Caffeinated Clint
The column more popular than Leo Grillo’s “Zyzzyx Road”!
The only guy who can still drink a large coffee – and must; it’s like his crack – on a 36-degree day. Yep, the boy named at birth… Maxwell House.
Glug, Glug Glug, and what about…
SOME people. Believe me, you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry. I’m like Ellen Page at ‘that time of the month’ or Peter Jackson at a ‘Hobbit’ with New Line…
So here are the rules for 2007. Listen up bee-yatches.
It’s all about scrubbing each others backs OK? So there will be no free plugs, no free promotions, no free banner ads and no free erotic massages…unless we get something of the same equivalent back. Yep, shock horror – this year, it’s about the ‘give’. Now, I’m only referring to a small amount of people/studios/publicists/filmmakers – and you probably know who you are – the rest of you are terrific : you’ve been supporting Moviehole for about 8 years now. You let us be the ‘first’ to see movies. You always offer us 1:1 long lead interviews. You’re happy to have a drink at a premiere. You’re happy to return an erotic massage when my joints are aching.
For the rest of you, remember this before you shoot a “big favour” email from here on out :
1. Get the name of the site right before you even attempt to twist our arm. It’s Moviehole.net, and has been for 8 years now! Moviehole.com is a fuckin’ search engine…. Do your research. Don’t look like a knob.
2. No, we will not promote a movie by giving you free banner ads – cause, um, ya see, this is a business and we need to make money too, right? – or advertorials.
3. Turn us down for an interview, giveaway or don’t notify us of a screening of a film… and you expect us to run generic interviews, promote the shit out of your film, and generally “do your job”? fuck you – and your lazy telephone skills.
4. No, we will not ‘ammend’ our reviews to make a film 3 stars instead of 2 stars to help box office sales. Sheesh.
5. If you wanna run a competition on the site, that’s fine – just remember, we don’t wanna be following up with you week after week for the prizes to be sent. And yes, we do NEED the prizes for the winners (one lot didn’t end up sending down the prizes for a competition last year – they had forgotten – so we had to find alternative prizes for the winners).
6. You want us to review your film and/or promote the DVD release? Well, when we ask for a review copy of the film, you’ve gotta say “Sure, we’ll send you one”. As if we’re going to review a DVD, or talk up something, that we haven’t seen. For the love of Encino Man.
7. “Can you send us your database of readers – all their names and addresses for our databases?” No, we can’t. Now do your fuckin’ job.
8. It’s called “thanks for your help on that Clint” not “we’re going to need a few changes”.
9. If you expect a prompt email reply – I do too. I know you’re busy, but so are we, and don’t want to be waiting 6 months to get a reply for something we consider important. And for those that NEVER reply – too common an occurrence in this game, not even the editors at a major newspaper here can get their emails replied by a couple of people!! – I hope you’re your tampon hits you on the head when your twot decides its tight to fit in there.
10. I never wanted to hear this. Another MAJOR newspaper told me recently that they had called up a studio to source images for a film. You see, they were doing a major spread on this certain film and need some nice images to go with. The response they got from the publicist when they asked for stills? “I’m too busy for this stuff”. That was on a Friday. The story was supposed to have been run that next week. Because they couldn’t get images, it never was. He/She just shot himself/herself in the foot… and possibly just lost a few dollars for the film.
Glug, Glug Glug, and what about…..
Remember last week when I told you about variety pinching a story from CHUD? It was this one, the one about the D-grade Katy Heigl film making only $30 at the box office.
The more I think about it, the more it annoys me. I mean, it’s happening too much – too many of these HUGE sites, but mainly newspapers and magazines, are pinching their content from film sites like ours..and CHUDs. Now, we as independently run film sites can look after each other – we may share our news, but we all credit each other – so why can’t these big bastards just respect us? I mean, we’re making their jobs so much easier. They get paid shitloads to simply cut and paste stories, whilst we get by on bread crumbs. Ain’t exactly fair, hey?
We had a major tiff with a major Australian newspaper this year over the same argument. They were simply cutting and pasting Moviehole’s stories and running them in their entertainment section and on their website. They didn’t just a word. Not one word. They would even leave my rant’s and personal opinions in there, ya know? Like “Here’s a bit of news that I personally think sucks. I went and saw this movie last night with the wife and…” Yeah. They would leave that in there. Can you believe that? In other words, the only thing they didn’t take was the ‘written by Clint Morris’ line at the top of the page. Nope, as far as the paper was concerned it was their entertainment editor writing all these articles. I wrote several times to the newspaper about the problem. They admitted that they were doing it, apologized, and said it wouldn’t happen again. Their excuse? There’s someone else filling in at the moment, so we can’t take responsibility. What?! You can’t take responsibility? Makes you wanna rip the nipple ring from their areola. A major newspaper can’t take responsibility for their employees? Hmm. Thankfully, they eventually did stop doing it – but only after swiping a couple more articles, including the headlines we used! – but that didn’t stop others from starting to do the same thing. News Wires, Tabloids, Papers…. They’ve all stolen our stories over the past year or so. But it’s not just us. I’ve noticed stories from everywhere… Aint it Cool News, Dark Horizons, CHUD, JoBlo… at one time or another, someone was cut and paste their stories and made out that they’re their own items. It’s just wrong. Glad we can at least sleep at night.
I’m waiting for Variety to apologize to the guys at CHUD. Devin, Nick… they’re all good guys over there, and they do a hell of a job, so that’s the least they deserve.
Glug, Glug Glug, and what about…..
