Well, it’s been a slow month, and I’m kind of ashamed that so few posts have come out. My first post of the month was dedicated to going over Korsgaard’s, (of Korsgaard’s Commentary), Top Ten Fuckups for my one year anniversary and he’s still insists that I do a best of post for him. Why have I refused to do this? Well, because he’s been a bit of a naggy dick about it and I enjoy hearing him beg. Not to mention it’s his idea and will probably just fuel his arrogance and self importance. Continue to beg Korsgaard. It makes me laugh.
But that aside, Korsgaard posted a lengthy comment on my Top Ten Fuckups post. Originally I was going to respond to it on the comments page, but the damn thing was so damn long that I decided it would make a better post then a comment. So here it is. My Response to Korsgaard’s Response.
V.S.
Korsgaard: Add links. They help.
Illusive One: I’m just going to be very blunt about this. This was not an easy post to put together. I had all kinds of technical problems with the words, the way everything was ordered and such which still continue and make no sense whatsoever. Hence why they’re not there. Annoying text problems that make it very difficult to add anything.
Korsgaard: I will be the first to admit I need to have a better editor than myself, and am happy to say I have two folks who will now assist in my endeavor. Thank you for saying it was well written.
Illusive One: Good to hear and you’re welcome.
Korsgaard: The Avatar post was done in 2010 because I had not seen the movie until that week in August.
Illusive One: And? I wasn’t criticizing the date you did it.
Korsgaard: My complaints were all good, genuine ones that many other people have agreed with me on.
Illusive One: Again, they were all generic arguments people have made against the movie and you haven’t come up with anything new. What was the point? Everyone has said these things a million times over so why the hell even bother?
Korsgaard: Dances with Wolves is second rate, especially when the film that got snubbed for its Best Picture award was Goodfellas, a movie that has proven FAR more important than Dances with White Guilt, I mean wolves.
Illusive One: I could make all kinds of bigoted and racist accusations for that last remark. But I’ll avoid that this time. I personably liked both movies and Dances with Wolves is not second rate film by any means.
Korsgaard: I had asked Adamthinks.com for usage of their image and they agreed to it, on the condition I erased their sites name in the event they did not agree with the content. He also took the time to inform me it wasn't copy-righted in the first place, so his permission wasn't needed.
Illusive One: That is bullshit. I don’t believe that for a moment. When I brought this up, a while back you insisted that it was your creation. When I brought up the smudging you claimed that it was to get rid of some Japanese company that owned the DVD and told me how you “created” the image. And you contacted adamthinks.com for an image that you could just pull off Google images? How fucking simple do you think I am? Maybe it wasn’t copyrighted but you still took credit for it and it was still fucked up.
Korsgaard: My article has been met with great appeal among my military readers, whom agreed on all major points. You have never been in the service, so I will forgive your ignorance on this part.
Illusive One: Military readers? I thought the article was aimed at people who aren’t in the military? To dispel the myths that they know of. My ignorance wasn’t the problem. It’s that the article failed to really convince its targeted audience. So in that regard, it’s still a fuckup.
Korsgaard: As for the government owning your ass in the military, that's not a myth, so why would I dispell it?
Illusive One: Well…not much I can say to that other then you destroyed any possibility of me ever going into the military. Nicely done.
Korsgaard: The book in question was called 'The Short second life of Bree Tanner', and it came out in the summer of 2010. Nontheless, my rage came from the fangirls swarming around the display case. Looks like someone needs to re-read it.
Illusive One: Hu. That’s odd. Missed that one entirely.
Korsgaard: Edward is 117. Bella is 17. That makes him a pedophile in most states. Sure he doesnt have to go for woman in thier hundreds, but there are plenty of women over the age of consent (18), and instead, he goes for an underage minor. Thus, pedophile.
Illusive One: Again, there is a massive difference between a jail bait chaser and a pedophile and going after a 17 year old makes him a jail bait chaser. Didn’t hear you make the same complaint against Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen even though he was like thirty years older than Silk Specter and started screwing her when she was sixteen. Get you terminology correct you fucking idiot!
