Date I created this page, and wrote the first 12 questions of it: 2-1-2020 NOTE: Just so you know, none of these are really in any particular order, though I have tried to put the most important ones at the top here.
Who created this website for you anyway?
My mom did, and to be honest, I didn't like it at first since I already had Teen Ink to put my reviews on. However, since that particular website is basically still dead by now, I had no other choice other than putting them here, something I've been happily doing ever since.
Why have you lately focused a lot more on reviewing movies than music?
Well, that would have to be because of a little promise I made to myself back in August of 2019, that even though I couldn't use Teen Ink for reviewing things anymore, I would review every single movie I watched from that point on, no matter what. As such, I haven't had much time to review music as well, what with my schoolwork being a top priority and all, though I do try to whenever I can.
What made you decide to start cranking like that with your film reviews, anyway?
I'm not quite sure, to be honest. I guess it's just the fact that I love movies so much that I wanted to focus my passion for them into something really productive, and voilà.
Who would you say are your biggest influences on your work?
Well, besides my parents' rampant support of it, there's Roger Ebert, Roger Moore (no, not the now-deceased James Bond actor), Leonard Maltin, Rendy Jones over at the great rendyreviews.com (unbelievably, he started writing there when he was just 13 years old, which was even younger than when I started, at 14), and the wonderful folks at sites like Alternate Ending and Birth.Movies.Death., as well as YouTubers such as Chris Stuckmann, Cynical Reviews, I Hate Everything, PhantomStrider, ralphthemoviemaker, Saberspark, and YourMovieSucksDOTorg. There's a lot more than that, I'm sure, but I don't think I have time to write it all down now.
What does "Hilariocity" mean, anyway?
Glad you asked. Coined by Chris Stuckmann (yes, the same Chris Stuckmann I just described as being one of the biggest influences on my work), the word "hilariocity" is used to describe a film that is so unbelievably bad, it is actually really entertaining, and oftentimes even hilarious (we're talking MST3K-worthy stuff here).
You know, I actually liked the "Poetry" section of this website a lot. Why is it now gone?
I really do like my old poetry, but had to take it off after realizing that it just didn't fit in with a website dedicated entirely to pop culture reviews.
Why do your selections of movies to watch and review tend to be so random?
So I can be diverse and learn about all the different genres of film, both good and bad. Also, what I watch depends on what my parents agree with and what I have time for, so there's that, too.
In your review of Knock Down the House, you said that you aren't "a big supporter of [the real-life women in it] or what they stand for". Do you still feel that way now?
Looking back on that particular review, I regret saying that since I personally like remaining as politically neutral as possible. Maybe I wasn't as much so back then, but I'm certainly a lot more so these days.
In the uncut version of your review for Roger Waters: The Wall, you said that Waters and his deceased father will "meet again in heaven one day". Does that mean you're religious?
Truth be told, I only said that because of how sweet it sounded (and is), though I regret making such patronizing statements (however well-intentioned they may be) now. In other words, I am not religious, and wasn't when I wrote that in 2017. (On a side note, I graciously apologize for arguments like "it must be very hard to lose your father in WWII..., but still, that doesn't mean you get to moan about it for a third of the movie [this is a documentary, by the way]" and "OK, while I will say (again) that it must be very hard to not have your dad by your side through your childhood, [Waters] can't be sad about it forever." Whatever my point was in saying such things, they were incredibly mean and insensitive, and it was wrong for me to not delete them entirely.
Speaking of censorship, why would you so heavily trim your earliest reviews before putting them on your website? Don't you think it's better to leave them as they initially were?
These are a couple of questions that I myself have honestly wrestled with for months on end. On one hand, I didn't want people to think that the edited versions of my first reviews really were how I wrote them, but on the other, the way I did write them was just so unnecessarily long and embarrassingly rambling-filled that I just couldn't bear to leave them like that, and the fact that I literally lied in some of them (saying here that Public Image Ltd. was better than the Ramones without even hearing one note of the former band, for example) made things even worse. I have at least provided the link to the uncut versions' location on the "Reviews by Date" page so you can judge them for yourself, but as far as my website goes, some things in the past just deserve to be left in the past, especially since most of my genre pages has these older reviews placed right at the very top.
Why would you even put your older reviews at the top of the genre pages if you're not exactly fond of them, anyway?
Because it's a whole lot easier than doing the opposite, especially since my reviews there tend to be bunched in groups of three. Imagine how much more awkward a blank space where one or two other reviews haven't taken up residence yet would be at the top of one of those pages than at the bottom, and you get the idea of what I'm saying here.
Why do your oldest reviews not have number grades?
In short, because my opinions on them have probably changed by now and it would probably be too hard to figure out what the grades for them should be anyway.
Why does the profanity in your reviews have to be censored? This is your own personal website, you know, not a family newspaper.
Yeah, yeah, I know it isn't, but this is the case because a) it's more tasteful that way and b) my parents read them too, and they wouldn't be too terribly happy if they saw that I wasn't censoring them. Case closed.
Is your website named after the low-budget children's film Cool Cat Saves the Kids, which was received very negatively by all of the above YouTubers who reviewed it?
No, it is not. My mom didn't know about that film when she created the website (and as far as I can tell, she still doesn't), and neither did I until it had already been up for quite some time. Hopefully, Daddy Derek (the film's director) won't try to shut me down for the resemblance anyway. It's not like there's no precedent for that concern or anything.