What Should Be Considered A Spoiler? Musings From A Spoiler-Sensitive Blogger.

Cross-posted on and commissioned by Film.com


Spoilers.

What sensation just went through your body reading that word? For me 12 years ago, it was a sensation of excitement. Now, it's a sensation much closer to terror.

In my youth, I loved television and film just as much as I did now, but I wasn't concerned in the slightest with the element of surprise. Knowing what was coming never bothered me. I eagerly awaited the next installment of Watch with Wanda (now Watch with Kristin, on Eonline), would read plot summaries of episodes of Buffy and Felicity well ahead of when they aired, and would religiously check soap spoilers to see if this would finally be the week that Mike and Carrie on Days of our Lives would make love. (What? I was 13.) To me, spoilers were just an elongated version of "Next time on____" that prepped me for what was to come and filled me with anticipation.

Now, however? Completely different story.

Maybe it's because television has changed and Buffy was certainly a part of that (when I hit high school, I started skipping over the Buffy spoilers in Watch with Wanda), with mystery and development of story becoming a more integral part of television than simply being entertained. Maybe it has to do with the internet being so willing to reveal twist endings at the drop of a hat. But something has shifted. Over the span of 12 years, I've gone from a 13 year old who lives for spoilers to a 25 year old who lists "spoilers" as a legitimate fear when pressed. But maybe the difference is that spoiler means something different nowadays. With endless avenues of communication, constant advance screenings and screeners, and the weight that is now put on experiencing something fresh in order to have an honest opinion, the tiniest bit of information can now affect us as much as reading an entire, multi-page plot summary of a film we haven't seen.

Very often I get into arguments on Twitter about spoilers. Bloggers have gotten better about not straight up revealing plot points, but I, and bear with me here, happen to consider pre-release discussion of themes and lengthy, detailed opinions spoilers too.

Whaaaaat? I know. This is a little extreme. But listen.

The rest after the jump



It used to be a given that when you saw a movie, it was with relatively fresh eyes. Maybe you read a review in the paper. Maybe. Maybe you've seen the trailer, but trailers used to, you know, not reveal everything about the whole movie. But it was your choice. No one was bombarded with opinions, no one accidentally caught an entire online exchange on the themes and hidden meaning of a film weeks before its release, no one knew already going in the third act stumbles, but the twist ending sort of makes up for it.

In this increasingly technology based community of movie bloggers and movie fans,  so much information is thrown our way, often completely unsolicited, that it becomes a hazard to even USE the internet if you wish to experience something fresh. And because now, analysis and discussion of a film happens so regularly before its release, I believe they have become as detrimental to the viewing experience as spoilers in the form of opinion free plot points. Controversial maybe, but I'm not the only one in this boat, and perhaps this is a good standard to consider.

Recently, there has been a lot of hubbub over folks who got to see The Muppets early spoiling cameos. Some argue "How can naming an actor who is in the movie, whose name is on IMDB as in the movie, be a spoiler?", but this disregards where the Muppets come from (a world with no IMDB, a world where every cameo was a surprise and was *meant* to be a surprise) and disrespects anyone who wished to preserve the experience. Sure, you personally may think reading the last line of a book makes reading the whole thing more exciting, but does that give you the right to tell everyone else what the last line is?

Thanks to carefree spoiling like this, I now feel like it's pointless to watch Dexter because so many twists have been accidentally revealed to me over the years. What's the point if some of the things that make the show so great (the shocks) have already been ruined for me?

I've heard "Oh, she dies in the first five minutes of the movie" so many times in regard to one movie released this year, I haven't seen yet. My question is this - did the first people who saw this movie know this person died in the first five minutes? No. So why is it okay that I know?

In line for an AFI screening a couple weeks ago, a woman I didn't know said to me "I bet he commits suicide in the end" - Not a typical spoiler, no, but putting thoughts in your head about what you think is going to happen puts those thoughts in your head, and when it actually ends up coming true (it did), you feel like your experience was spoiled.

Long story short, I think nowadays in this climate, anything about a movie can be considered a spoiler - it's a personal thing, and better to be safe than sorry. At least check with the group you are chatting with before diving into talk about a movie someone present hasn't seen yet, and for the love of god, just adhere to the standard internet spoiler rules if nothing else. Quickly - a week for television shows, a day for competitive reality shows and until the DVD comes out for movies. Gawker's manifesto nails it for the most part, as at least a place to start, although be warned, there is a season one spoiler for Treme in there, one that the author thinks shouldn't be considered a spoiler anymore because it aired so long ago.

