Now, time for some long and detailed complaining. Keep the brand alive!

As I've mentioned in the movie forums, I've recently been submitting articles to an online horror site. I was doing it because I wasn't working and it provided the illusion that I was doing something with my time. More eyeballs is never a bad thing, even when you aren't getting paid. Even when you have zero idea how your particular voice is fitting in with the fabric of all the other voices present. Basically, it was something to do, even though I began to have growing reservations that I've just been giving articles away. Sometimes, in the case of my The Devils write-up, articles I spent months writing, it particularly pained me. And so over the past few months, realizing this, I would suffer anxiety and have to keep myself from going into their website database and deleting everything I've submitted to them. Because that's how I roll when I get anxious.

The people there have basically been uniformly nice and welcoming, so there cant' be any complaints there. And while the vast majority of what they publish is certainly not anything I would choose to read, it's kind of the standard approach you might find in any movie site, and so I can't fault them for their approach. But it certainly did make me recognize that there are a lot of things I've written that simply weren't going to cut it there. Way too weird. Way too wooly. Way too confrontational in my refusal to write a simple review where I tell people what happens in a movie and whether I think they did it well or not.

But at some point I knew the gig was going to be up. How could it not? I'd run out of reasonably acceptable reviews. All I had left in my back catalogue were the ones which are only appropriate for threads like these where no one is harmed if I stray off topic. Where it doesn't matter if long stretches are probably indecipherable to anyone who doesn't already know my schtick. My perverse movie philosophy. My sense of humor. Somehow, I slipped my Amityville Horror review onto their site, more an analysis of chopping wood than filmmaking, without a single complaint and making me feel that maybe I could get away with critical murder there. But it seems I just found my come uppance with my Last House on Dead End Street dirge. Oops!

Now, first of all, I get it. When I didn't hear back from them for two weeks, I knew approval of it was unlikely at that. And I was fine with it being rejected. Had actual forgot entirely about it. Until yesterday, when I got a long (and very friendly) message from my 'new editor'. It seems my previous editor threw his hands up in hopelessness at this newest entry of mine. And who can blame him. No one knows better what it's like to edit some of my thornier writing than me, and I can vouch that it is an absolute hellscape. Usually better to just start from scratch than bend those tangles of words and non-sequiters and bad jokes into shape.

So now I have a new editor. And she wants to let me know my article is a 'real diamond in the rough'. Not to take the notes they put on it personally. But changes need to be made. Before even reading her points, I agreed that it only makes sense to fix this pretty out of control and not even terribly well written article into something a little more digestible. And after reading the first seven or eight points she placed at the head of the article, I didn't really disagree with anything she had said. Maybe the part about needing to introduce movie reviews with a synopsis of what the movie is about (which I deliberately never do as I feel forgoing this allows a writer to delve almost strictly in the textually response of watching a film because, after all, we dont' always know what a movie is going to be about when we start watching it, and I'm writing in some ways about entering this alien territory with every viewing). But even though I disagreed with that one, I get it. It makes things easier on the reader. Which while  being a crime in my eyes, is at worst a misdemeanor.

But then I get to that actual fine points of criticism. Where she is calling out very specific things I have written and oh boy. Seems like I've got lots of learning to do. For example:

1) I need to learn that a movie is not a person and does not have feelings. Therefore, it is not possible for a movie to hate its audience.

2) Saying that a film whose goal is to do nothing but offend is as easy a task to achieve as giving a finger to someones back is a 'mixed metaphor'. Does not make sense!

3) When comparing the experience of watching Last House on Dead End Street to the experience of having a hangover, and that it is not the kind of movie to quench anyone thirst, it was wrong of me to call say its images appear to be 'dehydrated'. Because movies can't be either hydrated or dehydrated. Boy, what a dummy I am.

