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Harry Knowles Accusations / The End of AICN?

Started by Small Man Big Horse, September 25, 2017, 09:25:18 PM

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Small Man Big Horse

So this is all kinds of bleak: https://www.avclub.com/woman-comes-forward-with-allegations-that-harry-knowles-1818695210 - the short version being that twenty years ago Knowles sexually assaulted a woman. Now the site's two main writers have quit - https://www.avclub.com/aint-it-cool-news-contributors-step-down-in-wake-of-har-1818737035 - and all the talkbacks on the site are now closed. So yeah, I can't imagine him coming back from this, even if by chance he is innocent.

Skip Bittman

Genuinely surprising the site was still around, really. Guess he can start the next phase of his life: selling movie props on ebay for way less money than he paid for them.

Or maybe he can have a press conference tomorrow seated alongside Bill Clinton's accusers, fight back!



"Fake news!"

Shit Good Nose

Wow.  I mean, wow.


I think it's fair to say that the only thing that will be REALLY missed is the festival - assuming it's knocked on the head.  AICN probably has more detractors than it does supporters, and Knowles himself has pretty much been a figure of hate for as long as I can remember (from trolling internet nob-jockey in the early days, to under-the-counter dodgyness in more recent years).

...and also obligatory snidey comment along the lines of "is he even physically capable of doing something like that!?!??!", etc.

biggytitbo

Quote from: Skip Bittman on September 25, 2017, 09:33:40 PM
Genuinely surprising the site was still around, really. Guess he can start the next phase of his life:

Surely the next phase is declining health and premature death due to his super morbid obesity?


Dr Rock

Quote from: Skip Bittman on September 25, 2017, 09:33:40 PM
Genuinely surprising the site was still around, really.

I'm genuinely surprised he's still alive.

Phil_A

Not remotely surprised re: the Knowles allegations, he has always behaved like a disgusting creep and has never been shy about spaffing the contents of his revolting psyche all over the site. His droolings over Hayden Panettiere's character in Heroes were absolutely nauseating.

I haven't looked at AICN for years, surely the proliferation of movie news and gossip sites has made it all but redundant?

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: Phil_A on September 25, 2017, 10:25:02 PM
Not remotely surprised re: the Knowles allegations, he has always behaved like a disgusting creep and has never been shy about spaffing the contents of his revolting psyche all over the site. His droolings over Hayden Panettiere's character in Heroes were absolutely nauseating.

I've noticed people retweeting that Heroes review. And then of course there's the infamous Blade 2 one - http://www.aintitcool.com/node/11793

QuoteI haven't looked at AICN for years, surely the proliferation of movie news and gossip sites has made it all but redundant?

I have to confess to being fascinated by his reviews, grammatically they're so fucking terrible I can't believe he gets away with it. I think the site has only survived is because of the amount of people who come to mock it in the talkbacks.

Not sure if it's intentional but one talkback is now open on the site - http://www.aintitcool.com/node/78628 - and predictably it's a bleak, nasty read.


Bazooka

Ha bloody hell this Blade 2 review:
QuoteBLADE 2 is the tongue, mouth, fingers and lips of a lover. The Audience is the clit. Watch your audience. This is where Guillermo Del Toro goes down on the audience. It starts with long licks with a nose bump on the joy button slowly. He smiles as he does this... Watching the audience begin to squirm, then he takes the audiences' clit in his mouth and just licks it like crazy, the audience is ready, on that precipice, then calm. He backs off... long licks again, brings in a finger to massage a bit, licks from the bottom to the top... The audience is cooing... He has them, they want release. He acts like he's going to give it to you, takes you right to the edge, the audiences' backs arched, ready to cum....

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: Phil_A on September 25, 2017, 10:25:02 PM
Not remotely surprised re: the Knowles allegations, he has always behaved like a disgusting creep and has never been shy about spaffing the contents of his revolting psyche all over the site. His droolings over Hayden Panettiere's character in Heroes were absolutely nauseating.

I haven't looked at AICN for years, surely the proliferation of movie news and gossip sites has made it all but redundant?

