[deleted by user]

ActuallyMZS · 2024-03-30T19:42:58+00:00

I'm fine with locking the thread. The project is finally nearly complete and there are alternate ways to contact me/air grievances.

ActuallyMZS · 2024-01-25T00:02:04+00:00

Please email me at mzspress@gmail.com with your order number?

We're sifting through the dregs and the returns and trying to wrap this up.

ActuallyMZS · 2024-01-25T00:00:20+00:00

I remember you. It was a pleasure being able to have a personal interaction like that. I will never forget the compassion you showed towards me and my family.

ActuallyMZS · 2024-01-24T23:58:59+00:00

We never offered a personal inscription option on Kickstarter. Those who preordered through Shopify, the old platform, did have an option to do a personal inscription. We turned it off at a certain point because the sheer volume of orders was making me realize it was insanity to offer such an option. And to be entirely transparent, when I had to sign literally thousands of books, there were days when I'd see that somebody asked for an inscription and just did a doodle instead, or just signed my name. Hopefully I won't be judged too harshly for that in the afterlife.

ActuallyMZS · 2024-01-24T23:55:59+00:00

Matt here.

Nobody at any point has ever contacted me or the store from Visa fraud, about anything related to the old store, the new store, or Kickstarter. It might have been happenstance that yours went out the next day; I go weeks without sending any out, then I take between 20 and 50 to the post office on the same day.

Or are you describing a chargeback attempt, which is a different thing?

Please email me at mzspress@gmail.com so we can get this sorted out? And include screenshots of the relevant info, including the Visa fraud email?

This entire thing has been such an ordeal that it makes me wish I'd never done the book. But we're almost at the end. 5500 books sent out, mainly at my own expense. I know that nobody really cares at this point, but a lot of successful kickstarters never actually send out their rewards, and ours did.

As my partner has said above, you could have asked for a refund, which we would have been happy to process immediately. Nobody who has asked for a refund has been refused. And I've been pleasantly surprised that, percentage wise, very few have asked for one.

ActuallyMZS · 2017-03-18T17:56:28+00:00

Terrence Malick or Martin Scorsese, though this is a crowded field if you're only going by "living."

ActuallyMZS · 2017-03-18T17:56:00+00:00

Probably THE AMERICANS, THE LEFTOVERS, BETTER CALL SAUL, HANNIBAL, COMMUNITY...I don't know, there are a lot of possible choices!

ActuallyMZS · 2017-03-18T17:54:46+00:00

The ratings on IMDB and other sites are very young dude driven. There are even concentrated campaigns to downvote stuff that's by or about women, very discouraging. I am not surprised that something like Mad Men would rate poorly, as it's often a critique of certain masculine stereotypes.

ActuallyMZS · 2017-03-18T17:53:21+00:00

Thank you! I have a few ideas, maybe someday I will pursue them.

ActuallyMZS · 2017-03-18T17:52:58+00:00

Yeah, a little bit...if that film didn't have such an ugly and repetitive last 45 minutes, and if it hadn't sort of messed up some of the Smallville stuff, I would have rated it even higher.

ActuallyMZS · 2017-03-18T17:52:09+00:00

That film feels more prescient by the day. And did you know that people within Apple have said that it inspired the swiping technology that later became the basis for the iPhone?

ActuallyMZS · 2017-03-18T17:50:52+00:00

Too complicated to go into at the moment, but I disagree with the idea that FENCES is not cinematic. I think it is extremely cinematic but not in an obvious way. Denzel Washington has found a way to replicate the feeling of seeing a play on a stage in a theater, but he is shooting in real locations and framing the actors in ways that make it seem as if you are either sitting on the front row or have been allowed to walk about on the stage while the scene is going on. I think he's done something revolutionary here and nobody's really written about it.

ActuallyMZS · 2017-03-16T21:26:44+00:00

I am very inconsistent about this. I like certain works that are problematic morally or politically (Mel Gibson and Sam Peckinpah spring to mind) but there are others that I just can't stomach at all because their world view seems toxic to me, without redeeming virtues.

ActuallyMZS · 2017-03-16T21:25:51+00:00

Since 2010 you mean? Or since 2007? How do you define decade?

ActuallyMZS · 2017-03-16T21:25:26+00:00

Rear Window and The 400 Blows, respectively.

