Posts Tagged ‘Ain’t It Cool News’
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Sep27
PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN
September 27th, 2002 |
(19 votes, average: 8.26 out of 10)
There is so much to loathe about Harry Knowles and his crappy excuse for a web site. Probably so much because there is so much of him to get around! If you’ve never seen a picture of this guy, let’s just say when he sits around the computer… people move it out from underneath him.
He’s fat, okay?
I find Knowles one of the most contemptible personalities of the “dot com” era – right up there with Matt Drudge and The Hamster Dance.
Like a lot of people, Knowles found fame and fortune not because he provides anything of substance, but because he got there first. Knowles is the embodiment of every geek stereotype there is. A fat virgin living with his parents basement, squawking so loudly about matters so inconsequential, people just had to turn and look.
Amassing a following of those like him, Knowles built his empire around the hard work and weaseling of others. What scoops did he ever gather on his own? He’s in the middle of Texas, for crying out loud!
I think the Aint It Cool News phenomenon really reached its apex around the time Knowles start portraying himself as some kind of internet success story and the parlayed that into some kind of faux-celebrity. I remember him guesting with Roget Ebert in the interm after Gene Siskel had died and before he had been replaced with that dolt Richard Ropert.Watching him butt heads with Ebert in some act of cool defiance, I thought to myself, “This is it. I’m watching the end of irony.”
Knowles is the worst kind of “rags to riches” story because he has no compunctions about being flown out on the studio’s dime to see some crap movie and give it a passing grade. As long as they’re handing out extra-extra large promotional t-shirts and the free briquette is being offered, why not belly up, as it were?
In my opinion, the minute Knowles decided to turn himself into a brand — host conventions and have books ghost written for him –, he should have developed some journalistic ethics. His whole “I’m a fan” defense is bull – masked, I might add by his persistent refusal to update the look of his site past the standards of 1996.
Knowles is a cyst on the movie-loving community. And I’m not preaching from the mount when I say this. I’m a fan with my own biases and opinions just as he. But the minute you start to exploit the system that is putting food on your table, you’re no longer one of us – you’re one of them. You are no longer reacting to manufactured buzz, you are helping to create it.
Eventually, I see Knowles loosing it all — never knowing the taste of the validation he so clearly seeks.
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Today’s buzzComix incentive sketch features a much more plausible choice for Green Lantern. Click here to reveal the obvious.
Today’s comic comes from an honest-to-goodness report that Ain’t It Cool News published. According to them, they sat on the news for quite a while waiting for it to be verified by Warner Bros. (the studio that is producing it). Sure enough, it came to pass.
I am particularly disturbed by the claim that the first modern version of the Green Lantern character to be brought to the silver screen will be done so as a “zany comedy a la The Mask.” Apparently some suit at Warner Bros. was sitting around trying to think of other green comic book characters that made the leap to film. Since Hulk was done only two years ago, aping the style of the decade-old Mask was a safer bet.
This has “BAD IDEA” stamped all over it in big, red letters. If there is any truth to it, I find it unfortunate that DC cannot seem to weigh in with how they want their properties to be expressed in different mediums.
Personally, I’m not putting a lot of stock in it. It sounds too outlandish to be true and I can’t imagine DC rolling over on this – EVEN IF their corporate parent tied their hands.
But then again, who thought Jack Black would land the role of Carl Denham in Peter Jackson’s King Kong remake? All I can say is that he has one hell of an agent working for him.
Our vacation to Memphis was a real hoot. The 12 hour drive was kind of brutal, but we made it there and back okay. I plan on providing more details of my trip along with photos in the THorum, but only in the Donaters’ Only area. How do you get access to this content – this little window into my private life? Easy! Just donate! Even if you can only spare a penny, you’ll still get access to this area of the THorum.
It’s a good deal. Donating also provides you access to the collected incentive sketches. All of them are represented there.
I’m starting to shift my focus to Wizard World Chicago on August 13 through 15. I’ve even dedicated a page of the site to the event. It houses all the information you need to know about my attendance. Where you can find me. What I’ll be selling. Will anyone else be with me? All those questions and more answered here.
Not much else to report. Still getting my head straight after all that time on the road. I still feel like I’m moving. It’s weird to think that it’s Wednesday.
Thanks again to all of the artists and writers that provided guest comics while I was gone. I’ll be pulling their work out of the archives soon, but their efforts will find a permanent home in the Bonus Materials area of the site. I’ll be sure to leave a note when that occurs.
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