Its talkbacks and forum have basically kept it a going concern for the masses.  The talkbacks were obviously a bit of a unique feature when they first started, but the forum was also a big deal as well for a time - when Rotten Tomatoes was bought by IGN and they ripped the forum to pieces, AICN was really the only other mainstream general film forum where people could discuss movie news rather than leave a wordcount restricted comment at the end of an article (this being before the days of Twitter making that the thing everyone does).  The other big forums were either too esoteric (CHUD), too centred on a certain piece of media (bluray.com), or just far too media-in-general (AVforums and the like).

Course, things have changed in recent years and AICN has seen the number of people joining dwindling massively.

This could well be the last nail.

Bhazor


Shit Good Nose

Quote from: Bhazor on September 25, 2017, 10:42:42 PM
No one's even mentioned the abandoned, but still funded, Kickstarter yet. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/385528808/future-filmgeekdom-aint-it-cool-with-harry-knowles/comments

I always said a Top Gear style TV show about films (albeit without the right wing views, casual racism and punching producers) would be amazing, but then realised I was probably alone in that when this never really took off.

TBH I'd completely forgotten it was a thing until you just mentioned it...

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: Bhazor on September 25, 2017, 10:42:42 PM
No one's even mentioned the abandoned, but still funded, Kickstarter yet. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/385528808/future-filmgeekdom-aint-it-cool-with-harry-knowles/comments

Yeah, apparently 7 episodes of season 2 were aired in the end but I know a lot more were promised and a lot of people are unhappy and have questions about where all the money went. I'm amazed it got funded at all given the poor quality of season 1 though.

mobias

I used to occasionally drift into it, usually from it being linked into from other sites.  It had its time a long time ago and was one of those popular websites left over from a bygone era of the web before social media and Youtube took over. The fact that it never had much of a change of style over the years says a lot about it I think.

I used to quite enjoy that guy Quint's writing and interviews. The contributors seemed far more interesting than Harry Knowles. They should just set up their own website now.

Sites like that always seemed like they were built on online cliques. No matter how into movies you think you were you just weren't into them as much as the people who frequented the message boards of AICN back in the day. Like with anything where people get ultra obsessed with something, movies in this case, I always think there's something slightly off about it. Its so self congratulatory.

DukeDeMondo

I'd say this is almost certainly the end of AICN. I had no idea Capone and Quint had jumped ship.

Saying that I thought the Kickstarter shenanigans would do it in, and they didn't, so who knows?

I've contributed a piece or two in my time, I've got a friend who still does contribute fairly regularly. I still visit it several times a day, although fuck knows why. To stick my nose in the talkbacks, mainly. Certainly I'll miss it when it sinks, objectively awful though it is.


   

Avril Lavigne

I'm not surprised in the slightest. I stopped reading the site when I realized most of the contributors consistently wrote as if they were over-sugared 14-year-olds and for them to behave the same way towards real people is disappointing but not unexpected. Knowles also had a reputation for giving early rave reviews to absolute shit as long as he was given a sneak preview and whatever other benefits from the people involved (sometimes a cameo). He essentially lucked into a movie critic career by building a notable online presence back when there were like 30m people on the internet as opposed to the current 3 billion and since then he's been dining out on that reputation & the work of more skilled writers.

Dr Rock


Custard

From one of his Heroes reviews:

QuoteThe Moral Quandary Presented By HEROES Current mood: geeky Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities I don't watch much TV. I hate commercials and I hate being chained to a date and time by some corporate programming. However, I don't begrudge downloading from iTunes a single show a week that I'm addicted to. Currently, this show is HEROES. I never can remember that it is on... on Monday nights... at some time or another. It just slips my mind. Anyway - I've got a moral quandry about the show. Hayden Panettiere, born August 21, 1989, now 17 (legal in Texas, which is important, because her character is in Odessa, Texas) as the character, Claire Bennett. She's adorably cute, constantly in her cheerleader uniform. Ok - now never mind that she fulfills the underage cheerleading limber blond virginal demographic. That's pretty delicious. But they gave her the ability to regenerate and resuscitate from any and all injuries. This power has decided to manifest itself before she's lost her virginity. Which means - everytime she has sex, she's a virgin as her hymen will repair itself. Meaning that everytime she's fucked, its like she's being fucked for the very first time. OK - that's WAY WRONG. NOW - add to that - that she's at the age where cellular growth is complete. This is it. No wrinkles. No sagging breasts. If she has a kid and it pushes the hipbones out... they'll straighten back and she'll be fine. Of course - that's even if she could get pregnant. Would her eggs allow an invading sperm to fertilize? Is that possible? OR - is she simply doomed to enjoy threat free sex for life. Now - here's the scary part. She'll never know non-hymen blocked sex. Cuz even if it gets pushed through... on any withdrawal and cycle back in, the hymen will have grown back. SO... It's my theory that do to the constant discomfort of virginal sex with men, her character will prefer the kind attention of her fellow sex. MEANING - she'll be a hot, underage, cheerleading lesbian... for life. ALSO - she could have sex with ANYONE. Any disease - unprotected and be perfectly ok. The people behind this show are sick. Either that or they have singlehandedly created the most deviantly awesome fanboy sex object in the history of SUPERHERO FICTION. And she's from Texas. Claire... you rule!

