Teen Movie Critic is a Dream Machine Site The Dream Machine --- The Imagination of the World Wide Web

Letters to the Editor (November)

I find your critique of the most recent James Bond movie to be quite immature in it's analysis. I feel that you should research your topic a little more thouroughly because this action series happens to be the most popular of all time. I feel Brosnan played the role of James Bond quite well and not only that but the amount of action was needed in order to keep the movie up to current standards of what the public wants. Grow up, watch the movie again and deal with the action you whimp. Perhaps Beaches is more your style!!!

Hello, my name is Jessica Penman and I wanted to write to you regarding the review of the Pet semetary two. I know you said this was just your opinion and we didn't have to agree with you, but I have to say something here. I watched this movie a few years ago with my best friend and at the time we thought nothing of Eddie Furlong. At the end of the movie we were both in awe over the preformance he gave. He was so amazing, for years I was in love with him just because of that movie. I would love if you'd e-mail me back. I can't belive you have 14 brothers and sisters. WOW!!!! I have 2 brothers and 1 sister and I can't stand them. It's really great how you write about them. If I ever did that I be writing for hours and hours. I'm 14 and I am the oldest and it's really hard I always have to baby-sit and take them places. I guess your lucky since your the youngest and you've never had to do that. What's it like having school at home? Is it hard to meet friends? Do all of your siblings have it at home? I liv e in Newmarket, Ont just north of Toronto and I got your teen movie critic home page off of the "Netscape, What's cool" page. I'd love to hear from you.

Roger replies:

My commentary on the reviews is simple: Stick to judging the acting, leave the morality judgements to religious types. :)

All in all, I found the reviews to be fairly well written, though the single star reviews seemed to fall into insults rather than thoughtful criticisms.

Lastly, you've given me reason to see Reservoir Dogs and Shawshank Redemption, two movies I was 'kinda sorta' interested in seeing.

-dandy-

Hi Roger. I just wanted to let you know that I liked your site and I've added a link to your page on my page of "film links". You'll find my url below. Come on by and check it out.

http://www.amy.com/amy.html

Amy

With your permission, I would like to begin indexing your collection of movie reviews in my Movie Review Query Engine located at http://www.cinema.pgh.pa.us/movie/reviews.

The Engine currently serves about 1000 title requests daily. In response to a query, the server returns references to known online reviews. I am adding sources as time permits.

Stewart M. Clamen

CTRS TWIN CITIES WEB SITE OF THE WEEK: Congrats to last week's winner, Roger Davidson, of the Teen Movie Critic.

We will be naming this week's winner about 10:30 a.m. Send me your nominations.

Ray Douglas, Host rdouglas@protocom.com
Phone: (612)571-5919

Mr. Brown's Movie Page is now listed in Yahoo!, the leading guide to resources on the World Wide Web. The URL for the Movie Page (which has now expanded to four):

http://www.tripod.com/userland/M/MrBrown/index.html

all movies graded out of four stars (****)

Michael Salcedo Dequina

I am 27, live in Charleston, SC and until September '95 was a real life IRS agent. After five years with the government, I found honest work and left to be self employed. In short, I am writing to tell you how very IMPRESSED I am with your accomplishments - and at such an early age. Love the reviews! Thanx for the sound advice. Take care and GOD BLESS.

Kurt B.

I checked out your page a while back and decided to answer one of your Hall of Flame letters. I received a four-letter obscene reply from some punk named Jason. The source of his anger seemed to be jealousy that you had the resources to have a home page. "If I had access to a server I'd publish my own blankety-blank reviews."

That gave me an idea. Maybe you could hold a monthly contest and feature reviews that diametrically oppose your own. Just to give these weirdos an outlet for their frustration. First of all, they'll see how hard it actually is to write a coherent review. Second of all they can see their words on screen too, and not be so jealous. And you cannot be accused of only seeing one point of view.

I think its great that you have the motivation to put together your own page--keep it up and don't take those Flamers seriously.

Renata Parrino

Editor's Note:
What do you think of this idea?

Is that you in the ESPN Sportscenter commercial? It looks exactly like you and I know you are interested in acting, obviously. It's the commercial, where this kid (you) talks about how excited he is to be a part of ESPN's Sportscenter. It turns out he is only a pizza delivery boy. If it isn't you watch ESPN for that commercial and you will see how much you and him look alike.

Brouzaki

Bitchin' site Man!

We're the wise guys at AdventureTime Mag.

If you're bored shitless - check us out sometime:

http://www.adventuretime.com/adventuretime. Gary Winterhalter

Roger's Note:
The letter below was written in response to Jason's being in the now removed Hall of Flame. It takes a big person to realize he's made a mistake and I accept his apology.

I would just like to make an apology to you Roger, even though I disagree with your review, I realize that every man/woman has their own opinion. So I am sorry Roger. And I am getting very pissed at all of the mail I am getting from your friends etc. they get mad at me for what I said, but turn around and say things just as bad, so call off your dogs Roger and lets call it quits.