Of course, we all stumble from time to time, sure. Earlier this year in a coffee shop, a friend asked me to explain why Rise of the Planet of the Apes was so awesome. She was never gonna see it and wanted to know. So I explained the whole movie. Unfortunately, there were some people near us in the coffee shop who hadn't seen the movie yet and were visible upset that I had just divulged the entire plot, and I kicked myself for being so blind and inconsiderate. It may help to think that being a part of Twitter is like being in a coffee shop. With 10 million people. If someone has their feed open, it's like someone walking in to take an order in a coffee shop. If you're standing right there, wouldn't you stop for a second and lower your voice, making the conversation more private aka taking it to DM?

Am I a lot more sensitive than your average blogger when it comes to spoilers? Abso-freaking-lutely. But hey, I know some people that consider running time a spoiler. Do I think that's lunacy? Yes. But I've learned when seeing movies with this person to keep the running time to myself. One gal's basic facts are another gal's spoilers, and when you really think about it, isn't our responsibility to preserve the experience for movie goers as much as possible? In a review, all bets are off, throw in a spoiler alert if you're worried, someone can choose whether or not to read a review, but on Twitter, Global Filter only works so well, so like in life, try to be careful and conduct yourself with respect towards your followers.

How that ultimately manifests is up to you, and my sensitive standards may go too far, but you know, waiting until, say, the week of release at least before openly analyzing a film and generally refraining from openly spoiling plot points and surprises aren't going to hurt anybody.

How about you, readers? Where is the spoiler line drawn for you? Without revealing the spoiler itself, has any important movie, tv show or book ever been unwittingly ruined by someone else? Very interested in your thoughts on this one.

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Quentin Tarantino, Community, and the Art of the Homage

Crossposted on and commissioned by Film.com

Being a fan of Quentin Tarantino can be a perilous place. For people like me, his work is gold; I’ve been obsessed with most — or liked a lot, at least — everything he’s ever touched. He speaks my language. He shares my taste. He does with film what I think film was meant to do. But this isn’t necessarily the popular opinion.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been around Tarantino haters. My parents and friends were never fans of his initially, so growing up, neither was I. I had never seen a Tarantino movie, but assumed he was everything I had heard about within my limited scope: unoriginal, kitschy, overly violent, and the list goes on. It wasn’t until I was assigned a paper on him at age 17, while attending NYU, and watched Pulp Fiction that things started to change.

Now, at age 25, I adore the man, both as a visionary behind the camera and the insane ball of frenetic energy he is in person. And as much as I’ve heard people complain about his endless homaging, diluting what originality may exist in his material, I couldn’t even begin to agree. In fact, I believe the opposite. I believe that borrowing from that many genres and that many specific movies, and blending them together, creates something new and unique every time. While his films may make us think of Westerns or war movies or Kung Fu pictures or grindhouse shlock, they still always feel distinctly Tarantino.

Late last month, Tarantino’s next film Django Unchained, was announced and it reportedly “…pays homage to both the Sergio Corbucci original Django, not to mention Takashi Miike’s Sukiyaki Western Django….[and] Elmore Leonard’s 40 Lashes Less One.” A summary making the Internet rounds is as follows:

Django is a freed slave, who, under the tutelage of a German bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) becomes a bad-ass bounty hunter himself, and after assisting Waltz in taking down some bad guys for profit, is helped by Waltz in tracking down his slave wife and liberating her from an evil plantation owner.

When this news broke, there was a wave of excitement from film fans, especially those familiar with the iconic character Django and the influence of the original film. And you know why? Because it’s Tarantino choosing to homage, however subtle or not, one of the greatest spaghetti Westerns of all time. We are excited for his take on this, whatever that may be. If anyone else announced a film by this title? I guarantee the reaction would not have been as positive. We would wonder, is this a remake? A reboot? A parody? There would be no sense of faith that something incredible was about to be shot. We trust Tarantino with our homages like we can trust few others.

And who are those few others? Strangely enough, my biggest argument in support of homaging when it works (other than from the master himself,) is the television show Community. While it’s been funny from the start, it wasn’t until homages, references, and deconstruction became a fabric of the show that it truly found both its voice and originality. So much so that I’m almost disappointed when an episode doesn’t contain some sort of gesture to pop culture from the past. The show does homages extremely well and shows off both a strong love for and understanding of everything it nods to — exactly the case with Tarantino and another great example of this, the UK television program that any proper Edgar Wright fan adores, Spaced.

