Ain't It Cool?

[Anonymous]

I met Harry Knowles today at the place mentioned in the following...

http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=12792

Yeah, it was cool.

He seemed younger that I thought he'd be, but he uses crutches to move about because of his weight. He was paralyzed once as well. He's definately an uber film geek. We pestered him with questions and he'd answer them and tell lots of cool stories. He'd mention an obscure filmmaker and all these film geek Seattlelites would nod their heads. You could just feel the film geek love all around.

Anyway, bought a copy of his book and he signed it, and a good time was had. Oh yeah, and the video store he lavishes so much amazing praise on is extremely worthy of it. Absolute film geek Nirvana. I've been to many places around this planet, and I'd have to say that it's certainly amongst the Top 3 in you had to figure out what the top video stores in the world were. If you're ever in Seattle and you like movies, it's certainly worth a visit. Imagine a lot of Aintitcool fans are now gonna put that store on their checklist. (In fact, thanks to his glowing praise there are already complaints from the Scarecrow faithful that he's blown their best kept secret.) It's in the University District, which is also a cool place to explore.

[Jason McCullough]

In spite of the Knowles arriving there, Scarecrow really is that good.

[Anonymous]

Awww, cut him some slack.

He actually talked fondly of Zork and his early computer days when he had to type in line by line the program code to play Breakout, then after four days of playing he's have to wipe it out in order to type in the lines to another game. He remembered the Trash-80 and all those ancient machines.

He actually prefers the older games, when your imagination made up for the most basic of graphics.

Frankly, I told him I'm more of a Hercules the Strong fan on his site. I have trouble reading Harry's stuff... way too scattershot and random (which he explained his reasoning for)...

I'm not so much film geek as TV geek. He wouldn't reveal who Hercules is, but described his home setup. An entire wall like you'd find in a TV studio, just filled with rows and rows of TV's, with clocks all around for different time zones, and satellite feed pumping in. Wish I had that kind of coin.

But hey, he's a Geek who turned his geekiness into a small empire, and anybody who can put The Fear of God into a Hollywood studio exec depending on what he writes about a project can't be that bad a guy.

[Jason McCullough]

I think anyone with as bad a taste as he has having any sort of film industry power is bad, comparable it to a self-proclaimed theatre buff who enjoys watching stuff like Cats the most of all, or a food critic who loves McDonalds the most.

http://slate.msn.com/?id=2064254

[Mark Asher]

After his glowing stealth review of Episode 2, I've written him off as an idiot. I don't think he was paid off in the conventional sense, but I do think he grooved so much on being an insider and getting one of the first outside viewings that he lost all objectivity.

[Jason McCullough]

And if he *really did like* Episode 2 that much, well.....

[Anonymous]

You have to realize you can't consider him or even Hercules to even be objective at all. Case in point is Fellowship of the Ring: Peter Jackson made a home-movie/film for him. You expect a truly objective review after something like that? The guy is a geek and a movie fan -- don't expect anything more or you'll be disappointed.

Hercules is the same way, though his quirks are funky -- he reviews stuff that hasn't come out yet, but won't touch something already out (even on the same day after it's been shown). Kinda like doing previews only I suppose. Almost as if it's beneath him, but I'm sure it's a little more fundamental than that. Still irks me though.

The other annoying thing is that especially for Hercules and Moriarty I guess they spend more time rambling than actually reviewing, and I do mean rambling. Oh, and the talk-back forums are typically 90% trash.

--- Alan

[Anonymous]

Yeah, cause God Forbid you'd want a reviewer who isn't objective.

Hey, I'm not a huge fan of Harry's reviews. I think he was way off on Pearl Harbor (he found some saving graces in it when I thought it was the most disgraceful thing I've ever seen in my life. And I eagerly went into Pearl Harbor opening night hoping, nay wanting, it to be the definitive war movie.) I think he was way off on Charlie's Angels. Etc, etc, etc.

But hey, at he tells you flat out that in his Lord of the Rings review... "Well, I can’t pretend to write a normal objective review of this movie. " He even talks about hanging out with Peter Jackson in his house, so you know where he's coming from, and he's not trying to con you into thinking this is an objective review. Yeah, he really lavishes glowing praise on the movie, but everyone I know (including my non fantasy-reading sisters) lavished glowing praise and saw it at least two or three times.

As for his Episode 2 review... I don't agree with that either. But judging from the Ep2 thread on the Old Message Boards, it seems that lots of QT3 posters are ranking Ep2 fairly high among the SW films. That upsets me, cause I think Ep2 was dismal (save for Yoda), but does that mean I think all those QT3 folks sold out?