Jason Wilson

G'day mate!

Just an Aussie message to say hi, and to tell ya I reckon your movie site is a great idea. Oldies these days don't understand the teen generation any more(did they ever?), so its about time some did something about it. I found your address in the newspaper, and my curiosity got the better of me, and I'm glad it did, 'cos I agree with a lot of what you say. Anyway, 'cos I'm only just a rookie 'net-surfer, I'll sign off, or me dad will "Chuck a mental"! Keep up the good work.

M.W. Age 15.

First, let me commend you on designing a nice little resource for movie reviews. I know how hard it is to design and create a site, for a world wide audience. Although, little improvements could be made here and there, I feel that you are still doing a wonderful job. Here are some of my personal observations and suggestions:

1. Clean up the spelling mistakes, I found several all over your pages. As a self professed movie critic, you should be a little more presentable and professional to your audience.
2. Some of your posters seem to forget that you are only 16 years old, and don't have a big budget to see the latest, greatest, just released films. What you might want to do, is expand your reviews staff, and include the opinions from some of the members of your audience. That way, you won't draw as much criticism, as being a one sided reviewer. I guess Siskel and Ebert must have started this way.
3. I not quite sure how advanced your are in HTML. Your pages could use a nice overhaul. You should try to add some of the advanced HTML features to your pages, such as tables, background images, borders & headers, pictures of films, more links for your critics list, perhaps expanded to include more movie resources on the web, promotion sites, and fan pages.

Well, you are the first person that has said he liked this movie (Seven). I did not listen to the others because critics had said it was excellent. I should have listened. This movie was depressing. As I watched, I wondered did the sun never shine in that town? Did no one have electricity in their apartments? I do agree that Morgan Freeman was exceptional. (He always is.) And even Brad Pitt was good, but over all the movie just left alot to be desired. It was also predictable. There was no mystery to it, except for the identity of the killer. I knew from the beginning that Pitts' wife would die. I'll be curious to see what you think of "Powder". The critics panned it, but others have said it was very good.

Mary Robinson

After travelling around the WWW I came upon you site, it's quite interesting so I decided to add it to my site.

I have a site with a lot of information about italy, italian companies, hotels and events I would be very grateful if you could possibly link back to me in your directory.

My URL is http://www.tradenet.it. Ciao, Enrico

I must confess that when I first read your home page I expected it to be terrible. I was completely shocked to find that I completely agree with 90% of your reviews. OK, they are not that incisive but still convey the fundamental message of whether the films are good or not. Keep up the good work. Well Done.

Mark Kaye

p.s - I would be interested to hear you opinions on censorship of films for minors (for example : you are 16 but have watched Clockwork Orange (banned), Natural Born Killers, Blue Velvet , Pulp Fictio n- all great films which the law tries to stop you seeing).

Roger replied:
If you ask me about censorship, I'd say that it's pretty stupid. Anyway, some movies are forbidden to minors that should be seen by them. Like Schindler's List and Unforgiven, which talk about how bad violence is. I've never really been censored much from anything, and believe me, I'm glad I wasn't. Because I've never been censored, I've had the oppurtunity to see films provided both entertainment and something to think about. People are trying to blame violence in america on movies and TV. That's pure idiocy. Frankly, someone should tell Bob Dole to wake up and smell the coffee. Violence has been around for thousands of years. Plus, what some people did to other people in past centuries, before there were movies and TV, was more horrible than the Holocaust of this century. There! I've said my piece.

Your thing that you do is great! I enjoyed your reviews! Keep up the good work! By the way, will you marry me?

Janeice Ives

Editor's Note:
Roger respectfully declines.

Being that I have recently been introduced to the concept of the internet I would like to commend you on all the time and effort that you have invested in your page. It is unfortunate that you have recieved a lot of unpleasant mail for your reviews. On a whole I think the concept is great, though you appear to lack confidence in critical thought (in reference to your review on Reality Bites 3/7/95, Ben Stillers character apppeared to be the nicer choice, though looks can be deceiving - he was not a whole person and certainly not an ideal person to have a relationship with!). I am sure your confidence and your ability to express this will develop in time, and until then please continue with your reviews (I am especially interested in the video reviews, everyone does recent releases).

Amy Louise Willams

I agree with your review. This movie was better than at least Super Mario. I didn't see the other one you mentioned. You say in your review that you don't know why it was better. I think I do.

Super Mario Brothers took itself to seriously and tried to give us an actual serious, thriller type plot. Mortal Kombat remembered its roots - it's a GAME!

Keeping this in mind, there really wasn't much plot. The people who wrote it knew that those of us who wanted to see it were probably not up to watching a full, complicated plot. We wanted to see some kick boxing and some good special effects. In that respect the movie delivers.

So, the reason it's better than the other movies based on video games is because it's true to it's form; it delivers what it promised and that is all we can ask of a film after all, isn't it?

MORTAL KOMBAT!!!!!!!!

Allan Tooley

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