Film delays. Had a few emails over the past week concerning Greg McLean’s new film “Rogue”. As you may have heard, the film – a giant killer crocodile movie – has been postponed. It was originally due for release in February, but for fairly logical reasons, its now being released later in the year. Now, to answer your questions…. No, it doesn’t suck. I was lucky enough to see the film last year and I can tell you that if it’s a fun little killer croc movie you want, that’s what you get. It hasn’t been delayed because it’s terrible, far from it. Here are the reasons, in my opinion, why the film has been delayed (rumour has it to August).
1. February is a dumping ground for movies. It’s a month when absolute shit comes out. To have been taken out of this month is a GOOD thing. August, as is rumoured to be the new month of release, is a much better month for movies.
2. There’s another giant crocodile movie in release at America at the moment. “Primeval” wasn’t supposed to be coming out for a few months, but the distributor moved it up to January. Obviously, “Rogue” doesn’t want to be associated with it – so they’ve been distanced themselves by pushing the film back.
3. The Weinstein’s are trying to convince Radha Mitchell to ditch the top for a couple of scenes.
Just a guess.
Caffeinated Clint’s knobhead of the week : Dose.CA (or is it Dose.US?) for their inability to actually look at the address bar whilst dialling up Moviehole. Um, that’s Moviehole.net guys…. Or Moviehole.com.au/threesomesexpics-toddbridgeskathleenturnercharo.mpeg
Caffeinated Clint smiled when…. : Amber Tamblyn, Kristen Bell and Sarah Carter all turned up unexpected at my house last night, firstly offering to do the dishes, and then kindly asked whether I’d like my spatula cleane…. Ok, that’s getting a bit much (especially from a grey-haired married man who needs to crank up the generator anytime its ‘party night’). Nah, seriously, I smiled when I stumbled upon the dugpa.com site and read that the second season of “Twin Peaks” has finally been scheduled for DVD. Apparently it’ll be out in out neck of the woods around April. And here’s another reason to smile – David Lynch is also [finally] in talks to free those deleted “Fire Walk With Me” scenes for an upcoming DVD. Sweeter than Strawberry milk, hey?
Fab but [possibly] Forgotten : Anthony Edwards.
Remember Anthony? Or, as Robert Carradine calls him ‘Tony’? he’s been gone from our screens for a while now. To younger readers, he’ll probably be best remembered for his long-running stint on TVs “E.R”, but to older viewers he’s probably best known as either Goose from “Top Gun” (1986), Gilbert from the “Revenge of the Nerds” (1984) movies, or Lance in Rob Reiner’s “The Sure Thing” (1985). He was one of the busiest and most likable actors of the 80s, but did very little – besides “E.R” – in the 90s. His biggest credit in most recent years was “The Forgotten” with Julianne Moore. His first film in three years is this year’s “Zodiac” co-starring Robert Downey Jr and Mark Ruffalo.
Please make this movie… : Ghostbusters 3. It’ll never happen – mainly because Bill Murray doesn’t wanna do it – but it’s sad to think that there’s two [potentially] good scripts out there (for a “Ghostbusters” 3 & 4), and they’re never going to go to use. The writer, Danny Aykroyd, has been trying to get a new sequel up for years – at one stage even suggesting they bring in some ‘new’ cast members like Will Smith and Ben Stiller – but he’s ran into more brick walls than a blind bicycler. Here’s Ayrkoyd talking about the film’s chance of getting made :
5 movies Caffeinated Clint sat through [possibly again] this week :
1. Mortal Kombat – I remember this being much cooler. Not to say Brigitte Wilson still doesn’t look a million bucks in this thing, but the script, the direction and the basic storyline of this thing is a shambles. You can’t help but wince whenever someone opens his or her mouth. Still, it IS still one of the most attractive video-game cum movies… and as I said, Wilson looks fine in it.
2. Lonely Hearts – The story itself is told too thinly to really captivate an audience – this is the kind of story that might seem better told on TV – but John Travolta does seem to be trying here. He’s sleepwalked through most of his previous roles, so it’s good to see Kelly’s beau unleashing something resembling a performance again. Granted, the character he’s playing is the real-life grandfather of the writer, so the pressure was on for him this time. Worked better than a gun to a head.
3. The 40 Year-Old Virgin – The more times I return to this movie, the better I like it. Never thought much of it first time around… now, I find it quite amusing. The cast is amazing in this – the guys have such camaraderie, the likes of which you don’t see too much on screen. Especially like Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd, hopefully they’ll be doing more of this kind of crazy stuff in the future.
4. Gridiron Gang – With “Gridiron Gang”, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson gets to prove he’s more than just, well, the next Schwarzenegger or Stallone – which most have pegged him up till now – and show us he’s actually got what it takes to break out of that action-hero box. His performance in this film is gold – almost Denzel Washington gold. It’s a multi-layered turn that pushes the film to much better heights than what it might’ve been with someone we couldn’t relate to, or didn’t care as much about. The guy is just so likeable. And there are a few scenes here, which he’ll truly steal your heart in. This is undeniably The Rock’s best film to date.
5. Lost in America – David Mickey Evans’ (The director of “The Sandlot”) has been trying to get me to watch this for years. I finally did. This is such a good movie. Not brilliant, but very good. Albert Brooks is always entertaining though, so this film could’ve been an out-and-out stinker and I would’ve sat there till the end. It’s one of those films that’s supposed to be a crazy comedy, but when you sit back and think about it, it’s ‘realer’ than the scriptwriter might’ve thought at the time.
And finally,
Words of Wisdom from Mrs Caffeinated Clint :
(A scientist who seems to be able to sum up the world – or a movie – in just a few words, whilst the rest of us feel a page review isn’t even sufficient).
“I don’t care [what they say] – It’s great. It’s brilliant. I mean, Rocky taking down a huge Russian guy? Russia chanting ‘Rocky, Rocky, Rocky’ at the end of the movie? That’s great!” – Mrs Morris on why “Rocky IV” is the most underrated sequel of the series.
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