/dev/null/kevin

Creating something from nothing, or maybe the other way around
All | Chuisms | Computers | Entertainment | Games | Hockey | Humor | Kids | Life | Music | SciFi | Television
20080616 Monday June 16, 2008
The Spoilening Entertainment

To all movie reviewers: you are not as clever as you think.

Yes, I hate spoilers [1 2], so I had to rant on yet another case of blatant spoilers contained in movie reviews from professionals who are supposed to know better.  If you haven't seen The Happening (and I hear, you shouldn't, because it's really bad) then I'll bet that you, like me now, already know the movie's plot twist.

Watching Ebert and Roeper: At the Movies, they made a little "clever" joke that gave it all away.  Roger Ebert himself (who isn't on the TV show anymore) gave it away in his printed review, as did the New York Times.  These are four top movie reviewers with huge audiences, not some punk blogger, so why are they just giving away this plot twist?  I'm no fan of M. Night Shyamalan, but even a bad movie doesn't deserve to be spoiled.

I had to laugh at this statement from the NY Times reviewer:

"I won’t say too much about the gimmick that Mr. Shyamalan has come up with this time around..."

Dude, too late!  Seriously, the last half of that sentence is a spoiler, as was the frigging title of your review.

I'm not putting any links here so if you track down their reviews then you're inflicting the spoiler damage on yourself.  Plus, they don't need the huge bump in traffic from being dev-null-kevin'ed.

Update: If you don't mind this particular movie being spoiled for you, then I recommend this "spoilerrific" review of The Happening.  via Molly Wood.


Tags:
June 16, 2008 09:07 AM PDT Permalink | | del.icio.us technorati slashdot digg reddit facebook stumbleupon

20071130 Friday November 30, 2007
Gamers Fight Back Games

Gamers are fighting mad about the termination of a game reviewer who gave a low score to a game promoted heavily on his site.

Gamespot reviewer Jeff Gerstmann gave a score or 6/10 to Kane and Lynch.  Publisher Eidos, who paid big ad bucks on Gamestop, wasn't happy, and Gerstmann was fired.  Read all about it here: 1 2 3

But gamers are getting the last laugh.  Upset at such blatant interference, they are giving the game scores of 1/10 and writing their own bad reviews using Gamespot's own user feedback section.  As such, the game's average user score is at 2.8/10.  Web 2.0 is a two-edged sword.

Kane and Lynch Bad ReviewKane and Lynch user scores 

So, let this be a lesson to other companies.  You do more harm than good throwing your weight around.  Perhaps all of this negative attention will also boost sales, but I sure hope not.

Update: There are also reports that he left after his written review was edited.  CNET's daily news podcast, Buzz Out Loud, was told not to comment today (CNET own's Gamespot) so perhaps they will have something to say on Monday.


Tags:
November 30, 2007 01:29 PM PST Permalink | | del.icio.us technorati slashdot digg reddit facebook stumbleupon

Weblog | Archive of all entries.


Creative Commons License © Kevin Chu, Some Rights Reserved.   This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.   Sun Microsystems Trademarks are in effect.
All opinons are mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!  Sun Microsystems has nothing to do with them.