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/30606

Glebe

Well this is a good time to remove it from my 'Movies' favourites folder... I dunno if I should really have been all that surprised at this, his reviews are still often worryingly infantile, he was always a total oddball, but this is grim stuff indeed. Comments have wisely been suspended on the site.

Avril Lavigne

Quote from: Shameless Custard on September 25, 2017, 11:38:37 PM
From one of his Heroes reviews:
Quote from: Harry Knowles
she fulfills the underage cheerleading limber blond virginal demographic. That's pretty delicious.

Quote from: Harry Knowles
underage ... virginal ... That's pretty delicious.

Quote from: Harry Knowles
That's pretty delicious.





Skip Bittman


newbridge

The fact that two 20+ year contributors quit within a couple days of the allegations surfacing suggests that they have known for a long time that Harry weren't quite right. What else has this man been up to?

What a knobhead.

As others have said, the only reason he was successful was because he reviewed films on the internet during its infancy and seemed interesting because of the lack of other options. His writing style and attitude were always almost-beyond-belief awful and he should have been ridiculed, not revered.

I remember when he reviewed Charlie's Angels and spent a few thousands words drooling over "Cameron Diaz's magic swirling ass". It was almost two decades ago now but I can still recall thinking, 'Christ I hope she never reads this and has to imagine Harry knocking one out over the image of her arse.'

Shaky

It would be absolutely fantastic if Knowles is in prison when Ready Player One is released.

Skip Bittman

He could always form a band with Devin Faraci and Hadrian Belove.

biggytitbo

Whilst writing that Heroes review I can imagine sweat trickling down his forehead, him loudly licking his lips and loads of drool oozing out of the side of his mouth

Bazooka

Quote from: biggytitbo on September 26, 2017, 07:30:41 AM
Whilst writing that Heroes review I can imagine sweat trickling down his forehead, him loudly licking his lips and loads of drool oozing out of the side of his mouth

The fact that he just reviews the hottest female character in a TV series review pretty much sums up his persona. As others have said he got away with it for so long because he reviewed content in the infancy of internet TV/Film review.

mobias

Quote from: newbridge on September 26, 2017, 12:06:15 AM
The fact that two 20+ year contributors quit within a couple days of the allegations surfacing suggests that they have known for a long time that Harry weren't quite right. What else has this man been up to?

Yeah that was the first thing that went through my head. Presumably this is just a tip of the iceberg thing.

hewantstolurkatad

Quote from: newbridge on September 26, 2017, 12:06:15 AM
The fact that two 20+ year contributors quit within a couple days of the allegations surfacing suggests that they have known for a long time that Harry weren't quite right. What else has this man been up to?
Man, I dunno about that, you'd think they'd've left at some point between realising he's a total creep and some public accusations coming out. Got themselves (potentially up to) twenty years of income contributing to some of the worst film journalism around and jumped ship the second it stopped being an easy paycheck.

Guy seems like a total creep to me, but those two dudes come across as though they're just trying to wash the stench of a dying brand off them in the hope it'll preserve their work prospects in the future.

Dr Rock

It could also be that he hasn't been paying them lately, or not as much as the site's heyday so just needed an excuse. But yeah, I would leave asap too if I were them, AICN is pretty much dead anyway.