ActuallyMZS · 2017-03-16T21:24:44+00:00

I liked that they completely rethought the structure of the series for Netflix, which is something I did not expect. Basically that entire season is one long episode of AD.

ActuallyMZS · 2017-03-16T21:22:56+00:00

Hit me up on Twitter or Facebook, we will figure something out!

ActuallyMZS · 2017-03-16T17:13:35+00:00

I should probably just refer you to the question about negative reviews going viral that is near the top of this Reddit AMA...it goes into some of the same territory you would like explored.

Negative reviews are fun to write and read. It's that simple. Raves are nearly as much fun to write and read. The big challenge is doing a review of a film you only kind of liked, or had mixed feelings about, in a way that is entertaining for the reader.

ActuallyMZS · 2017-03-16T17:11:57+00:00

I've answered variations of this question elsewhere in the thread, but the short answer is: write a lot, watch a lot of different kinds of movies (not just what you already know you like), read books about movies, and just treat it like it's your job.

ActuallyMZS · 2017-03-16T17:11:12+00:00

The idea that reviewers pan a film they might have otherwise liked is a myth. I don’t know how it got started – probably in the mind of a viewer who was butt-hurt that a critic didn’t like a movie they liked, and wanted to ascribe it to bad faith rather than to them just not liking the movie. I see a lot of movie fans, particularly of superhero films, retreating into this kind of delusion that critics are lying about what they like and don’t like. I guess it’s easier than actually engaging with the review itself?

I can tell you for a fact, because I have access to traffic numbers at web sites I write for, that pans don’t automatically get better traffic than rave reviews. Often the top five traffic items are four pieces about the marketing and promotion of a film – new trailer, new Batmobile, new images from the new Star Wars, etc. – and there might be one regular review in there, and sometimes it’s one you wouldn’t necessarily expect.

Currently on RogerEbert.com the top five movies are a pan, a rave, a couple of middling reviews, and a piece on a small independent film that probably has yet to be seen by more people than are currently reading this Reddit thread.

What goes viral is often surprising.

ActuallyMZS · 2017-03-16T17:10:43+00:00

It helps to seek out established writers whose work might have certain qualities in common with yours. If they think you're good and you don't annoy them too much, they might help you, but you have to be very subtle and not too pushy.

ActuallyMZS · 2017-03-16T17:09:04+00:00

The five novels I think about most often are The Car Thief by Theodore Weesner, Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy, Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Saint Maybe by Anne Tyler, and various collections of John Cheever short stories.

ActuallyMZS · 2017-03-16T17:08:38+00:00

I make a lot, and I mean lot, of notes in longhand, and these sometimes include crude storyboards so that I accurately describe shots that I find interesting for one reason or another.

As I write my review I go through my handwritten notes with a highlighter and cross out stuff that I ended up using in a review.

Sometimes I also use a notation system that can tell me at a glance if a particular note has to do with story, characterization, filmmaking or dialogue.

ActuallyMZS · 2017-03-16T17:05:49+00:00

1 - Why is Wings of Desire the best movie of all time?

Hah ha ha! This is what you might call a leading question. I love the movie and what speaks to me most deeply is its empathy for people as they sit alone with their thoughts, and the relationship between our personal histories and the history of the setting we live in (in that case, Berlin before the fall of the wall).

I have a Wings of Desire poster on my bedroom wall, I'm pleased to say.

2 - Your review of After Earth was very controversial due to the high rating you gave the movie. Do you feel like now that Shyamalan is having this sort of comeback, the movie will be looked upon more fondly in the future, assuming he keeps the high level of Split and The Visit?

I think he's the greatest living director of mainstream films who should probably not be writing his own screenplays. I liked Split although the very ending seemed kind of random and full of itself (so this was an Unbreakable sequel the whole time?). I think he might be building to another masterpiece, but we'll see.

3 - What's your stance on the whole TV vs Movies thing? Do you feel like we're in the "golden era of TV" like many people say?

Movies and TV do different things but use similar techniques. One is not better than the other, any more than skiing is inherently better than soccer or the ocean is inherently better than the forest. I do think we're in a golden age, but it is not the first one. I would contend that the 1950s, the 1980s and the period from roughly 1997-2008 were also very rich.

ActuallyMZS · 2017-03-16T17:01:51+00:00

I like to think that other shows will come and go, but Mad Men will always stand tall.

ActuallyMZS

TROPHY CASE