comment #1

Travis Crabtree says ...

Chris screened for me the Turkish "Star Wars" a few years back. No greater gift was ever bestowed. Godspeed, Mr. Gore.

comment #2

nemo says ...

Well, Gore's Twitter feed contains at least one halfway funny comment:

"Some of these zombies are not walking right. It just looks like they have to go to the bathroom."

I was getting the impression that taking up Twitter caused the equivalent of a frontal lobotomy.

comment #3

Josh Massey says ...

Gore gave me a nice chunk of time back when I was a struggling college film writer. So he kicks ass, no matter the shade of his follicles.

comment #4

BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey says ...

The early days of those internet film sites were ace. All the wars and rivalries. TheFacer.net against Drew McWeeny. The attacks on CHUD. It was fun.

AICN is piddle now, on the whole. Really just three-day old links to other sites. The geeks themselves are happy that they're being taken more seriously by studios, but the old days of spy photos and early reviews were much more fun.

comment #5

nemo says ...

Maybe Chris Gore is ready to join Jim Jarmusch, Tom Waits, and John Lurie as one of the Sons of Lee Marvin.

comment #6

Jeffrey Wells says ...

I have no problem at all with Chris's follicles. I was just taken aback by then.

comment #7

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

I agree with BBWD. Someone should really write a good, all-encompassing (or as close as they can get) book on the early internet movie buff/film geek culture of the mid-90s. It could be like Easy Riders, Raging Bulls for the cyber age.

Perhaps that's a bit of a mixed metaphor because that book was mainly about the filmmakers, but still.

comment #8

Josh Tate says ...

It is sort of sad to see what's become of AICN. I used to check it first thing every morning and now it's every couple of days. Not because I actively dislike it, it just doesn't come to mind anymore (unlike HE, which I check 4-5 times a day).

Once Harry's adversarial relationship with Hollywood ended, it just became another film site.

comment #9

BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey says ...

I think it was FilmThreat that posted some great articles about Drew McWeeny back in the day. Those sites hated each other.

Golden era: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117907886.html?categoryid=1009&cs=1&query=ain%27t%2Dit%2Dcool+hoax

comment #10

BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey says ...

Yeah, here it is. A four-part epic!

http://www.filmthreat.com/index.php?section=features&Id=159

comment #11

Myles says ...

Gore's article exposing Harry and Moriarty as guys who would trade favorable coverage for gifts and gigs was a great moment in early internet journalism and forever changed the way anyone with a brain looked at AICN.

comment #12

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

"forever changed the way anyone with a brain looked at AICN."

Unfortunately, that's a pretty small percentage. Well, at least now it is...

comment #13

Breedlove says ...

For what it's worth, I do like Drew's writing quite a bit. I can't be the only one. He's quite good.

comment #14

nemo says ...

Gore looks good in grey. But someday his female friend is going look back at that picture and say, what was I thinking when I put that orange schmatte on my head?

comment #15

Ponderer says ...

Nine years, really? Jesus. I was in the audience for that panel, and I remember it like yesterday, sitting next to Tom DeSanto, and I think Roger Avary and David Hayter were around there too. (I remember Avary and Knowles giggling after the panel about how much they loved the first LOTR script.)

I also remember, very vividly, Wells being the only journalist-type standing up and asking questions. I remember that day much better than I probably should.

comment #16

bluefugue says ...

>For what it's worth, I do like Drew's writing quite a bit. I can't be the only one. He's quite good.

Yeah, I like McWeeny.

I actually like Knowles sometimes too. I have to qualify that. The guy couldn't compose a grammatically coherent sentence if Western Civilization were on the line. But his background is a unique combination of geek-centric enthusiasm and genuine appreciation for film history. He's not the kind of idiot who only watches Star Wars movies and horror flicks, though he may prefer them. He'll wax rhapsodic about silent Lon Cheney pics from the '20s or about a Max Steiner score as much as anything else. His breadth of moviegoing experience seems to rival Ebert's (at least when you adjust for difference in age), though he lacks Ebert's erudition, sense of historical and aesthetic context, and skill at crafting prose.

Also, occasionally Harry knows exactly what a movie is going for and articulates it effectively in his way. He described Wrong Turn in this way: "It's a retarded inbred West Virginia cannibalistic hillbilly movie. And any retarded inbred West Virginia cannibalistic hillbilly movie can't be all bad. But this one isn't all that good, either." I think that's pretty much the perfect summation of that particular movie, and Harry is the only guy on the planet who could have expressed it that way.

comment #17

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

I admire both McWeeny's writing conciseness and Harry's film enthusiasm to a point.

They have both whored themselves out something awful over the past few years, however...

comment #18

poseidon72 says ...

Question- gifts and gigs only go far How does Harry make money? did he sell his site to a corporation or studio?

comment #19

BurmaShave says ...

You'd think with your obsession you'd give him props for dropping a fair amount of weight.