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benj clews 
"...."
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 Posted - 09/02/2008 : 19:45:07
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| Now there's an announcement I didn't expect to be making anytime soon. We didn't get the cover sadly- some guy called John McCain wangled that, but I got the final paragraph in a piece on short reviews (page 41) which ain't bad going, I reckon. |
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Salopian 
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 09/02/2008 : 19:51:58
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That's so great! Well done.
And at least none of the MERPs' teenage daughters has been knocked up by a redneck, as far as we know... |
Edited by - Salopian on 09/02/2008 19:52:57 |
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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 09/02/2008 : 20:01:38
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quote:
Originally posted by benj clews
Now there's an announcement I didn't expect to be making anytime soon. We didn't get the cover sadly- some guy called John McCain wangled that, but I got the final paragraph in a piece on short reviews (page 41) which ain't bad going, I reckon.
Oh, that is SO cool, benj! Well done you. Hell, well done everyone!!! 
PS - any chance you can scan in the piece and let us have a peek?
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RockGolf 
"1500+ reviews. 1 joke."
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Posted - 09/02/2008 : 20:56:44
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Here's the link & the article:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1834674,00.html
quote:
Short is in. Online Americans, fed up with e-mail overload and blogorrhea, are retreating into micro-writing. Six-word memoirs. Four-word film reviews. Twelve-word novels. Mini-lit is thriving.
Like traditional Japanese poetry, the new pop-culture haiku says a lot with few words. These days digital eloquence is defined by pithiness. Witness the rise of Twitter.com where more than a million users submit messages of 140 characters max (i.e., no longer than this sentence). In the book world, a surprise hit this year has been Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure. The book, which features entries culled from more than 25,000 submissions on smithmag.net begins with children's advocate Robin Templeton's "After Harvard, had baby with crackhead" and includes superchef Mario Batali's "Brought it to a boil often."
Co-editor Larry Smith, who founded Smith magazine and signs his e-mails "Big hair, big heart, big hurry," says the collection was inspired by a six-word story Ernest Hemingway allegedly produced on a dare: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."
A second six-word collection, on love and heartbreak, will be out in January, followed by an edition of teen submissions. Smith, however, aware of the dangers of overextension, insists the micro-memoir won't become the next Chicken Soup for the Soul, which has dozens of iterations. "There won't be Six Words for the Pet-Food Lover's Soul," he says.
But the six-word meme is spreading. A North Carolina preacher encourages six-word prayers. A group of techies trade six-word e-mails. And the trend has sparked a revival, on YouTube, of "Weird Al" Yankovic's (This Song's Just) Six Words Long.
Of course, not everyone sticks to six. NPR's On the Media held a 12-word-novel contest, which yielded several gems, including listener Brenda J. Wolfe's "My sister had written Father's obituary. He is survived by one daughter." The contest was held last November in honor of National Novel Writing Month, a.k.a. NaNoWriMo.
London blogger Devon Dudgeon created Five-Word Reviews to match the length of gushing excerpts in theater ads ("Don't miss! Moving and memorable"). She says micro-writers crave linguistic variety. But not always. "For Jerry Springer: The Opera, I would have liked to include five synonyms for atrocious," she says. Instead, she went with "Hackneyed jokes and ghastly songs."
For Web developer Benj Clews, even five words are too many. Users submit four-word film reviews to his FWFR.com site--such as "Tense. Intense. In tents" for The Blair Witch Project and "This is Spaniel Tap" for Best in Show. "It's all about the sheer, honest bluntness the format forces," says Clews. But why four words? "Three words never seemed like quite enough," he says. "Five felt like overkill."
Benj, did they interview you? |
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benj clews
"...."
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Posted - 09/02/2008 : 21:11:36
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quote:
Originally posted by R o � k G 0 1 f
Benj, did they interview you?
