Interview Meme

Woot! Rich interviews me! Yay!

Want me to interview you? Email me.

1. If you were going to teach a class on Weblogging, what would be your first day’s lesson plan?
   Hm… probably either “Basic grammar, spelling, and punctuation” or “Defining weblogs: Should we even bother?”

2. Do you need to put the fan in you aside when you review films?
   Sometimes, yes. Mostly I have to set aside fangirliness. I figure that being a fan brings me closer to the average moviegoer rather than the reverse. My big motto is always “don’t just say it’s bad/good, say why it’s bad/good” – and that has less to do with fanliness and more with quality. The one exception is stuff like “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,” which disappointed me because it botched a great comic book which I had read. I try to make it clear when I’m basing my opinion on a love of the source material, or at least to say things like, “people who love the book will probably…” followed by my unvarnish opinion.

3. What was the most important thing you learned in Grad school?
   Hm… that getting bad grades is not the end of the world. I was put on academic probation my first quarter and nearly died of horror. But I survived and moved on. What’s important is working hard, giving 110%, all that stuff. Grades are arbitrary and imposed by the professors. I think I would have done better the next year, if there had been one (I was in a one-year program), I’d have known how to work the system. I was acting like Grad School was like Undergrad, and it is not.

4. What is the one older movie that people should look at?
   Just one?!?!?!!??! No way. I will separate by genre. And I’m taking “older” to mean… um … pre70s? Okay.
   • SciFi/Fantasy: Metropolis (Fritz Lang)
   • Horror: The Black Cat (Boris Karloff vs. Bela Lugosi, gotta love it!)
   • Drama: The Great Escape (totally rocks!)
   • Comedy: I was an Adventuress (Erich von Stroheim + Peter Lorre = cool!)
   • Suspense: The Third Man (Orson Welles is creepy, man)

   That’s all I can think of.

5. If you get along with only one job, which one would you keep?
   Movie reviewer, definitely. I think it would slowly warp my sensibilities around film, but I would still love to do it full time.

Here are the rules to the Interview game
Official Rules
1. If you want to participate, leave a comment saying, “interview me.”
2. I will respond by asking you five questions – each person’s will be different.
3. You will update your journal with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions