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boydegg 
"Creator of Grammarman comic."
Thailand
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 Posted - 09/03/2010 : 02:45:35
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I asked about Alan Smithee before and people said 'Don't ask about Alan Smithee'.
But now I've just discovered he's on IMDB as a film maker. The mystery deepens!
So ... how did Alan Smithee's name originally get chosen as the elephant's graveyard of unwanted FWFRs? Is this one of those things where you find out and then wish you'd never delved?
Somebody must know! Please?
Boydegg
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SixFourian 
"Four ever European"
The European Union
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Posted - 09/03/2010 : 03:12:03
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Alan Smithee is the directorial name given to films whose actual directors are ashamed of them.
It is therefore the reviewer name given to reviews whose actual reviewers are ashamed of them. However, reviewers don't have the excuse that directors do of producers making them create a bad product and not letting them delete it. |
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demonic
"Cinemaniac"
United Kingdom
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Posted - 09/03/2010 : 03:26:52
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| No mystery... just a bit of strange Hollywood trivia |
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MguyX
"X marks the spot"
United States
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Posted - 09/03/2010 : 05:26:37
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Actually, there is a sad and twisted tale underlying FWFR's Alan Smithee.
Alan Smithee on the FWFR website is the screen name of noncentz's evil but equally clever younger brother, twocentz.
In the early days of FWFR, twocentz became jealous of the overwhelming admiration frequently garnered by his older sibling, finding himself always just out of reach when it came to posting the greatest number of reviews. Adding to his frustration were two particularly troubling facts: (1) he stuck to a film-watching ethos, whereby he would not post a review unless he had actually seen the film; and (2) he lived in Papua New Guinea -- a forgotten volunteer from the Peace Corps -- and was therefore dependent on his older sibling to send him the elder centz'z hand-me-down VHS tapes and DVDs.
While twocentz "Coyne'd" equally brilliant four-word film reviews, they often languished unnoticed as the elder centz's notarity grew. Further perplexing to the younger centz was the fact that great minds think alike: too often his reviews would be rejected as derivative or mere knock-offs of those of his legendary brother. He seethed as benj rejected "S caped boob job" for "Supergirl" (1984) (a film he detested); he bristled at the derisive remarks levelled at him in the Fourum when he argued to post "Mozart's the bigger pianist" for "Amadeus" (1984), merely moments after noncentz's memorable entry made the top reviews.
Dubbed a copycat and fraud, some Fwiffers began to taunt others whom they suspected of purloining ideas and reviews of others as "putting their twocentz in."
But the greatest insult came when he penned what he felt would be his crowning achievement: a single-word review of only four letters.
A keen student of the Italian grindhouse cannibal film sub genre of exploitation films of the 1970s and 1980s, twocentz submitted a review for what he felt was the "last word" in the great Italian cannibal films -- "Natura Contro" (1988)( which was distributed to English-speaking markets under the title "Cannibal Holocaust II"). His review: "Ciao!"
Surely, he felt, there was no way the elder centz could top this achievement! He went to bed that night, content in the knowledge that the fame, the wealth, and the adulation of FWFR glory that had escaped him so long would be waiting for him when he awoke.
The next morning, on the front page of FWFR.COM, a masterpiece boldly shown among the recently added reviews:
"Fini" -- Jaws: The Revenge (1987). It's author: noncentz. Several hours later, the review resurfaced in its revised, and final form:
"Fin".
The irony of the parallel (if slightly more accessible) genius drove twocentz mad with rage. Not only an encapsulating, single-word review for an arguable sub genre itself, but also, four letters, in Italian; then reduced to the ever more subtle and eerily sublime three-letter alternative.
For four nights he terrorized the people of Papua New Guinea with four-word curses, pelting them with pairs of pennies that he had withdrawn from the bank (having changed his entire life savings into coin) -- "One for me! Two for you! Why not three? And four-four-oo!" (the meaning of which which no one could quite figure out). At last, having pelted the last Paupuian with his last pair of pennies, he stood atop a park bench and declared with a blood-curdling scream "THIS MAKES NO CENTZ!" Then he barracaded himself in a local Starbucks with WiFi access and set about deleting all traces of his own reviews. Instead, he re-registered as "Alan Smithee" and, as a means of mocking those who had mocked him, he began to post dupicate reviews of what he considered the worst of the Fwiffer reviews, having now hacked into the FWFR mainframe and figured a way out to approve his own reviews.