4) Apparently white, male, meth-head porn directors are now the new group of people whose feelings we are meant to carefully step around. It seems it was uncalled for to claim in a movie where the director plays the main character, and the character is a director of a snuff film who rants endlessly about how other directors aren't real enough, are just simple pornographers, and everyone is a giant sellout except for him, to infer anything about this director or his movies intentions. Apparently, it was unfair to say this director likely had aspirations of greatness when he made this film, and eventually had all of his hopes dashed when he ended up directing actual pornography. This is a personal attack that is cruel and must be removed.

5) Ending my review with an imagined tableux of director Roger Watkins sitting in a room, drinking from beer bottles filled with cigarette butts can't be used 'because this didn't actually happen'. I guess the part where I said that this image was imagined by me was not enough clarification. In fairness, they did say if I had proof of this being true, I could use it if I included some kind of footnotes.

6) Also, my opinion of the film was not clear. It seems calling a film a masterpiece of filth and debauchery is some kind of contradiction in terms. I guess talking at length about why this film, regardless of all of his worst impulses towards deliberately offending its audience with both its violence and zero budget, is still a great film does not compute with those who are looking for a binary response. That if we love something, we can't also criticize or make fun of elements of it (hmmmm, seeems this is a running theme in much of today's discourse)

Now this is obviously a long rant. And I still, after reading all that, completely understand why they want articles on their website to fit a certain formula. I don't think its really great for the audience they are courting either. And it's possible its not great for many audiences at all. And, as I also said, these people have been nothing if not nice, including this new editor who is clearly in the shitty position of having to tell someone the litany of issues they have with a piece. I can accept every bit of this.

But it does depress me. While this isn't the particular review I would stake any claim of greatness to (I've always been on the fence about it, and only  ever put it out there in the first place because it was also one that I spent months tinkering with, probably to its detriment), the nature of some of those complaints is just right at the heart of everything I think is wrong in film criticism. A terror of writing something which experiments with the form. That uses some amount poetic license to make its points. That wants to explore the intersection of what a movie is and what it makes us feel. That isn't interested in making tidy summations of what is good or bad in film. That treats the act of writing a film review as more a creatively fuelled tantrum, prone to the occassional ungainly passage or obtuse point.

Basically, now I'm left trying to decide if I want to completely re-write this, which I think I could possibly do to their particular standards if I had the time (which because of job, I now don't). Or do the easy thing  and just withdraw the article, making it appear as if I'm a bad sport. Which I sort of am, but am also sort of not. As annoyed as I am by a bunch of the comments above, I completely agree with their decision not to run it if they find the whole thing confounding (it is, for both better and worse).

And all of this over a website I was already feeling wasn't really the place for me.

End of rant. For now.
 

Last edited by crumbsroom (5/06/2022 7:53 am)

Rock wrote:

It seems like this person doesn't understand literary devices.

Now my experience with getting my writing published is extremely limited, but I suspect your discursive writing style would fit in well in the website I managed to do a piece for (In The Mood Magazine, currently down for renovations). They have word limits, but seem to prefer personal writing rather than strict reviews. And when they offered editing notes, it was pretty light (mostly for clarity or awkward sentences). They're in between issues and aren't currently taking submissions, but might be worth keeping in mind.

Yeah, that sounds more my speed. Not like it's not fair for a website to have an idea of the kind of articles and styles they want to publish. I certainly would. And they've got a much more traditional idea of what they want. And admittedly, the Last House article is one that kind of pushes the envelope in being a bit of a mess. Not as messy as my Manchester Morgue write up, which I think I'm even confused by the point of, but it's up there.

I'm also just growing more and more uninterested in the idea of even being published anymore. Unless I'm getting money for the efforts, it just all seems kind of gross. Vying for the attention of strangers. Why should I even care? Like, I guess I do. But I am quickly becoming not terribly bothered by the idea of being completely sealed off in cellophane to the point no one can hear anymore of my critical screaming. The silence of my suffocation should more than suffice.

If you really want to get your revenge, you should write a really in-depth review of all his movies, with the required plot synopses, but conveniently leave out the fact that almost all of them are hardcore pornos. It would very likely guarantee that they'd never let you write for them again, but it would pretty funny if you pulled it off.

