Several years ago I used to get my movie news from AICN, but then I got absolutely sick of the idiotic reviews, Harry’s childish and heavily biased style of what he pretends to be “journalism” :rolleyes: …so then I became a diehard fan of Corona, but then they were snapped up by Cinescape and the site design and manner in which news is listed is just terrible. BLEEAUCH!!! So now I usually check out CHUD, while sometimes looking at Dark Horizons and the ones I previously mentioned.
How about you guys? I mean, with all the films news that flys around the web, it’s hard for a film fan to keep track of it all.
Not the same sort of news as in the sites mentioned above but I go to www.boxofficemojo.com from time to time to check out the latest box office statistics.
I usually go to www.rottentomatoes.com to get just an overall look on how a lot of reviewers feel about the movies. I like it because it’s not just one person’s opinion, but a compilation of opinions.
I don’t like AICN (terrible layout, awful archive and search function, useless message boards, and the fear that my IQ will drop 50 points for just READING a Talkback) but I really do not get the anti-Harry stance above and on the Talkbacks I have braved.
I have never heard Harry refer to himself as a “journalist” (not seriously, anyway). As far as I’ve ever been able to tell, he’s just a guy who loves movies and started one of the first popular web sites about movies, and he writes about movies he likes or is looking forward to. The site got a lot of publicity, especially when he co-hosted with Roger Ebert before Roeper came in, but it’s never claimed to be anything it wasn’t. Harry gets tons of free passes and probably screeners up the ying-yang (maybe not anymore, what with that stupid ban), tips from insiders and perks like getting sneak peeks at movies, and becoming friends with filmmakers. He also gets to go to far-flung sets sometimes and watch filming. You know, things we’d ALL like to do.
Why do people put him down and treat him as if he’s supposed to be some sort of “unbiased” critic/reviewer/journalist?? He’s not unbiased, never has been, never will be. Shouldn’t be. It’s people like you who falsely build who he is up just so you can take pleasure in knocking him down.
You sound like one of the Talkbackers I’m constantly rolling my eyes at, when I forget about my IQ and read one of them. It just smacks of jealousy and faux-“coolness” to put down Harry as a person.
Anyway, my movie website drug of choice is the Home Theater Forum. It doesn’t have the latest or hottest news, but it does have a lot of very intelligent people talking about movies (on DVD and in theaters), and excellent moderation. (I do wish they had a “BBQ Pit” though. Politics and religion are a definite no no there.)
Well, Equipoise, because he sets himself up for criticism when he maintains the site in such an erratic manner. He’s a web journalist because he’s reporting news on the internet…but by proclaiming yourself independent of outside influences but then putting yourself deep in the pockets of major studios is just laughable. I think Harry’s niavete about studios manipulatining him has left the site highly tainted. I’ve seen him go on juvenile tirades, report completely bogus news as being absolutely sound as gold, and numerous other type occurences that displays the lack of actual responsibility that AICN is founded upon. Roger Ebert has put his distance between himself and Harry after that Oscar fiasco, and then there was the situation with the regular contributor for the site going to jail for illegally selling bootlegged movies that Harry was aware of. Tons of things like this undermine the credibility of AICN as a reliable site for any type of information in my opinion.
If I’m reading any source of news, be it political, entertainment, business, etc., I strongly consider the source. My college education and neverending obssessions are mass communications and journalism, so to see a site like AICN pretend to be a “news” site to me is a joke. I didn’t intend for this to turn into a Harry bashing thread, but the guy gets a lot of flack, yet most of it is deserved.
Since Corona’s Coming Attractions died by that CineScape merger, I really haven’t done much looking.
I got spoiled by the site layout more than anything else, I think. I read CHUD for a while, after that, but I just found it too cluttered, I guess, for my tastes. Have to investigate some o’ these other sites now, though, and see what’s what.