My fellow Internet users, I am pleased to stand before you this evening to present the annual state of Snide Remarks address, which has never happened before and isn’t even really a “thing.”

It has been 11 months since the new batch of Kickstarter-funded Snide Remarks columns began its run. We have made great strides forward. Of the 50 columns promised, 38 have been delivered, and only five or six were about PETA. Very few of the columns caused the death of anyone directly. One of them described Arianna Huffington as some kind of mythical beast. That was fun. (Here are the archives, in case you missed one.)

I wanted to update you on some of the behind-the-scenes particulars. The idea of crowd-sourcing my freelance employment through Kickstarter was new to me — I think it was fairly new in general — and so there has been some trial and error. Here’s where we stand.

- I promised to deliver 50 columns in one year, starting March 7, 2011, and allowing myself two weeks off. In hindsight, this was hilarious. I burned up my two free weeks almost immediately, then had to throw myself on the mercy of the readers in a blog post aptly entitled “I’m dumb.” The consensus among commenters was that it was OK if it takes more than a year, as long as they get their 50 columns. I appreciate your understanding.

There were stretches in the past when I wrote Snide Remarks every single week for more than a year at a time, and I assumed I could do it again. What I neglected to consider was that pretty much all the circumstances are different now. For example, there was a time when Snide Remarks was available by subscription only, which meant that if I missed a week I would have to credit people’s accounts. The thought of manually adjusting all those accounts one by one was so nightmarish that I never missed a week. Also helping: for a big chunk of that time, I didn’t have much employment other than Snide Remarks.

When I was at the Daily Herald — that was what we called a “newspaper,” in a state known as “Utah” — I had a few impressive streaks of never missing a week. Heck, I was writing Snide Remarks TWICE weekly during some of that! But those columns were also much shorter than we are now accustomed to; it was fairly easy to take nothing more than a germ of an idea and lather it up to column length. I also wrote about a lot of local things. I also frequently had the luxury of being able to spend an entire day writing Snide Remarks without having to write anything else.

None of those things are true anymore. Now I am blessed with enough paid gigs to make a living, and while Snide Remarks is a key component, it’s not the only component. Those other paid gigs, though rewarding and enjoyable, are time-consuming, and everything — including Snide Remarks — is probably harder to write than it looks. (Unless it looks really, really, REALLY hard, in which case it is not as hard as it looks.) I’m writing for a general audience, not the readers of a dumb paper in Utah. And where I had plenty of administrative work to do at the newspaper, giving my fevered brain much-needed breaks, now pretty much everything I do requires some level of creativity. Even if I’m physically capable of standing here for 10 hours a day writing, it turns out I am not mentally capable. This has been a frustrating thing for me to accept.

- So far I’ve published 38 columns, with 12 still to come. I did that math myself, but it checks out. They’re still comin’, don’t worry. Obviously, it’s not going to happen within a year of the start date. That ship sailed long ago, and I was not on it.

- Once these 50 columns have been delivered, I’ll do another Kickstarter campaign to fund another 50. I’m not going to promise to do the next 50 in 52 weeks, though, because I am capable of learning from my mistakes. (This is a recent development.) I have a plan in mind that will work better. I’ll tell you about it when the time comes. The point is, there will be more Snide Remarks after this batch of 50 is done.

- A few words on the sponsored columns. The Kickstarter deal was that if you contributed at least $100, you got to choose the topic for one of the columns and put an ad at the bottom of it. Of the 19 people who did this — heroes, all of them — four chose to just give me the money and not claim their prize. (Or at least they never responded to the multiple emails I sent asking if they wanted to claim their prize.) Several others had an advertisement they wanted to include but left it up to me to choose the topic of the column. In other words, just because a column has a sponsor doesn’t necessarily mean that the sponsor chose the subject matter. Some did, some didn’t. Anyway, seven of the 12 columns yet to be delivered will be of the sponsored variety. So if you’re one of those seven sponsors, don’t worry.

Thank you, one and all, for supporting Snide Remarks. Whether you contributed to the Kickstarter campaign or are “just” a reader, I appreciate your enthusiasm, comments, feedback, and baked goods. I hope your investment, whether of money or of five minutes of your time per week, has been worth it. (Because there are no refunds.) Onward and upward!

P.S. No column this week. Suckers!