Ah, the long con in getting me to watch Corruption. I see the wheels turning.

I really want to, but first of all there is the issue of finding it where I don't have to pay exorbitant Vinegar Syndrome prices. And then there is my weird queasiness towards hardcore porn. Animal death and full penetration are the two things that just get me squeamish to the point it takes some convincing me to watch anything that contains them.



 

crumbsroom wrote:

Yeah, why not have one here as well.

About time. You can always paste the latest "LOVE, crumbs" posts here as well #notm

crumbsroom wrote:

Sometimes, in the case of my The Devils write-up, articles I spent months writing, it particularly pained me.

Well, I'm definitely gonna have to see this.  I can't pay you either, so either link or paste, please.

Oh, it's on my letterboxd.
I tried to find an original version with my movie stills attached, but to no luck.

https://letterboxd.com/crumbsroom/film/the-devils/
 

crumbsroom wrote:

You've seen it before. It's a million years old. Unchanged from all those million years that have passed since first posting.

Same one you posted on Corrie a couple of years ago?

Hockey night, everyone! Playoff hockey! Is everyone as excited as me?

Rock?

Jinnistan?

Mystery Meat?

Brain Embolism?

Anyone,
Helloooooooooooooooooooo
 

Last edited by crumbsroom (5/06/2022 6:36 pm)

Have the Leafs lost yet?

Using the literary technique of personification in describing film (eg "the film wants to") is one of my favorite innovations in film review and criticism, I think it's highly useful, and I learned it specifically from reading stuff you guys have written. It's a perfect example of poetic license, and it works. What's the word, Jinnistan? Something to do with semantic incongruity. There's a scene in the film A Distant Place where a writing class is actually practicing this literary technique (eg "I put Autumn in my pocket"). Sounds like the new editor is erring on the side of the specific grammatical standards of academic writing she grew up with, which is admittedly something we all do in resistance to the nature of language to be constantly evolving over time. You guys are, unsurprisingly, ahead of the curve. 

We know it's no great secret that movies can take on an agency of their own, separate from the expectations and personal interests of cast and crew. We know that authors regularly describe the unexpected directions their creations take, almost entirely independent of the author's original vision or forethought, once they have been brought to life, like children who exhibit their own personalities irrespective of heredity or nurture. 

As for the methhead pornographer stuff, I wonder if there's a little CYA diplomacy at play. The new editor might be trying to steer clear of legal costs. We need look no further than Depp's current high–profile court battle that is not just a defamation suit against Heard but against the publication in which her words were printed. Lots of publications get themselves into financial straits simply defending their innocence. Case in point: Snopes. They get sued for defamation on the reg, and though they always win the court battles (and the inevitable appeals), the legal costs have them currently facing bankruptcy. That's right: Snopes is on the ropes.

I wonder if using qualifying words like "reportedly" and "alleged" would suffice?

It speaks to one of the tragic realities of our times that many an individual and many an organization have been ruined by the legal cost of defending their innocence against an opponent with bottomless pockets. 

If Lester Bangs or Hunter S. Thompson were getting started now, I wonder if any publication would even extend them the ol' ten–foot pole. 

Last edited by Rampop II (5/07/2022 8:41 pm)

Watkins is dead. He's not gonna sue.

crumbsroom wrote:

And that just gets to the issue these days where there is never any suitable argument against anyones emotional reaction. If they have been offended, you are wrong, full stop. To even debate context back to them, or the veracity of the facts, is to not acknowledge the hurt you've caused. It's this baked in dodge that has been developed so that no one ever has to have any of their opinions on things ever challenged. Just say your feelings were hurt. Doesn't matter if you misinterpreted the intent. Doesn't matter if you are reading too much into something. Doesn't matter if half of what you are offended at you made up in your own head. It's just intellectually dishonest and I'm pretty much over all of it.

God forbid that I become so cynical as to start assuming that some of these people may be weaponizing their offense in order to discourage the discussion of subject matter that they don't approve of.