I like Hercules because we share the same tastes in TV. We even adore the exact same shows (save for Smallville, which I just can't watch.) I don't read his stuff until after I've seen an episode, or if I miss an episode due to a conflict (Tuesday night is brutal if you like good TV, tons of great shows at the same time on different channels) then I can get a quick recap from Herc. Is he "objective"? I don't know how you can really answer that, since no one know's his true identity. Considering he lavishes praise on TV shows from different networks (Fox's Futurama, WB's Gilmore Girls, UPN's Buffy, NBC's West Wing, HBO's Sopranos/Six Feet Under etc, etc), I'd find it hard to say he's a network plant. But hey, he likes good TV, and so do I, and he has good taste. That's as objective as I need.

[dwinn]

If that's as objective as you need, you may not want to read this:

http://www.filmthreat.com/Features.asp?Id=159

[Tom Chick]

My only problem with Harry Knowles is that he's a moron and I wouldn't trust him any further than I could throw him. Do your own calculations based on his weight and my underdeveloped musculature.

Otherwise, I guess he's okay.

-Tom

[Jason McCullough]

Yeah, cause God Forbid you'd want a reviewer who isn't objective.

Hey, I'm not a huge fan of Harry's reviews. I think he was way off on Pearl Harbor (he found some saving graces in it when I thought it was the most disgraceful thing I've ever seen in my life. And I eagerly went into Pearl Harbor opening night hoping, nay wanting, it to be the definitive war movie.) I think he was way off on Charlie's Angels. Etc, etc, etc.

But hey, at he tells you flat out that in his Lord of the Rings review... "Well, I can’t pretend to write a normal objective review of this movie. " He even talks about hanging out with Peter Jackson in his house, so you know where he's coming from, and he's not trying to con you into thinking this is an objective review. Yeah, he really lavishes glowing praise on the movie, but everyone I know (including my non fantasy-reading sisters) lavished glowing praise and saw it at least two or three times.

As for his Episode 2 review... I don't agree with that either. But judging from the Ep2 thread on the Old Message Boards, it seems that lots of QT3 posters are ranking Ep2 fairly high among the SW films. That upsets me, cause I think Ep2 was dismal (save for Yoda), but does that mean I think all those QT3 folks sold out?

I like Hercules because we share the same tastes in TV. We even adore the exact same shows (save for Smallville, which I just can't watch.) I don't read his stuff until after I've seen an episode, or if I miss an episode due to a conflict (Tuesday night is brutal if you like good TV, tons of great shows at the same time on different channels) then I can get a quick recap from Herc. Is he "objective"? I don't know how you can really answer that, since no one know's his true identity. Considering he lavishes praise on TV shows from different networks (Fox's Futurama, WB's Gilmore Girls, UPN's Buffy, NBC's West Wing, HBO's Sopranos/Six Feet Under etc, etc), I'd find it hard to say he's a network plant. But hey, he likes good TV, and so do I, and he has good taste. That's as objective as I need.

I don't think he's a network plant, or corrupt. It's just highly annoying that he has the taste and writing skills of an eight-year old boy. It doesn't matter how wretched the dialogue, pacing, actor selection, or subject matter is; as long as the movie is full of shiny things, he'll write 10 breathless pages about how it introduced the best epileptic seisures he's had in years.

The "objectivity" thing is a dry hole, as I really don't think he's being paid off to write good reviews. You can't buy the opinions of a fanboy.

[Sean Tudor]

As for his Episode 2 review... I don't agree with that either. But judging from the Ep2 thread on the Old Message Boards, it seems that lots of QT3 posters are ranking Ep2 fairly high among the SW films. That upsets me, cause I think Ep2 was dismal (save for Yoda), but does that mean I think all those QT3 folks sold out?

No it means Episode 1 was such a dismal piece of trash that anything had to be better. That's not to say Episode 2 was a good film but Ep2 was definitely better than Ep1.

[Bub, Andrew]

Harry Knowles' Ain't It Cool News?
Sure, I admire him for what he achieved in this Internet age...
But I've honestly never been able to get passed that font.

[Anonymous]

Harry's worst offense was touting "6 String Samurai" as the "coolest" movie ever made. I mean, I've seen bad movies in my time (i.e "Revenge Of The Cheerleaders"), and made some a well, but "6 String Samurai" was the absolute worst piece of crap ever screened in a theatre.

[Jason Cross]

I simply can't take seriously any site that uses exclamation marks as if they were spaces.

[Mark Asher]

As for his Episode 2 review... I don't agree with that either. But judging from the Ep2 thread on the Old Message Boards, it seems that lots of QT3 posters are ranking Ep2 fairly high among the SW films. That upsets me, cause I think Ep2 was dismal (save for Yoda), but does that mean I think all those QT3 folks sold out?

No it means Episode 1 was such a dismal piece of trash that anything had to be better. That's not to say Episode 2 was a good film but Ep2 was definitely better than Ep1.

Episode 2 was half great and half suck. The action scenes were mostly great and the rest was mostly suck.