Dawn Taylor was the first new friend I made when I moved to Portland in 2005. We’d had some Internet interactions before that through our membership in the Online Film Critics Society, but we didn’t meet in person until she sat next to me at the “Fantastic Four” screening in Portland. We laughed at that movie and quickly became BFFs.

That makes Dawn’s husband, Patrick Hurley, my BFF-in-law. As tart and sassy as Dawn is, Patrick is sweet and goofy, like a big ol’ puppy. (Dawn is secretly sweet, too, but she won’t admit it.) I got to know Patrick because he came to a lot of screenings with his wife. They’re a fine pair. I love them.

Last year, one of Patrick’s kidneys turned to the dark side and attempted to kill him, having been inspired by an equally sinister gall bladder that had to be forcibly removed. Patrick now requires dialysis a few days a week for the rest of his life (or a kidney transplant; let us know if you have one lying around). His health problems cost him his job, which decreases his ability to pay for the bills incurred by his health problems. He and Dawn do not have insurance. Patrick qualifies for disability payments — but those won’t kick in until March 2012. The government likes to wait a few months before it helps you out, in the hopes that in the meantime you will get better or die.

So here’s what I want you to do: Go to this page that some friends of ours have set up, read more about Dawn and Patrick, feel compassion for them even though you don’t know them, then click the “Donate” button and contribute a few dollars. The account is operated by Patrick’s sister. (Edit: Her name is Erin Davis, her husband is Scott Davis. Their names are on the PayPal account.) All the proceeds will go straight to Patrick and Dawn to help them pay their bills.

I can personally vouch for the 100-percent legitimacy of this cause. Give a dollar, give $10, give $50, give $1,000 — whatever you can give, it will help. These people are my friends, and they need help from their fellowmen. Were you hoping to do something charitable and kind for someone this Christmas season? Here’s a perfect opportunity.

Patrick’s Evil Kidney

With the Unspecified Holiday Season having descended upon us, you have perhaps wondered, “How can my gift shopping benefit Eric D. Snider?” And the answer lies in the Amazon affiliate program.

It’s simple. Every time you plan to buy something on Amazon.com, come here to EricDSnider.com first. Under the “Buy Stuff” tab at the top of the page is an option to “Shop on Amazon.com.” Click that, and it takes you to Amazon’s home page, just like normal — except that now there is code hidden in it that will result in a small commission for me on everything you buy in that session.

It’s not a huge amount of money, but it helps cover the web-hosting fees, and it pays the salaries of the Laotian children who work in my sweatshop. And hey, you’re shopping at Amazon anyway, so why not? It doesn’t affect anything at all in your shopping experience. It only produces a warm glow in your heart. And that’s really what this season is all about: redirecting incremental portions of holiday-based capitalism to me, Eric D. Snider.

P.S. If you have Amazon bookmarked in your browser, replace the bookmarked URL with this one: http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2F&tag=thelandoferic&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325  Then you won’t have to come here first every time.

P.P.S. It only works for Amazon.com, not Amazon.ca or Amazon.co.uk or any of the other crazy foreign Amazons. If you shop with one of those non-American Amazons, I don’t want your filthy money.

P.P.P.S. I don’t think there’s a way to use my code if you do your Amazon shopping through an iPhone or iPad app, so obviously you shouldn’t shop that way.

Things are hoppin’ over here at Eric D. Snider headquarters! The Laotian kids who work in my sweatshop are barely able to keep up with the demand. This calls for some reorganization — but don’t worry, nothing is being discontinued. (A column being discontinued would be a weird thing for you to worry about anyway.)

My overlords at Film.com have requested that we rearrange my schedule with them, which I’d been contemplating on my own for a while. “Eric’s Bad Movies,” previously a Thursday feature, will now appear on Mondays, while “What’s the Big Deal?” moves from Tuesday to Thursday. “Re-Views” stays on Wednesday.

In conjunction with this, I’m moving “Snide Remarks” from Monday to Tuesday. Part of the reason is that “Eric’s Bad Movies” is on Monday now, and I’d rather not have the two jokey-joke ha-ha columns run on the same day, even though they’re on different websites. Another reason, as you might have noticed, is that I have trouble delivering “Snide Remarks” first thing Monday morning anyway. To do so requires me either to work on Sunday (which I want to avoid) or to have it done by Saturday night (which is generally not possible for a variety of mundane reasons). Moving it to Tuesday will enable me to start my workweek in a mode other than panic. This will be a refreshing change.