But homaging doesn’t always work. In general, it fails more often than it succeeds. References can sometimes seem inauthentic or pandering when not handled correctly. For example, I have not seen Paul yet, but one of the reasons I stayed away from it in theaters was because I heard the fan service was so on the nose, so cutesy, so not backed up in quality by the movie, that it became almost cringe-worthy to watch. When I opened up this question to Twitter, and asked when references or homages seemed hokey, forced, or not genuine, I got answers like “every line of every Dreamworks animated movie in the ever?,” Family Guy, The Big Bang Theory, Scream 4, the time The Simpsons crossed over with The Critic, Dawson’s Creek, later episodes of Veronica Mars, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, even fan favorite Chuck. Because there is a fundamental difference between most of these properties and properties like Spaced, Community, and especially anything Tarantino makes — the latter group features a pure, unbridled, loving, intense addiction to film and genre at large that is funneled through the mind of pure, unbridled, intense talent.

What we sometimes seem to forget is that properly homaging something is a feat that requires such a deep knowledge and respect for the subject at hand, that it is something to be admired, not railed against.

I think Quint, in reference to the Django announcement, said it best:

Looks legit and if Django is the jumping off point for a Tarantino Western (wholly spaghetti or not) that’s only good news for cinephiles all over the world… Especially with [Franco] Nero and Christoph Waltz involved.

So if you think Tarantino should stop homaging, I urge you to take another look at his work and maybe even the films that inspired him, and reconsider. If you don’t care to do this, then hey, just see his next flick. There’s magic to his mash-ups that I’m sure Django Unchained will be further proof of. I’m salivating already.

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Warning Signs: How To Tell You Are Becoming A Movie Blogger

Crossposted on and commissioned by Film.com

Things used to be so different. If you wanted to be a journalist, you majored in journalism. Or if you didn’t have that kind of foresight, you’d write a couple samples, submit to small publications or free magazines, building your portfolio so you could one day make it to the big leagues. My dad always tells me about how he started writing music reviews in the ’70s just to get free records and it led to his entire career being possible, but how he had to work really hard to get his pieces published.

These days, a lot of people start their own blogs with a similar idea, thinking, maybe I can get free stuff, maybe I can make a career! But there are almost as many un-updated blogs out there as there are non-working actors. Sure, in theory, anyone can be a blogger, but to really be considered one, you have to crossover into a very specific and sometimes strange area. So we decided to provide you with a guide, a way of figuring out when you’ve finally made the transition from wanna-be-blogger to wanna-be-journalist *actual* blogger. Some snarky, some serious, but all true. And as I consider myself nothing more than a blogger, please take these with a self-deprecating grain of salt. Warning signs, in chronological order, below!

You start carrying a tiny notebook with you at all times, for movies, for events, for post ideas, for future tweets.

You find yourself taking notes in your tiny notebook during movies more than you’re actually watching the movies, much to the chagrin of anyone you ever see movies with ever.

You filled up your tiny notebook. And your next tiny notebook. And your next. You now have A LOT of tiny notebooks.

You download a recording app for your iPhone/iPad because you were buying too many tiny notebooks.

You start turning down hanging out with friends so you can stay home and write recaps. For shows you don’t like. For your own website. That no one is paying you for. Great idea!

Your stomach hurts with jealousy when you read other, snarkier recaps of said TV shows.

Any time you disagree with something, anything, anywhere, you think “This will make a great post!” … It doesn’t always work out so well.

You understand the importance of Twitter and can explain it to someone with zero irony.

You start thinking exclusively in 140-character blocks.

You start getting into tweet wars with Devin Faraci … that he never knows exist.

Your blog has at least 300 posts/year and you consider that to be not good enough.

Your movie rating system quickly dissolves into “the most awesome,” “really awesome,” “awesome,” “pretty awesome,” or “not that awesome, but still awesome enough.”

Your “Real Life Friends” Twitter list is starting to closely resemble your “Favorite Movie Blogger” Twitter list.

You quote movie bloggers to your friends, without explaining who they are, who they write for, or the fact that they are even writers to begin with.

You’ve won at least three Twitter/blog contests.

You’ve held at least three Twitter/blog contests.

You now feel no guilt when you write off movie tickets, DVDs, video games, comic books, your cable bill, and more on your taxes.

You’ve been linked to by Slashfilm‘s Page Two, The Film Experience, or any other number of successful blogs’ link posts.

Your blog now has its own link post each week.

You start beginning conversations at events, screenings, and conventions with “What’s your Twitter handle?” And surprise! More often than not, turns out you know the person already.

You begin getting bizarre, unsolicited packages in the mail that range from flip cams to candy to screeners to books to packets of fake blood. And you accept this as perfectly normal.

You feel a kinship with Scott Weinberg because you both tweet way too much and you both love your cat. Sometimes this turns into both of you tweeting way too much ABOUT your cat. Note: This one could also just apply to me.

You start being called names, belonging to cliques and having haters. It’s like high school all over again, only now you’re the cool kid. VICTORY!

And finally, the true sign that you have become a movie blogger — someone starts paying you to write about movies. That one’s pretty cut and dry.

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