Soon, Fwiffers the world over began deleting their duplicate reviews, as now, having a duplicate of a Smithee review meant you were a hack, a ne'erdowell, a slug, or worst of all, kinda stupid. To quell the great rage visited upon the site, Fwiffers petitioned benj to create a mechanism whereby they could donate their undesired reviews to Alan Smithee, in the hope that his great hunger for revenge might be sated.
In time, it became impossible to determine which reviews were actually Alan Smithee's and which were the donated reviews of others. But in the end, one of the greatest FWFR minds ever to grace these pages became inextricably linked with the concept of all that is bad or just barely-passable in a four-word film review. He has never been seen nor heard from since. Some say his elder brother retired from the site, heartbroken over the self-destruction the younger visited upon himself, all for want of glory.
But I hear tell from the old ones, that late at night, when the screen saver begins to scroll across an otherwise idle monitor, the faint sound of keystrokes can be heard echoing from somewhere deep in many a computer's CPU. The children say that if you hear the sound, and you are in a darkened room, you can see his face if you turn around very fast and yell "TWOCENTZ!" -- but that will be the last anyone hears of you, too. |
Edited by - MguyX on 22/02/2012 05:39:02 |
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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 09/03/2010 : 09:10:26
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quote:
Originally posted by MguyX
Actually, there is a sad and twisted tale underlying FWFR's Alan Smithee.
Priceless!!
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randall
"I like to watch."
NYC, USA
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Posted - 09/03/2010 : 11:02:53
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| Hilarious! |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
New Zealand
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Posted - 09/03/2010 : 11:07:58
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 ...... |
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benj clews 
"...."
United Kingdom
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Posted - 09/03/2010 : 11:44:31
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I think the wrong person got the book deal here...
Perhaps a spin-off book is in order. Might I suggest 'Horrifouric tales from the fourum', featuring The Very Hungry Alan Smithee, Everyone Loves A Warm Fuzzie and other classics. |
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lemmycaution
"Long mired in film"
Canada
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Posted - 09/03/2010 : 12:33:15
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| That nonsense about yelling "TWOCENTZ" at your monitor in a darkened room is the bunk. I'm going to try it now to disprove this silly urban legend. I'll report back in a couple of minutes. |
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bife
"Winners never quit ... fwfr ... "
Singapore
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Posted - 09/03/2010 : 13:10:50
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| i've missed you mguy; where have you been hiding the past 3 years? I think you just surpassed the tale of the fuzzies |
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SixFourian
"Four ever European"
The European Union
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Posted - 09/03/2010 : 13:30:15
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MguyX
"X marks the spot"
United States
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Posted - 09/03/2010 : 16:57:57
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Anybody seen lemmy?  |
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w22dheartlivie
"Kitty Lover"
United States
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Posted - 09/03/2010 : 17:52:59
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| Er, um, there is a Starbucks with wifi in Papau, New Guinea, but Twocentz was dependent on Noncentz for his older sibling's hand-me-down VHS tapes and DVDs? They have wifi but no television or film access? Sheesh, what a world. And what a tale, Mguy. Loverly. |
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Chris C 
"Four words, never backwards."
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Posted - 09/03/2010 : 17:56:10
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randall
"I like to watch."
NYC, USA
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Posted - 09/03/2010 : 21:35:41
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| Where's Sensei? |
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Sludge 
"Charlie Don't Serf!"
United States
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Posted - 09/03/2010 : 23:09:25
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Boydegg,
When you hit Edit for an approved review, you can Update, Disown, Delete. Delete, and it's gone off the site. Disown, and it is picked up by Alan Smithee.
Why disown?
Just speaking for myself:
I have had fwfrs approved and I later noticed that the underlying pun I thought so clever had already been used. The review was different enough that someone else might get it at a future date if I were to delete it, and that still wouldn't be fair to the originator of the pun.
Alan Smithee is really quiet in the forums, so he won't go beating the drum for such an unoriginal review. So for me, Disown relieves me of the undeserved credit and votes. Other users who know about Alan Smithee will take a good hard look before voting on it, and the stolen pun won't rear its ugly head later through another fwifferer. In short, Alan is a protection zone for crappy, stolen reviews.
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Alan Smithee