Yep, a couple of weeks back but I didn't want to say anything until I knew (a). it wasn't somebody putting me on and (b). it didn't turn out to be some article tying me in with the downfall of literacy and rise of gun crime or something  |
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duh
"catpurrs"
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Posted - 09/02/2008 : 21:13:19
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Oh my gosh, we're all famous now. Oh my gosh, we'll be overwhelmed by noobs. There goes the neighborhood! ;)
Maybe this would be a good time to post links to all my websites. (LOL!!!!!!) |
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Salopian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 09/02/2008 : 23:26:43
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quote:
Originally posted by R o � k G 0 1 f
"Tense. Intense. In tents"
Great. They quoted the most overrated review on the site.  |
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Salopian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 09/02/2008 : 23:27:56
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| Have you noticed an upturn in people visiting yet? Perhaps you should add an 'As featured in Time' banner! |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 09/03/2008 : 00:59:22
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"Three words never seemed like quite enough," he says. "Five felt like overkill."
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 09/03/2008 : 01:00:01
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quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
quote:
Originally posted by R o � k G 0 1 f
"Tense. Intense. In tents"
Great. They quoted the most overrated review on the site.
No way, that's one of the best. |
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Salopian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 09/03/2008 : 01:19:35
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quote:
Originally posted by Se�n
quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
quote:
Originally posted by R o � k G 0 1 f
"Tense. Intense. In tents"
Great. They quoted the most overrated review on the site.
No way, that's one of the best.
It deserves about ten votes. Although I've voted for most top 100 reviews (many with regret in the end, as the vast majority are highly overrated compared to numerous other reviews on the site), I've never voted for that one. Apart from the fact that that sort of pun is very well-trodden (viz. patience/patients), the main issue is that it is masquerading as a three-way pun when it is really only a two-way one. Tense and intense are etymologically linked and in the context of the review and the film mean essentially the same thing. |
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ChocolateLady
"500 Chocolate Delights"
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Posted - 09/03/2008 : 07:10:50
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| Way to go, Benj! |
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Yukon
"Co-editor of FWFR book"
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Posted - 09/03/2008 : 12:33:24
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Cool! Congrats Benji.
I think it's time you started work on FWFR: The Book. |
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BiggerBoat 
"Pass me the harpoon"
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Posted - 09/03/2008 : 12:48:45
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Excellent work Benj, your family must be very proud. Nice succinct interview too. I think they (Benj?) chose two of the best reviews. The tense/intense/in tents one is genius, regardless of what anyone says, mostly because of its accessibility/general appeal factor. And spaniel tap is just as good but relies on the reader having a degree of film knowledge to really get the joke.
Incidentally I had a little look at Time Magazine's 'Man of the Year' award. Some interesting past recipients including:
Gandhi (1930)
Hitler (1938)
Stalin (1939 & 1942)
Churchill (1940 & 1949)
Pope John XXIII (1962)
Richard Milhous Nixon (1971)
Nixon and Kissinger (1972)
Ayatullah Khomeini (1979)
Ronald Reagan (1980
George W. Bush (2000 & 2004)
Vladamir Putin (2007)
Benj Clews (2009?)
Not quite sure what qualifies you but from that list I'm assuming it's either something very good and pure or something very evil and nasty.
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benj clews
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Posted - 09/03/2008 : 12:58:12
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quote:
Originally posted by BiggerBoat
I think they (Benj?) chose two of the best reviews. The tense/intense/in tents one is genius, regardless of what anyone says, mostly because of its accessibility/general appeal factor. And spaniel tap is just as good but relies on the reader having a degree of film knowledge to really get the joke.
I'm guessing nobody's picked up the print edition as there's also an image with the piece where we get 'Robot goes nuts, bolts' in there too.
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Incidentally I had a little look at Time Magazine's 'Man of the Year' award. Some interesting past recipients including:
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George W. Bush (2000 & 2004)
He's won TWICE??? |
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benj clews
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F@ck me! We're in Time magazine!
