Chud.com Posts Bad Entertainment Filler, The World Literally Explodes

Serious: I just want to troll Zak Snyder hard enough so that one day, he will get Internet mad and try to hunt me down. Then we can discuss theories of adaptation and why he needs to try harder.

One of the regrettable things of the Internet is that it has allowed writers and editors to get so lazy when it comes to content, because if something can be thrown up on the Web for no real cost or risk, when why do you have to proofread it and tighten it up to make sure it’s all it can be? Most websites aren’t about maximizing efficiency, which is why you have a lot of okay concepts that are ruined by stilted sentence structures and platitudes out of the anus.

Case in point, blah blah blah, is this regrettable chud.com article about the “Ten Most Exciting Directors of 2009.” To be fair, the writer clearly watches a lot of movies; to be honest, his writing is really just not good. This article represents the glut of the Internet’s entertainment content, where overzealous nerds throw down arguments and lists they can probably articulate in real life to some degree, but on page use unsophisticated tropes and generic adages that hoke up already kind of uninteresting ideas. For example:

Zack Snyder – By now it’s becoming obvious that Watchmen is going to divide the critical community, and that divide looks to be pretty sharply defined. You love or hate the movie, and to me that’s a sign of a special film. For Snyder third time’s the charm, and Watchmen will blow away the preconceived notions that 300 planted in so many people’s heads.

HnnnnnnnnnnnnnnhhhhhhhkerBLOOM, holy shit, what did I just read? You’re either gonna love it or hate it, and that makes a special film? Third time’s the charm? What does that mean? What preconceived notions did anyone have of 300? That it was a big gay pseudo-philosophical action movie? What does Watchmen look like so far from the trailers? A big gay psuedo-philosophical action movie! (Note: I love Watchmen, I really do, but Snyder’s adaptation does not leave me feeling good. More at the 11 o’clock news.) Watchmen is not the point. The point is the jumblefuck of phrases that the writer has sprinkled throughout the paragraph like finely grated Parmesan suck. We have 1) A repetitive sentence (the movie will divide people, and the divide will be real!), 2) A shallow argument (Divisive movies are special, because, uhhhhhhhhhh), and 3) A meaningless adage (Third time’s the charm? I guess if you’re unoriginal).

This is generic writing at its worst. I guess a lot of writing is either conventionally styled or unique; if the former is a press release, the latter makes hella use of authorial voice and a disregard for formal structure (think Lester Bangs & Hunter S. Thompson, because I”m too lazy to give you a unique example). I prefer “unique” writing, because I think it can be more interesting to read a well-organized perspective than a term paper, and when it comes to entertainment writing, no one wants to be the boring guy in the room. Shitty “unique” writing is shitty, but at least it’s trying to do something, whereas generic writing does all of nothing.

Park Chan-Wook - I was happy when Park Chan-Wook made a bad movie. I’m A Cyborg, But That’s OK won’t be the movie for which this South Korean auteur will be remembered, but it’s the kind of bad movie I appreciate. Sure, I didn’t like the film, and it didn’t work for me at all, but I appreciated what the director was doing, and I appreciated that even as a film I didn’t like it was fascinating and took chances. The thing is that every director will eventually make a bad film, but only the great ones will make interesting bad films.

No elaboration on the argument (the film was bad). Another shallow argument with no reasoning (all directors make bad movies, great ones make interesting ones). Throwaway personal voice (the writer isn’t really telling us anything by saying the movie was bad; he might as well have said that milk is cold).

Paul Greengrass - It’s possible that Greengrass is the most singular director in Hollywood.

It’s possible that chud.com is pretty singular in its mediocrity.

Rian Johnson - Here’s what’s cool about Rian Johnson: The Brothers Bloom looks and feels nothing like Brick. I think you could tell that the same guy made the films, but Bloom isn’t Brick 2 or Back to Brick or anything that you might have thought would happen when a guy makes a big splash with a very stylized first feature.

Here’s what’s cool about the Internet: Everything is the same. Also, here’s what’s cool about bacon: It’s not ham!

Robert Siegel – Not many people realize that the screenwriter of The Wrestler was once the senior editor of The Onion (during what may have been the paper’s very best period, no less).

The arguments write themselves. What’s the process of being this shallow? Doing lines and blasting 2112 until everything you write is a hypercharged torrent of proverbs and strawmen? Snoooooort, rip, BOOM BOOM BAP BAP BAP BOOM BAP BAP BOOM BOOM BAP HEY GUYS THIS TRACK FUCKING OWNS! I JUST MADE COPY LET’S GO CELEBRATE WITH SOME BURGER KING! The future of entertainment journalism.