So here is the lineup for the new fall season of programming:

Monday: “Eric’s Bad Movies,” in which I make fun of a bad movie. Pretty straightforward, really. (Film.com)

Tuesday: “Snide Remarks,” in which I talk about whatever I want, theoretically with the intention of producing comedy. (EricDSnider.com)

Wednesday: “Re-Views,” in which I find a movie that I either loved or hated many years ago but never watched a second time, and watch it a second time. This is evolving into a column about how a film critic’s brain works, and might only be of interest to film critics. Luckily, there are at least a million film critics in the world, so I have plenty of potential readers. (Film.com)

Thursday: “What’s the Big Deal?,” in which I choose a “classic” movie and try to figure out what the big deal about it is. (Film.com)

Friday: “One Year Ago,” in which we reflect on what films opened exactly a year earlier, and what ever became of them. (Movies.com)

New movie reviews will continue to appear on Friday, of course, as specified in the Constitution. I also do a random free-floating column at Film.com every week that runs wherever there’s a slot. You can always check my blog over the weekend for a roundup of links to everything I wrote over the previous seven days, lest you miss even one precious word to drip from my Internet pen.

Thank you for your support! Feedback and baked goods are always welcome.

So here’s the thing. Remember that one time when I had the Kickstarter campaign for a year of “Snide Remarks,” and the deal was that I’d do 50 columns in 52 weeks — basically every Monday, except that I’d get a couple weeks off? Well, do you know what I didn’t take into account when I made those plans? I didn’t take into account that when I’m at a film festival, I cannot accomplish any work that isn’t immediately related to the coverage of that film festival.

My plan was to have a column written before I left for Tribeca so that I wouldn’t have to work on it while I was in New York. Now, I could make some excuses for why that didn’t happen, but they all boil down to the fact that I just didn’t get it done. I just didn’t. Oh, I tried. I have some great bits assembled. So funny! But nothing resembling a coherent (even for me) “Snide Remarks.”

So I figured I could either publish something that I’m not entirely 100 percent proud of — and let’s pretend that I’ve never, ever done that before, and definitely not during a film festival — or I could own up to my mistake and plead for your mercy and not run a column this week and make it up to you later. I have chosen the latter option.

Technically, I’ve now used up both of my free weeks, and believe me, I feel dumb for using them already, like when people on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” blow through their lifelines before they even get to the $100,000 question. You’ll still get your 50 columns, don’t worry — only 44 more to go! — even if I have to double up one week or something.

So that’s the story. I’m an idiot. Back on track next week, and then forever.

Love,
Eric

Many people have no use at all for Twitter, and good for them. But for people like myself, who are basically sitting at their computers all day, Twitter is an excellent way to stay connected to the world, to keep up with friends and colleagues, and to try out one-liners.

There are many different ways to use Twitter, however, and it’s disheartening when people expect everyone else to do it their way. Specifically, it’s aggravating when Twitter becomes just another tool, like Facebook, to apply social pressure to one another.

Here are my Twitter philosophies. I won’t say that this is how everyone should think, just that it’s how I think.

- I’m selective about who I follow. This is out of necessity. If I follow too many people, my Twitter feed becomes a torrent, and I can’t keep up with it. On Facebook, you can be “friends” with someone but make it so you don’t actually have to see all their updates. Twitter doesn’t have that feature. If you follow someone on Twitter, all their tweets will show up in your feed.* Therefore, I only follow people whose tweets I actually want to read.

I know not everyone does this! Some people follow hundreds and hundreds of people, apparently indiscriminately. Maybe they use the “lists” feature extensively to sort them all. I don’t know. I’m not that way. I only follow you if I want to read your tweets.

- This is not a reflection of how I view you as a person! Good grief, some people have made Twitter into a social minefield. They take it as a personal grievance if someone they know doesn’t follow them. You shouldn’t do this. It ain’t healthy. Don’t make it out to be more than it is.

I take back the part where I said I’m not going to tell you what to think. I am going to tell you what to think.

Continue reading…

Do you love baked goods? Do you love helping Ukrainian orphans escape a life of poverty and Ukrainianism? Do you love seeing adorable 6-year-olds endeavor to bless the lives of others? Then this is your lucky day, Hector!