Korsgaard: Edward has sex with Bella... while she is knocked out. In every legal sense, that is rape.
Illusive One: Umm…I’m just going to stay away from that one because I don’t care enough to confirm it or find something to debate it. It’s honestly not worth my time.
Korsgaard: The twilight saga is the fantasies of an obese Mormon housewife, and me apologizing for that mental image does not make that any less true.
Illusive One: Still went a little far dude.
Korsgaard: Pictures have always been an issue. Feel free to help.
Illusive One: You gonna pay me? I got my own stuff to work on.
Korsgaard: I wrote the bio on the fly over a year ago. Since you pointed it out, I am working on replacing it.
Illusive One: Good to know. The sooner the better.
Korsgaard: My article was on Government unions, and I said so several times in the article.
Illusive One: A good chunk of it was aimed at unions in general. That’s unforgivably off topic.
Korsgaard: As for the free market unions, they are a relic. Notice how non-unionized factories owned by Toyota built in the US pay workers just slightly less, yet they treat workers better, hire more people, and unlike their unionized brothers in Detroit, they are keeping the factory doors open.
Illusive One: They’re not a relic and many factories in Detroit are still open. And the unionized ones are unionized because they’re in cities where people might as well be bugs; easily squashed and easily replaced. Again, you really don’t have any place to judge this dude. I could go into exactly why, but the end result would come off as a bunch of insults.
Korsgaard: The problem with your accusation of being contrarian, is that is an accusation entirely in the eye of the beholder. Consider that my readers apparently agree with me on a number of those issues, so I must be saying something right.
Illusive One: I have to admit, that entire section came more out of a personal knowledge of you then your actual articles. As far as your readers go, most of them seem to be in a same mind set as you so I’m not really sure that helps your case.
Korsgaard: I am far from the only critic who puts forward those points. To give one example, the Nostalgia Critic, whom we both agree is a fine critic, put How to Train your Dragon as the best movie of 2010 as well. He ranked Toy Story 3 number 4. Feel free to bitch him out about how he's an idiot for thinking so.
Illusive One: I actually saw that list and that is bullshit. For one thing, most of them weren’t in any order and they were his favorite, not what he considered the best. Second, he had Black Swan as number one you idiot! Were you just not paying attention to what you were writing or just lying to give your argument more weight? Again, neither would surprise me!
Korsgaard: My movie reviews, once again, are all in the eye of the beholder. I write what I think, and if you want my opinion, feel free to take my advice. If not, you don't care about movie reviews in the first place anyway do you?
Illusive One: Well, that clears that up. They still make no sense whatsoever but it clears it up.
Korsgaard: I do not aim to be Ebert or Roper. I aim to be Korsgaard.
Illusive One: I didn’t accuse you of trying to be them. I accuse you of trying to be taken as seriously as them. Actually read what I write you Danish douche!
Korsgaard: You aside, my reivews are highly regarded and read by most of the people who see them.
Illusive One: Don’t believe that one. People always disagree and those who do agree with you are probably not in the mood to argue with you or have a similar mind set to you.
Korsgaard: My Tron Legacy review continues to be my most popular, and my most sourced.
Illusive One: That’s probably because it’s one of your oldest. You review of it still makes no sense.
Korsgaard: Kickass is not obscure or mediocre.
Illusive One: I’m sorry dude, but compared to all the other stuff out there it is and reaction to it was split in half and again, no one really remembers it or talks about it. Why did it make your list? Because it was your personal pick.
Korsgaard: Akira is one of the most influential films - notice I said films, not comic book movies - of all time. If you have not heard of it, that is your loss.
Illusive One: I’ll be sure to give it a watch sometime but again it’s not a movie to many people have heard of so that wasn’t a wise pick on your part.
Korsgaard: Batman seems dated to me.
Illusive One: You know what else is dated? Superman! Yet that made your frikkin list!
Korsgaard: Spiderman 2 was OK.
