on their outside of simple recycling info from other sites or the trades.

I don't care about his opinions so much as I don't like the kind of hateful attitude he propagates. Too many people that follow him think it's fine to crap all over people for liking things that aren't necessarily received perfectly, but get defensive when they admit to doing the same and act like it's ok.

 

[Lencho01]

Does El Mayimbe contribute anything productive?

I think he helps add to speculative discussions.

I don't care about his opinions so much as I don't like the kind of hateful attitude he propagates. Too many people that follow him think it's fine to crap all over people for liking things that aren't necessarily received perfectly, but get defensive when they admit to doing the same and act like it's ok.

Eh, I don't care if he does that or not. At the end of the day, it's just his opinion. People with similar opinions will gravitate to it. Same with those with opposing one (why they always talk about him or talk to him). Nothing different from what you see in other places, including this forum. Same old, same old for me. I just find the stuff he and the other writers say to be interesting, whether I agree or not.

 

[Heretic]

I've grown sick of the clickbait rumor mill movies news era to the point where I try to avoid those sites. However, I still see tons of spoilers (both real and speculative) in my Facebook feed. I can't believe that ANYONE likes the idea of knowing all of the important details in a movie before they buy their ticket. If Dr Strange is in Civil War...wonderful...let me find out in the theater, not on Facebook 7 months before the movie comes out.

However, the vast majority of the articles are just fanboy theories typed into article format. There's one site called Moviepilot that I refuse to click any link to because they basically work like this...

Unknown, inexperienced, small town actress gets work as an extra on Civil War and tweets about it.
Moviepilot notices that the actress has blonde hair.
HEADLINE: CAPTAIN MARVEL WILL APPEAR IN CIVIL WAR

Not that I've been spoiled...it's total clickbait speculation...it's just annoying to the point where it drives me away.

 

[Serpico Jones]

I still don't understand why people hate Faraci so much anyway. Just one dude with his own opinions and such. And the hate always seems to be in relation to DC/Marvel stuff, when dude doesn't even love every thing Marvel puts out.

Anyway, the site has a lot of interesting stuff going on their outside of simple recycling info from other sites or the trades.

I think a lot of it has to do with his disgusting online personality. He basically acts like a troll on Twitter and such.

 

[jmc]

It's not just rumours that are an issue, it's spoiler headlines that are a plague. Prominent news websites now are resorting to the same grubby, spoilerish,click baits headlines that these scoop sites are know for. I recently went to the local news website of my city only to find the finale of the most recent Games of Thrones series was spoiled in the title on the front page before I had a chance to see it. They also did they same to the ending of Breaking Bad, such was my outrage of having the series ruined for me in the headline I actually called the newspaper up and gave the editor an ear full. I'm not going to begrudge anyone for spoiling things for themselves, but I take issue with there being this complete lack of respect for people who don't want things ruined for themselves. Everything is fair game now and if you're not up to speed then it's 'your fault'. The internet has basically bread a spoiled culture when it comes to movies and websites are responding to it to generate coin, there's no longer any restraint because restraint doesn't earn money.

 

[Parker Wayne]

I lost so much respect for Grantland for that El Mayimbe article (he's a hack blogger and that's what he will always be). I don't think I can go back, especially since Bill Simmons is gone.

 

[Mysteryman]

I actually thought El Mayimbe would fail with Heroic Hollywood .
I don't go there often .
But,I was there the other day.
He was upset about what he considered to be a stereotypical performance from Michael Pena in Ant Man .
The people in the comments section were divided about his opinion.
Some agreed with him ,some didn't .

 

[redhawk23]

A little strange to single out BirthMoviesDeath, formerly Badass Digest as they have much more varied content than filmschoolrejects themselves.

 

[Napoleon]

I dislike both Faraci and El Maybe equally. With the latter, it's because he does nothing but post ******** "scoops", but my reasons for disliking Faraci are much more complex:

- For starters, he's a massive hypocrite. This is the same guy who at the beginning of #GamerGate wrote a piece about humility and then went on to call gamers worse than ISIS. The same guy who writes a long-winded article lambasting people for liking movies that strive to be nothing more than dumb fun yet loves Pacific Rim. And last but not least, the same mother****er that preaches feminism yet also parties with strippers, looking one of them right in the **** no less http://theralphretort.com/follow-up-on-whedon-4013015/
- Of course there's also his general assholishness to consider, like the aforementioned #GamerGate comment and the fact that he harassed 30+ year-old virgins on National Suicide Awareness Day.
- And lastly, his style of film criticism. I think this YouTube comment just about sums it up for me:

The problem with the overwhelming emphasis on socio-political readings of films - looking at how they echo in the zeitgeist, attaching pejorative or (laudatory) ideological labels to them, fitting them into broader categories - is that it's a fairly easy, lazy way to do criticism, and one that doesn't really get to the heart of the work at all. A detailed aesthetic critique, examining how the work functions as a unique individual entity (while obviously drawing on/referencing outside sources, be they other films or the larger social/historical milieu) is much more difficult, and also much more interesting. The emphasis on politics, either left or right, also has a dangerously conformist streak to it: it's all about pigeonholing both films and the people who watch them. There's some kind of relief to reducing everyone to demographics, whether they are defined by race, geography, or political beliefs. It streamlines and simplifies the conversation and comforts a lot of people because they don't have to feel confused about where they "belong" anymore, they can march in lockstep with a larger contingent.

I'm not dismissing the sociological angle altogether - I've done a lot of it myself, and it can certainly be illuminating and enjoyable. But leaving the conversation at the level sets the bar awfully low.

Now all of this is obviously a bug YMMV on my part, and it's fine if some of you enjoy his writing, but I personally don't and wanted to state why.

Also for any fellow Faraci haters, here's a video of him getting his ass kicked at Fantastic Fest a few years back:

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What a pathetic performance from someone who calls himself a "badass."

 

[DA_Champion]

You make a lot of good points Napoleon, on Pacific Rim, on national suicide awareness day, etc. I also disliked how Faraci critiqued the Japanese film The Wind Rises as not apologizing enough for pearl Harbour, a standard he doesn't apply to American films.

I just want to point out that it's fine for Faraci to preach feminism and hire strippers. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with paying for sex-related entertainment. Strippers are paid workers.

All of that said, Faraci gas faults but I think he has strengths too. He expands discussion online. He doesn't only discuss Marvel+Batman+StarWars like the rest of the internet. Tgere are a lot of good articles on BMD.

 

[redhawk23]

You make a lot of good points Napoleon, on Pacific Rim, on national suicide awareness day, etc. I also disliked how Faraci critiqued the Japanese film The Wind Rises as not apologizing enough for pearl Harbour, a standard he doesn't apply to American films.

I just want to point out that it's fine for Faraci to preach feminism and hire strippers. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with paying for sex-related entertainment. Strippers are paid workers.

All of that said, Faraci gas faults but I think he has strengths too. He expands discussion online. He doesn't only discuss Marvel+Batman+StarWars like the rest of the internet. Tgere are a lot of good articles on BMD.

Its not a matter of apologizing for Pearl Harbor, its more of a matter that The Wind Rise is in general an odd bit of Axis nostalgia.