In Utah dwells one Gary Ceran, who had a wife and nine children. Two died at birth; three more died of brain cancer. Then his wife and two of the remaining children were killed by a drunk driver. On Christmas Eve. This left Gary Ceran and two children out of a family that originally had 11 members. Then Gary forgave the drunk driver and asked the court to show leniency on him, because Gary is a better person than you or me.

Gary eventually married a woman named Corrine, who had four children of her own, joining Gary’s two surviving teenagers. Do you think six children is enough for one household? You are mistaken! Gary and Corrine now seek to adopt three Ukrainian orphans, ages 11, 9, and 8, whom they hosted for a few weeks last fall. The process is expensive — $40,000. That is the going rate for Ukrainian orphans nowadays, because of inflation. But if the kids stay where they are, in the Ukraine, as orphans … well, forget about it. Even living in Utah would be preferable to that. They want to be a permanent part of the Ceran family, and the Cerans want them too.

Here’s where the adorable 6-year-old comes in. My niece, Lindsay, wanted to have a bake sale, primarily as an excuse to make brownies. Her parents steered her toward the idea of raising money to help someone in need and told her about the Cerans. Lindsay got excited and wanted to help that family. (Lindsay is pictured here with her 3-year-old brother, Logan, who is also adorable.)

So this Friday, Feb. 11, from 3-6 p.m., Lindsay will host a bake sale at her house in Pleasant Grove, Utah, assisted by her parents (my brother Jeff and his wife, Beth). I’m told that a variety of tasty homemade treats will be available for purchase. If you are in the vicinity and can figure out how to find something in Pleasant Grove (I always end up in American Fork), why not stop by, pick up some goodies, and help the Ceran family?

If you are not in the vicinity, you can still help Lindsay raise money by sending a donation through PayPal to Jeff Snider, snidog@JeffJSnider.com. (Mind the “J” in there. We like middle initials in our family.) Every penny will go directly to the Cerans’ adoption process. What’s more, Jeff and Beth have told Lindsay that they will match whatever she raises.

Lindsay, being young and uncynical, is awestruck to think that strangers — people she doesn’t even know! — would send her money on the Cerans’ behalf. Her face lights up whenever Jeff reports that a donation has come in.

You want to make a 6-year-old’s face light up, don’t you? And you want to help Ukrainian orphans, don’t you? WELL, DON’T YOU??

More details on the event, including the address for the bake sale, are here.

UPDATE: Holy crap, you guys! The bake sale raised $796.85! I don’t have the details. I don’t know if brownies were being sold at $50 apiece. I don’t know if sorcery was involved. But in addition to that money raised in person, another $971.00 was donated via PayPal, from all over the world. That’s $1,767.85 that my 6-year-old niece raised, to be matched by my brother and his wife, for a total of $3,535.70 that will go to an amazing family adopting three Ukrainian orphans. You have to go to the Ceran family’s site and read more about them. These people are unbelievably generous and good-hearted. Their actions are informed by their religious faith, and they are the epitome of what Christians are supposed to be.

And think how great little Lindsay must feel! She’s 6 years old, and she got to help organize this project that will directly bless the lives of others. I’m six times her age and I don’t know if I’ve ever done anything that useful. To all of you who contributed via PayPal or who showed up at the bake sale, thank you for helping a little girl experience the joy of helping others, and thank you for helping the Cerans bring their new kids home.

With the Unspecified Holiday Season having descended upon us, you have perhaps wondered, “How can my gift shopping benefit Eric D. Snider?” And the answer lies in the Amazon affiliate program.

It’s simple. Every time you plan to buy something on Amazon.com, come here to EricDSnider.com first. Under the “Buy Stuff” tab at the top of the page is an option to “Shop on Amazon.com.” Click that, and it takes you to Amazon’s home page, just like normal — except that now there is code hidden in it that will result in a small commission for me on everything you buy in that session.

It’s not a huge amount of money, but it helps cover the web-hosting fees, and it pays the salaries of the Laotian children who work in my sweatshop. It also helps me justify the time spent writing the columns and reviews that nobody’s paying me for, beyond the fact that I like typing and my chair is comfortable.