Illusive One: Your opinion, still better pick then Kick-Ass
Korsgaard: Sin City tanked at the box office, had mixed reviews, and is mostly forgotten aside from fans. Also, as you know, I hated it.
Illusive One: That is not true at all. On a budget of 40 million it made 60 million in the U.S. and 156.7 million worldwide. That is not a tanking at the box office by any means. Mixed? The reviews were largely positive. Did you actually look it up? Many critics felt was the best comic book film ever made at the time and you say the reaction was mixed? The only reason most people don’t remember it is because Rodriguez fucked up developing the sequel. And you hated it?! This is news to me! WHAT THE FUCK!?
Korsgaard: My favorite film on the list, for the record, is the Crow. In hindsight, I gave it the five slot because i feared ranking it higher would reek of bias.
Illusive One: Good call on your part. Didn’t help much though.
Korsgaard: 300 was essentially the Matrix of action scenes for the decades latter half, that alone secures it a spot high on the list.
Illusive One: As Michael Bay has proven many times, ACTION SCENES DO NOT MAKE A GOOD MOVIE!
Korsgaard: Dark Knight was complained about because I feel alot of people igore its flaws. Good movie, but people tend to sanctify it.
Illusive One: They sanctify it because it’s practically the Citizen Kane of superhero movies, (you know what I mean by this). It had a few faults, (what movie doesn’t?) but again it seemed like you were trying to downplay it as much as possible. WHAT THE FUCK!?
Korsgaard: As for Iron Man, legacy is wholly relevant.
Illusive One: Only if you consider a bunch of popcorn movies that will be forgotten about in a decade a legacy.
Korsgaard: Your land before time analogy is a shitty analogy. The Avengers series of films is unprecedented in modern cinema, and that is a huge achievement for a film featuring a D-list superhero to inspire.
Illusive One: Yea, I admit I could have done a better analogy then that. As far as you Avengers achievement goes another franchise already something very similar with much more success. HARRY POTTER! Now granted it is huge considering the superheroes but that doesn’t change the fact that their all just popcorn movies with popcorn movie acting, popcorn movie writing and popcorn movie directing. Their entertaining but are quickly forgotten about.
Korsgaard: Iron Man also inspired real world military technology. If I see the USA's next Battle Tank get based of the Batmobile, we'll talk.
Illusive One: I’ll believe your Iron Man tech when I see it. As far as Batman goes, just about all of his equipment was or based on actual military gear. It just takes a creative mind to make some of that stuff. Your iron man suit is still science fiction and probably will be for a long time. Batman stuff is actually plausible and can and does exist.
Korsgaard: I am far from the first to rank them this way. Other examples include Empire Magazine, Wizard Magazine, Entertainment weekly, and even IGN.com. Feel free to bitch them out at your leisure fan boy
Illusive One: I looked those lists up. You’re a liar.
Korsgaard: Watchmen was an amazing film. The fact you tired to find faults in at after I ranked it number one however, points to a dark contrarian nature of your own.
Illusive One: I had already seen these faults long ago and I still consider it one of my favorite films of all time. I just don’t think it should be number one. That’s all. And there is a contrarian in all of us. You just tend to let it dominate your personality.
Korsgaard: You will do a top ten best list. Mark my words, I'll find a way ;-)
Illusive One: Somehow, I think your right.
Korsgaard: Happy Birthday IO, you magnificent bastard!
Illusive One: Why thank you Korsgaard! Would you like some of my poisoned-I mean chocolate cake?
So that about wraps this post up. Korsgaard, I await your response. Oh and feel free to have some of that cake. It’s to die for. GAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA AH HA HA HA!
So until next time, this is The Illusive One sighing off.
Oh IO, when will you learn to never bite the hand that feeds you?
ReplyDeleteI suppose I should begin by retorting your retorts:
1) Links are a hell of a lot easier to add than you think, I must show you sometime.
2) The point in behind complaining about Avatar is not in being the first to do it, but the fact I felt like complaining about it. I really do hate the movie, and I merely felt like expressing my own views.
3) Goodfellas is one of, if not the most influential film of the last 25 years, was Scorse's finest film, and had inspired countless films in it's wake.
