10 Reasons Film Threat Is Back

After a long hiatus, Film Threat is back. Thanks to the backers of our successful Kickstarter campaign, we’ve returned to do what we do best – skewer the Hollywood establishment and champion the films and filmmakers who dare to defy the corporate, franchise factory that is the current state of the entertainment business.

But before we give Hollywood the royal f*****g it deserves, we think it’s important to explain exactly why Film Threat is back. Was it the free screenings? Nope. Most free screenings are for garbage movies and we don’t miss them. Was it the fame? Ha! Anyone who thinks that they’ve gained any power or fame from covering movies is either an idiot or an a*****e. Was it the money? Hell no! Film Threat has always scraped by on crumbs and barely survived.

None of those things were enough for us to return. The truth, in fact, is that the very first reason was you.

1. You. You missed us. You really, really missed us. And at times, you were actually a little annoying about it because every time we ran into you, you mentioned how much you missed us. Film Threat’s absence left a gaping hole in your life or at least, didn’t link anymore to that great review for your short film. It’s cool. We get it. We hear you. And we know you missed us. So we’re doing this to preserve our legacy content for you to read every never-in-a-while. Plus we clearly have a lot of work to do. (See reasons 2 through 9 below.)

2. Hollywood. Mainstream Hollywood movies today are still mostly s**t. In fact, things might’ve gotten even worse. And with so much good television to watch, why bother even going to the movies when an evening in a dark theater with overpriced snacks and your feet stuck to a sticky floor will cost you as much as a video game?

3. New Filmmakers. A whole new generation of filmmakers are doing groundbreaking work and they don’t have publicists or distribution or business savvy so someone has to champion their exciting new work. So, send us your DVDs and Vimeo links so we can check it out. We’re excited to see your new stuff. Just don’t send us so many emails, man, enough with the emails!

4. Critics. There’s a whole new generation of online film critics who take themselves soooo fuuuuucking seeeeeriously. And we’re sick of them. We certainly take our own work seriously, but we don’t take ourselves seriously. A sense of humor helps to survive the ups and downs of doing this kind of thing day in and day out. The world needs a Film Threat just like Gotham needs a Batman. But we were hoping some other website would’ve picked up the slack. Y’know, like Nightwing did. But as it turns out, most of those sites are too busy making sure they are in good with studios so they can attend premieres or set visits, so they softball reviews and give a “9 out of 10” to pieces of pure excrement. We’re here to set them straight.

5. The Truth. You know that overnight success you read about in the trades that inspired you to write your own screenplay so that you could make a million dollars? Bullshit. That writer struggled for 10 years, this was his and/or her’s 15^th script, but it was just the first one to sell. You know that filmmaker whose movie screened at Sundance and then sold for a kajillion dollars? Bullshit. That film was made with trust fund money and the terms of the deal don’t even matter (they received a zero sum advance) as long as the name is spelled correctly in the trades. Truth still matters and most of what you read in the trades is hype or utter vapor. It’s important that someone point out these truths and I guess it has to be us. Ugh. Do we have to do everything now?!

6. Dumb Audiences. There’s no sugar-coating this, movie-going audiences have just gotten really dumb. And lazy. And they don’t pay attention. Perhaps it has something to do with texting or talking during movies, but we fear it might be something worse that could lead to the death of the experience of going to the movies. So, maybe we need to start something like “Passenger Shaming” except centered on misbehaving moviegoers in theaters. And if we have to, we will.

7. Star Wars. Half the fun of seeing a new Star Wars movie is nitpicking, ripping it apart and complaining about it after. And even though there are eight Star Wars films now, let’s be honest, only two of them are really good. If Star Wars movies were a sports team, they would have a losing record. Disney! Come on! You’re blowing it! And you even got rid of George and you are still blowing it! Here’s an idea… why not make a standalone Star Wars movie and call it, I don’t know, how about “The Adventures of Luke Skywalker?” Because that’s what Star Wars was supposed to be about anyway.

8. Lists. We’re also here to combat the list-driven, short attention span articles that are so pervasive online by presenting our reasons for coming back in the form of a list in the hopes that you will actually “read” a list because readers on the internet now can’t seem to absorb any article longer than 300 words. Which leads us to number 9 and kind of the opposite of everything on the entire internet…

9. Friendship. Red Letter Media can’t do it by themselves. Seriously, we love those guys and we even hate the same things! (Could this be the beginning of a romance?) But they can’t do it all. Film Threat is here to lend a helping hand to our friends in the trenches as we tear down those movies that deserve it.

10. The Box Office Lie. And finally, to remind you that box office is not a barometer for success. The amount of money a film makes has nothing to do with the quality of a film. And using box office as an argument to validate a movie is a pathetic defense. Making a lot of money may make a filmmaker’s career or launch a franchise or even get you elected President of the United States, but money does not and will not ever equal quality.

So we hope you will trust us to be your guide. If we falter (and we will, badly, and often) please feel free to call us out. We will probably already know it, and, truth be told, we probably had a really bad day or were just being lazy, but whatever. We hope you’ll forgive us. The important thing is that Film Threat is back. Let’s f**k some s**t up.