Don't write mean things on imdb.com

Don't say nice things, either.

Here's a transcript of a radio interview with Guy Maddin from Winnipeg radio station: The interviewer's side of the conversation is in bold:

"...no, I don't read my own press other than that. It's just too horrible. Even the favorable press somehow feels wrong, fills me with Lutheran shame and guilt."

"Even the New York people are prone to do that, too, you know."

"Is that right."

"Yeah....they sometimes kind of miss the boat on your films, I would say. You know---"

"Yeah---"

"imdb casual researching..."

"I've learned long ago not to read anything written on imdb, like in the reviews section. I'll check imdb for facts all the time, but---"

"Yeah---"

"--comments, and I don't mean---"

"I'm not talking about the links off external reviews, that's what I'm saying---"

"Yeah...no, reviews of my stuff or of any stuff unless I just need kind of a plot summary from something. But the sorry grammar and the really lousy use of the first person singular all the time in the reviews--'I for one, if you like this sort of thing, you will, too...' and, I don't know, it's just so sad but, you know, why pick on the poor basement boys who are using up the space on imdb..."

"You're thumbing your nose at the user comments, because I was talking about the external reviews. But I guess these people are also your champions sometimes."

"I know. That's what depresses me. But, uh, no, no, they're well-meaning and a lot of times---I don't know---no, uh, I don't read them so I don't know. I've only read ten---I think I spent one night where I just got so masochistically drawn into the reviews like quicksand and I couldn't get out of them and it just left me feeling so horrible."

"Why?"

"Well, you know, you've got to do an ego search now and then and---but I---I just didn't realize how many people hated me. But then even the people that supposedly loved me seemed---it was hard to tell them apart from the people that hated me. And, I don't know, it's just not that--just---especially when you're doing these autobiographical films, there's already----you can make yourself sick of yourself and then you realize how sick of you some other people are, too.  You don't really need that."

Well, at least he refers to people of my ilk as "basement boys" and not "Mr Fatty Fuck sitting in his basement", as Lewis Black once did. It seems rather cruel for wealthy celebrities to attack those who live in basements.

I only posted one thing on imdb. It was a positive review. But, strangely, I felt guilty about it.

But now that I think about it... 

You can say anything you want about Guy Maddin now. He won't read it.

I like his movies. Most of them. I liked his silent movies better than his sound movies.

He's sort of Peter Bogdanovich-like in that he works in the manner of past filmmakers, although he reaches further back and further away to Soviet Experimental Cinema and German mountain films.

On his silent films, as I understand it, Maddin had several Super 8 camera running at once. Sort of like Desi Arnaz's three-camera system gone berserk. And it must have cost a fortune. Using a single 35mm camera would have saved a lot on film. I noticed that Sullivan Brown, the young boy actor who starred in Brand Upon the Brain, got credit as a cameraman on the movie. You can do the same thing now very cheaply----buy some high definition camcorders for $25 each (refurbished) and have several running for each scene.