To the people writing all the anti-Owen shit on the talkbacks.

Hey, I put my name in each of my comments.

I agree they are pussies but so far they're the only talkbacks worth reading.

KillYourself@Phil-Owen.org is not a pussy. I've shaken his hand.

It sucks, but it had to be expected. The AICN talkbacks are a mess.

And what were you expecting from Talkbacks exactly? Has aintitcool taught us nothing?

ETA: Get out of my head, Savage!

That'll put an end to it.

Can't speak for everyone, but yes; AICN has taught me nothing.

What are you, Cow Puncher? A poooosaaaayyy?

Damn, Nick, like flies to honey. I wonder if that's all of them.

Um, nope, try again. I have no opinion of Owen one way or another.

Same, I just find it amusing that people are going through so much trouble to fuck with the guy. I couldn't care less about him posting on the frontpage, I think that the handwringing about him making that transition was kinda dumb, but I still get the lulz when I think about him crying after POTC3.

He didn't specify "anonymous", Spike. I think you're still being called a pussy.

Awful quick with the denial, Mattioli. Why is that, I wonder? Time to ponder that sig of yours. That I provided so long ago.

Actually, I got nothin'. I was just fucking off. But yes, I agree, pussies. Let me quote another giant pussy: "It's so easy to laugh, it's so easy to hate/ It takes strength to be gentle and kind..."

Well, now my mind is blown. Thanks.

I have a feeling it's the same couple of people posting multiple times.

And they aren't the never-seen-the-boards, front-page-browsing-only set that the talkbacks were hoping to bring in either, if I had to guess.

Yeah, Owen's grandma has been brought up a few times, as well as his old Kueller board name.

Hey now, I use a consistent sn on the talkbalks. Whenever I do any on Phil Owen's articles I always explain why I'm saying what I'm saying. Alot of people just type "Stop fucking writing", "Why would anyone let him write for the main page", etc. That's just really annoying.

My reasons for disliking his writing have been that he inserts negative opinions about whatever he's writing about half the time, he doesn't get comparisons right (No, Time Traveler's Wife is NOT Jumper with time travel), and I can barely navigate his writing. He uses so many commas and semi-colons that it's a mess. Usually, you also don't put commas around a period unless it's in a quote. You do not end sentences like "this." Many of his sentences can be re-written to flow a lot better than they do. I don't need friggin parentheses to tell me a date (1980). Just say "Way back around 1980". I'm just using his most recent article as an example.

That's sloppy. That's fine on the message boards, but on the main page I think people expect something a bit more. We don't even expect 100% correct grammar, just something that we can make sense of.

I'm not even fucking kidding around. The first paragraph of that article alone would make my english professor tell you to get the fuck out.

Can someone post links to some good examples of all the shit-talking? Where and how did this start? I read the site every day and I completely missed out on all of this.

Welcome to CHUD.com. Tired old third act jokes to your left, double standards to your right.

It's even spread to non-Owen written articles. I just read the Gambit casting piece...

God gets his its/it's wrong? Further proof there is no God.

Admittedly, Owen would benefit if he was more familiar with Strunk and White, and refrained from using first person so often, especially when the first person is mostly used to admit ignorance. Then again, so would I. So would most people.

Yeah but the other writers don't sound fucking ignorant when they make those negative opinions.

No offense Nick, but if you exercised a little fucking quality control with Owen's "writing" people wouldn't have anything to complain about. It is kind of embarrassing for the site to have someone who is borderline illiterate on the staff.

Why didn't Owen start this thread? Or at least ask for criticisms?

I was wondering if the Owen TalkBacks were just a running gag ala the already mentioned "third act" but even if they are just a CHUD inside joke, they do have the sting of truth.

I know a couple of Grammar Nazi's that would DOS this place by having to post about his articles.

Sure you do, unless the punctuation will lead to ambiguity (if the quoted thing is a filename, for example), or you are British. From the wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark#Punctuation

Yeah.

DaveB and his wife would be the 1st to tell you that it depends on the style guide you go by and that either way is acceptable.



* Actually, I guess, I'm the 1st to tell you.

EDIT: Make that 2nd, behind James Kimbell.

I'm astounded at what enormous assholes people turn out to be when they're given anonymity. Is there no way to make people sign up for talkbacks? That'd pretty much solve the problem.

On the boards, I've had no problem whatsoever with Owen. He's one of most of us just shitting around spouting about movies, television, and the multitudinous subjects thats covered on here. And back in the old rep-system I couldn't comprehend why exactly he had achieved "hated by God" at one point.

Whoever he was and is, though, he just wasn't and isn't a particularly strong writer with any real insight or intelligent criticism. It's difficult to compare something so astonishingly great as, say, Russ' recentAssassination of Jesse James review with anything Owen has written thus far; Russ' piece is an obvious critique and Owen's been handling second-tier news items thus far, but the point of contention is that there just does not seem to be the potential for growth.