Dances with Wolves is above average at best, and was one of those trite and horrifically cliché 'white man goes native and becomes most awesome member of native tribe' stories. At best, it inspired the Last Samurai and Avatar, which were also the same 'White Man's Guilt' fantasy films.
The fact they snubbed Goodfellas for that is a disgrace.
4) My Myths about Military service article is aimed at anyone who has those questions, soldier or civilian. I imagine the big reason it has proven a hit among the military is very few people take the time to explain these to people. So how is that a fuck-up?
Also, getting paid a few thousand dollars a month goes a long way to help you accept being Uncle Sam's bitch.
5) I envy what ever cave you live in that you managed to not know there was a fifth Twilight book. More importantly, is there a spare couch?
6) Jail Bait chasing or pedophilia is pretty much the same thing, phonetics aside. Plus, the man is in his hundreds, as far as I'm concerned, that is pretty clearly pedophile territory. Especially since there's no shortage of women 18 or older available, yet he still goes for the mentally unstable 17-year-old.
7) Watchmen never says how old Silk Specter II was when they date/sleep with each other for the first time. Once again awful comparison.
8) There is no such thing as going too far with insulting Twilight.
9) The only reason a lot of factories in Detroit are still open are government subsidies. As far as I'm concerned, let them fail, Detroit needs a does of reality.
10) Do you really think in this era of 24 hour news cycles and instant social media a company could get away with exploiting its workers like you say they would be? Unions were made for the era when workers had no voice. They're a relic now, and the longer the auto-industry clings to them, the worse off they will be.
Besides, if all those non Unionized plants across the country are any proof, looks like the workers there aren't getting exploited because they aren't unionized. Hell, unlike Detroit, they're actually hiring.
11) Considering I have more readers and followers than you, something must be good about my mind and what I have to say.
12) Might have gotten the Critic wrong, it might have been Spoony, Snob or Linkara. I'll find some of the other people who thought similar. Face it my friend, HTTYD is a far better film then you give it credit for.
13) This will serves as the whole for my movie reviews: If you like them, great. If not, I don't force you to read them. Clearly I'm doing something right as people keep reading them.
14) With Kick-ass, it was clever, over-the-top, unique, and answered an age old question everyone who has ever read a comic book has thought to themselves about. I felt that combo gave it a unique flair and flavor all of the runners up lacked.
15) Plenty of people have watched Akira. Your own fault for not having seen it.
16) Batman is dated because the Nolan films really blow the Burton ones out of the water. I also didn't want two Batman films on the list, which is why Batman Begins, my personal favorite, was cut.
ReplyDeleteSuperman, despite it's age, it still a fun, charming film. Also unlike Batman, there has yet to be another good Superman movie. Plus, as I mentioned on my article, it was the FIRST comic book movie, and could earn a spot on most lists by that virtue alone.
17) Spiderman 2 was basically Spiderman with a new villain. Plus, if you haven't rewatched them lately, the Spiderman films already feel cheesy and dated. Great movies, but they just didn't get a spot.
18) Sin City barely made back it's budget stateside, and made most of it's money overseas. It did get mixed reviews as a whole, and has been wholly forgotten aside from fans like you. Give Sin City another decade, and it will be the Dick Tracy movie of our generation, forgotten by almost everyone. Especially if Robert Rodriguez decides to keep churning out Spy Kids movies.
19) Another interesting face about the Crow: Much like the comic book it was based on, it was the first film not to involve Batman or Superman to make a huge splash with critics and audiences, thus paving the way for other smaller titles.
20) Once again, shitty choice of analogies. I compared 300 to the Matrix for a reason, as much like the Matrix, no one had ever seen action scenes done like they were in 300 up to that point, and now everybody is doing the same style for their own fight scenes.
Plus, it was the first movie to use computer imagery the way it did to be a huge hit (Sky Captain, Sin City, Casshern and others all tried before, and almost all tanked) and once again, inspired countless imitators.
300 earned the number four spot because it is a stylistic and technical milestone in modern films. A damned entertaining one at that.