And hey, you’re shopping at Amazon anyway, so why not? It doesn’t affect anything at all in your shopping experience. It only produces a warm glow in your heart. And that’s really what this season is all about: redirecting incremental portions of holiday-based capitalism to me, Eric D. Snider.

P.S. If you have Amazon bookmarked in your browser, replace the bookmarked URL with this one: http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2F&tag=thelandoferic&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325  Then you won’t have to come here first every time.

P.P.S. It only works for Amazon.com, not Amazon.ca or Amazon.co.uk or any of the other crazy foreign Amazons. If you shop with one of those non-American Amazons, I don’t want your filthy money.

P.P.P.S. I don’t think there’s a way to use my code if you do your Amazon shopping through an iPhone or iPad app, so obviously you shouldn’t shop that way.

Here is what’s happening at Eric D. Snider Enterprises these days!

As you may recall, I’m on the Governing Committee of the Online Film Critics Society, and we’re trying to increase the group’s relevance in the lives of people who aren’t film critics. To that end, we have a blog in which items of interest to movie lovers everywhere are recapped, and a Twitter feed that will link to some of the same things. May I humbly insist that you follow @OFCS on Twitter and also politely demand that you bookmark our blog, or subscribe to its RSS feed, or whatever it is you kids do with your websites nowadays? Thank you very much indeed.

While you’re at the Twitter, remember that I can be found @EricDSnider thereat.

My good friend Dawn Taylor (@DawnTaylor666) recently launched a new weekly podcast, called Ham-Fisted Radio, in which all manner of topics are addressed, but mostly movies. She has a guest each week; so far, of the nine episodes she’s done, I’ve been the guest on five of them. I’m practically a co-host!

If you want to hear me and Dawn talk about stuff — and why wouldn’t you? — all the podcasts are archived at her site, where you’ll also find a link to where you can subscribe at iTunes. The podcasts have the “Explicit” tag on them, but that’s really just a precaution, in case somebody uses a salty word or two. The episodes I’ve been on have stayed at the PG-13 level. And in the most recent one, we performed a scene from “The Golden Girls” in which I played both Blanche and Sophia.

Alert readers may have noticed that it is January, and that January is when the Sundance Film Festival is, and that I usually go to the Sundance Film Festival. Sure enough, it starts Thursday night and runs through next week, and I will be there again, for the 11th year, writing reviews and commentary for Film.com and Cinematical.

Ever since 2003, I’ve also written a daily Sundance diary for your amusement (or, if you were not visiting my site in 2003, for the amusement of those who were). It is my intention, as of this moment, to continue the tradition. However, you should be aware that Sundance is exhausting enough by itself, and that writing a daily diary only increases the exhaustion factor, and that I have recently been trying to divest myself of things that add undue mental stress. It might turn out that the daily diary is one of those things, in which case I reserve the right to not do it. Either way, I’ll keep you apprised here at the blog.

I’m a member of the Online Film Critics Society, and am currently serving on the three-person Governing Committee, which obligates you to refer to me as Governor Snider. But that is beside the point. The point is that our 143 members have voted on the 13th annual OFCS Awards, and the winners are as follows (links are to my reviews):

Best Picture: “The Hurt Locker”
Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow, “The Hurt Locker”
Best Actor: Jeremy Renner, “The Hurt Locker”
Best Actress: Melanie Laurent, “Inglourious Basterds”
Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds”
Best Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique, “Precious”
Best Original Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino, “Inglourious Basterds”
Best Adapted Screenplay: Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach, “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” based on a book by Roald Dahl
Best Documentary: “Anvil!: The Story of Anvil”
Best Picture Not in the English Language: “The White Ribbon”
Best Animated Feature: “Up”
Best Cinematography: Robert Richardson, “Inglourious Basterds”
Best Score: Michael Giacchino, “Up”
Best Editing: Chris Innis and Bob Murawski, “The Hurt Locker”

(If you want to see the nominees that were previously selected, the list is here.)

In several cases the films I voted for didn’t win, but I’m not disappointed by any of the results. They’re all very solid choices. I note with some interest that “Avatar,” though nominated in three categories, didn’t win anything — but James Cameron’s ex-wife, Kathryn Bigelow, won Best Director. There’s a pretty good chance it will go that way at the Oscars, too.

More OFCS stuff can be found at our blog.