Unfortunately, I don't subscribe to the argument that he's got to find a voice on the site, because we'd have seen something by now. He'd have won over at least the quietly weary (myself included) with a good line or two. I find myself actually worried about the day I see an official "Owen's Take" review on a big release, and even more so when he gets to be the exclusive voice.

Honestly, he’s more suited as an editor of a CHUD AP-Style ticker. CHUD never misses a beat news-wise, and there’ll be room for writers, current or to be hired to write.

God, I didn’t mean to write all this garbage.

Eh, you have to sign up for the AICN talkbacks, and they're a fucking mess a lot of the time. I'm not sure it would help.

I think we have Slater to blame for most of this.

Owen does just fine regurgitating Variety articles and providing content for the site, and he's certainly not the only CHUD writer with the occasional grammar problem. Will he become a popular, strong voice like Devin or Jeremy? Who knows, only time will tell. Give the guy a chance and stop your bitching.

When I see an article by Devin, Russ, Jeremy, etc., I click it and read it. It'll be interesting and sharp no matter what stupid news it's about. When I see an article by Owen, I don't click unless the subject matter is something I want to know about, and I learn whatever I learn from it in spite of the writing. That's caused a real change in the way I look at the main page of the site; I used to read everything.

That said, personal hate and overzealous grammar attacks are silly and unhelpful.

Jesus, it's not like we have FabFunk writing for the front page.

Not all of the complaining is about who is doing the writing. Not everybody hates Owen. But we're talking about the main page of chud.com, the best movie site on the web. If Mother Teresa had wanted to play for the New York Knicks, and been put in the starting lineup, the fans of that team would have been perfectly right to complain, and it'd have nothing to do with whether or not they cared for her as a person.

When I see anything written by Owen, I skim it for info, I don't read it. Grammer can be overlooked when the writing is insightful or entertaining. Sadly, Owen's writing is neither.

As for the talkbacks, I feel the same way about them as I do about Owen's writing, except they're not even informative. I don't read them at all. The main reasons that I rarely check out AICN is because of Harry's exclamation points and the talkbacks.

Mmmmyep.

Yeah, if only we had a message board thread to discuss Owen's contribuOH WAIT

Boring and tiresome's just as bad as ignorant. There are some valid criticisms, but beyond not reading the stories, you are limited in your course of action. It's not as if there's some CHUD subscription you can have refunded to you. The hate boils down to board politics. Everyone knows this.

His articles are about some obscure shit thus far. And since that content is so goddamn obscure, the wailing and gnashing of teeth is a bit suspect. Devin got around to Phantom of the Paradise 20 years later than he should've. So what? We ain't all Beakses and Dellamortes - loving film means always learning new stuff. Let the love back into your hearts. Have a drink.

Kudos on that qualifier.

Strunk and White wrote The Elements of Style, a book any writer (be they journalist or critic or fictive writer) should read and learn from.

Here's the 1918 version for free: http://sut1.sut.ac.th/strunk/

You clearly never saw Ma Teresa, or MT as she was called back in the 3rd world, play ball before. She could dunk like no one else I've ever seen.

The system actually doesn't allow that. One per person for some reason.

Racism and eugenics aside, this was pointed out, but my biggest problem with Owen's writing is that he doesn't seem willing to do research for his articles, nor does he seem to care that he doesn't do research. I kind of thought that was basic journalism 101.

Don't you get it? It's FUNNY that there's no thought put into it!

"HAY GIZE, theres dis movie comin' out baised on a book. I didn't read it but I hear it's WEIRD and SATIRE. Bie."

Yeah that's what I partly meant by "ignorant".

The Howling is Dante's third film where he's credited as director. One of the others was Piranha, written by Sayles.

Now back to the dogpiling.

Did you intentionally end the sentence with a quoted word there? Are you British?

Hahaha, yes! Pardon me, I must be off! I'm in the mood for a fine tea.

Ouch. I'll go fix that right now. Talk about epic fail.

But still, that was for a blog. Owen writes for the main page, and I'm just saying, it's personally a little annoying to read an article where the most cursory research has not been done. I hate to keep harping on this, but the article where he talked about how he didn't know who Zac Efron is was a good example. It's not that hard to google the guy and find out he's the biggest teen star in Hollywood right now. I'm not saying "Watch High School Musical," because I wouldn't inflict that on anybody, but I do think there's a lack of professionalism when it comes to the topics he's writing about, and it shows. (And I'll admit that I've made mistakes before in my writing for the main page, and when they've been pointed out, I've corrected them.)

Edit: Just wanted to clarify, I told Owen this in private, so it's not like I'm talking around the guy's back.