Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Free Form Comments

Say whatever you want to in the comments to this post -- random, off topic thoughts, ideas, suggestions, questions, recommendations, criticisms (which can be anonymous), surveys, introductions if you have never commented before, personal news, self-promotion, requests to be added to the blog roll and so on. If a week goes by and I have failed to add you to the blog roll TELL ME TO DO IT AGAIN, and KEEP TELLING ME UNTIL IT GETS DONE. I can be lazy about updating the non-post parts of this site. Remember these comments can be directed at all the readers, not just me.

ALSO. You can use this space to re-ask me questions you asked me before that I failed to answer because I was too busy (but now might not be). That is often the reason I fail to get back to people, and on a blog, after a few days, the comments thread dies and I just kind of forget about it. Let's use this space to fix that, because it does need to be fixed; I look like a jackass sometimes, leaving people hanging. I will TRY to respond to any questions here.

AND you can use this space to comment on posts that are old enough that no one is reading the comments threads anymore. For example, if you thought of a great quote for the great quote commonplace book, but now no one is reading that, you could put it here.You do not have to have a blogger account or gmail account to post a comment -- you can write a comment, write your name at the bottom of your comment like an e mail, and then post using the "anonymous" option.

WRITING FOR THIS BLOG. If you think your free form comment here might be better as its own post, but you do not want it to be public yet, email it to me. My email address is available on my blogger profile page. If I think it will work on this site, your post will be published here with your name in the title of the post. You can propose what you will, I am always looking for reviews of games, tv, movies, music and books.

11 comments:

Christian O. said...

Do you plan on saying anything about I Am Legend? Because I haven't heard spoilers about it yet, but I can't imagine Hollywood not changing the ending and fundamentally FUBAR'ing half the themes of the book.

Kyle Hadley said...

I don't think this has been mentioned here yet, but when Lost returns it will be moved to Thursday for the time being. By taking Grey's spot I guess they hope it will bring new fans to the show.

Christian- I saw the movie but have not read the book but from people who have read it and seen it, I hear they are not much alike at all.

Anonymous said...

Ok, how would you guys define a 'Cult Movie'? My friend Zac's wife asked this question and we were unable to give her a satisfacotry answer. Also, is it possible for a 'Cult Movie' to become a mainstream movie?

Anonymous said...

Self-pluggery:

I have contributed exactly four lines to the online annotations by Jess Nevins of "The Black Dossier." Dig it!

http://www.shsu.edu/~lib_jjn/dossier.html

(I have notes for:
Page 16, Panel 5
Page 49
Page 53
Page 103)

Geoff Klock said...

Scott: Well first of all a cult movie is not like a western, or sci-fi, or a noir, which are theoretically value neutral. To say a movie is a cult movie is a kind of compliment -- it indicates a large enough audience likes it to matter, and it indicates that, like a cult, the audience didn't just think it is pretty good -- they love it, to the point of watching it over and over. Also like a cult the audience for the film is small, because the film failed in the mainstream, either because not enough people liked it or because it had too small a distribution, or got forgotten about in some bin for decades. A cult movie cannot be a mainstream movie I would think, but it kind of depends if by "mainstream" you mean intended for a mainstream audience, or loved by a mainstream audience. If you mean intended for a mainstream audience, but which failed to get that mainstream audience to like it, then it could survive as a cult film. But I think if you are talking about a movie that a mainstream audience loved the world "cult" is not going to work. Cults that are embraced by the mainstream stop being called cults and start being called religions.

Anonymous said...

"Back to the Future" is my favorite religion-film. :)

Anonymous said...

I think the definition that I gave at the time was, quite simply, "A movie that has a small, but devoted audience who don't just like the movie but LOVE it" (a simplified version of your definition)

Ok, by becoming mainstream, can a cult movie become of enough notoriety that it becomes to a certain extent "Mainstream", the example Sara gave was The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Her logic being, quite simply, "If my mom knows about it, it can't be a cult movie" She also said "Couldn't Star Wars be a cult movie: sure, a lot of people like it... but it does have a very small dedicated group who like it a lot more and watch the movie repeatedly..." (in this case I suppose it wouldn't be a cult so much as a very devote sect of a mainstream religion, i.e. what Snake Handlers are to Pentecostal Holiness)

Of course, I would still argue that with Rocky Horror there is a greater disparity in the people who love it and those that hate/don't get it... with very little in between.

But what about a film like Mad Max? This started out as a cult film then became the first part of a big budget franchise? Does Mad Max maintain Cult Status even as Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome are mainstream films? Don't some consider Road Warrior a cult film as well?

Christian O. said...

I think it's safe to assume you aren't the only one worshipping at the alter of McFly. (And I don't mean the really, really horrible band.)

And I was, willingly, spoiled the ending to the bastardization of I Am Legend, and Jesus Christ, it sounds like a solid stinker.

Anyway, to quell my anger (or redirect it,) I've been watching/listening to Bill Hicks again.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1366476727111157120&hl=en

Streeborama said...

I posted one of one of my comic stories over at Comic Space. I wrote the script - but the art was created by an artist in Brazil. It's CGI art created with programs such as Poser and the like.

It has kung fu, a talking tiger and Pei Mei the White Hermit in it. What's not to love?

Comic Space

Unknown said...

I would think the simplified definition of cult movie works ("A movie that has a small, but devoted audience who don't just like the movie but LOVE it"), but it should add that the movie is either not very well-known or liked by a mainstream audience. I remember an issue of Entertainment Weekly a few years ago that was about cult movies, and they had The Shawshank Redemption on there, which they included because it initially failed at the box office. But that's a movie that just about everyone has seen (doesn't it play weekly on TBS?), and it was nominated for an Oscar for best picture, for god's sake! Even if a movie initially failed, there's a point where it ceases being a cult movie. Office Space is another example; it may have been a cult movie at first, but it got to be such a mainstream hit that it doesn't fit anymore. And then there are the ones that were critically dismissed but grew a cult following, like Showgirls. And Rocky Horror seems like a special case, in that many people have seen it, but it has gained a weird following where people dress up like the characters and act out scenes while the movie is playing in theaters; it might deserve its own term, like "mainstream cult movie" or something.

So I generally think a cult movie has to be little-known, or not actually seen by many people. We probably don't have many these days, since it's easy to watch everything that comes out. Probably most of the ones that really apply in modern times are foreign films that are hard to find in the U.S., like Battle Royale or Ken Park.

Unknown said...

Also, I finally finished reading the Black Dossier, and I did a review of it last night. Now I can finally get around to reading other people's reviews and joining whatever discussion still lingers about the book.