21) Failing to stick the ending and a few major plot holes are not small nitpicks. Say what you will about Iron Man, it was executed flawlessly, and done well. Dark Knight chose a more complex route, and had a few stumbles along the way. Like it or not, but when you do a more complex story, those stumbles become more noticible.
22) Bunch of pop corn movies that will be forgotten in the next decade? You mean like Sin City?
23) Once again, shitty analogy. Harry Potter is a string of sequels of the same series. The Avengers has taken four separate franchises and combined them into one. That has NEVER been done before, let alone to such a scale. You want to talk about a Citizen Kane moment, there’s a milestone for you. Until Batman can get the Justice League together, it will be one unmatched for a long time, and people will talk about them for longer. You pouting and calling them 'popcorn movies' won't change that.
24) IO, unlike you, I was in the military, and keep tabs on military tech. Look up 'powered exoskeletons' sometime. They've made leaps and bounds in them recently, due to increased funding in the last few years as well as public interest.
Any schmuck can make a movie with exciting military tech. It takes brilliance to make a movie that shapes the design and development of FUTURE military tech.
25) As for those lists, look harder next time. Here is Wizard:
http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=13185
I'll pull up the rest later if you insist.
As for your cake, I must decline, as you've spat in my face when I offered you favors. Revenge and all that good stuff. Just remember old friend, I did warn you.
congradulations koesgaard that snide comment at the start of this has insured that a top ten korsgaard post will never happen
ReplyDeleteWhy? It was meant in good fun. Plus, I figure I am entitled to a few zings after the dickish opening paragraphs to this article. Snideness begets snideness after all. Courtesy begets courtesy.
ReplyDeleteNo retorts to the comments, or are you still obsessing over the one comment at the top?
I would make a retort but you're just not worth my time. Both of these posts were mistakes and you had the exact same reaction as I thought you would. I'm not explaining why because there isn't any point. As far as the best of korsgaard post, I'm not fuling your ego and for every good post you do their are at least ten that are shit. This is not open for discussion.
ReplyDeleteSays the man who has written two articles about how terrible my work is. Considering my readership and following keeps growing, while yours has stayed the same for the most part, I must be doing something right.
ReplyDeleteMy suggestion to do a best of post had nothing to do with my ego, and everything to do with me trying to help a friend attract new readers. The reason I suggested doing a best of post was so you look more like a balanced and fair writer, and less like a whiney little brat who is insulting one of his friends.
I hope you change your mind, but in the end, this is your blog. As a friend i was merely offering you a favor.
You were the one who begged me to do both posts and tried to bribe and threten me when I said I wouldn't do it.
ReplyDeleteNeither of these posts were worth my time and im not going to disgrace myself with a third.
And yes it had everything to do with your ego. I know you to well to know otherwise.
You we're already doing your 'Top Ten Fuckups' before I suggested doing a 'Top Ten Good-things' to counter balance it. Frogive me for being a little insulted that you find it so easy to insult my work TWICE, rather than make an effort to be unbias.
ReplyDeleteI made no threats, and made offers as your friend because I am curious what you think, and also make you look less prudish.
With or without your posts post, my site still gets readers. You're the one whose ego won't let him realize you've got nothing to lose in accepting my offer. That ego even let you spit in my twice an additional time.
Beleive what you will. I'm not the one who can't bear to write ten good things about a blog that even he confessed got him into blogging in the first place.
And i abandoned that post originaly and the only reason i actualy posted it was becuase you wanted me to and then brought up the top ten good things. If your insulted, frankly I dont give a shit. My opinion of you has been on a steady decline for years.
ReplyDeleteYes you did threten. You threten to have whats her name spam my site and have my few subscribers pull.
As far as my ego goes, it won't allow me to make this post becuase their is a lot more to hate about your site then their is to like.
As far as you getting me into blogging that has nothing to do what's wrong or good about your site.
Now drop this!
Believe me, their are things that I could point out about you and your blog that would make these posts like a minor wrist slap and you don't want me to point these things out.