It is Christmastime! I can tell because my head is full of mucus and phlegm, and I’m coughing a lot. In lieu of a new column this week, here are some yuletide offerings from yesteryear that might make your heart glow. (Please consult a doctor if your heart glows for longer than four hours.)

“The Christmas Christmas” (12/17/1999): Those sappy heart-warming Christmas stories.
“Merry, Merry, and Quite Contrary” (12/22/2002): Getting into the holiday spirit by buying things.
“You Are Listening to Delilah” (12/20/2004): The syndicated radio host does her Christmas episode.
“I’ll Bemoan for Christmas” (12/19/2005): Dissecting the lyrics of Christmas carols.
“If It Happened Today” (12/18/2006): The Nativity story retold in modern times.
“A Message from Claus Inc.” (12/8/2008): Santa is forced to downsize.
“Joseph’s Blog: The Carin’ Carpenter” (12/20/2011): Mary’s husband posts a negative review of an inn.

Only about a dozen of the 673 “Snide Remarks” columns I’ve written have been about politics, and most of those were silly rather than partisan. It was never a conscious decision to avoid politics in the column; I’ve always just written about whatever was on my mind, and politics has not often been on my mind (or at least not in a funny way). Since ’tis the season for politics now, here’s what I’ve written on the subject over the years.

“Every Vote Re-Counts” (11/24/2000): Election 2000!
“Zombie for Mayor” (5/29/2002): At a small town’s political debate.
“Apolitical Science” (7/12/2004): These are hard times for people who don’t care about politics.
“Roger Hunsaker, Zombie President” (11/8/2004): Our nation’s first zombie president’s acceptance speech.
“The Blog Cabin” (8/15/2005): Abraham Lincoln’s blog.
“Nation of the Dead” (10/31/2005): President Hunsaker makes his annual address.
“Hot Library Action” (10/30/2006): Voting early, and the library tax.
“The Current State of American Political Discourse: A Tragedy in One Act” (11/6/2006): The template for political debates in 2006 [or 2008, or 2010, or 2012...]
“The Perfect Thanksgiving” (11/19/2007): Different viewpoints on the holiday.
“Your Candidate/My Candidate” (9/15/2008): A lesson in spin-doctoring.
“Fact Checking” (10/20/2008): Examining some of the candidates’ claims.
“Choosing Your Candid Hate” (6/27/2011): The types of people we won’t vote for.
“A Grimm View of Politics” (1/10/2012): Fairy tales for our partisan times.

Happy August to you! And to my friends in Australia, happy February! (I think that is how that works.) Just a quick update to let you know what’s happening at the factory where “Eric D. Snider” is produced.

First: Thank you to everyone who made the Snide Remarks Kickstarter campaign a success! The next batch of 50 columns will start on Tuesday, Sept. 4. I’ll be in touch with those of you who earned rewards with your contributions. We had 227 donors totaling $6,222, for an average pledge of $27.41. The actual pledges ranged from $1 to $400. My thanks to one and all!

There have been some behind-the-scenes changes this summer. The main outlet I was freelancing for, Film.com, was sold to new owners back in May. This was followed by a period of uncertainty as to whether (and how much) the new bosses wanted me to write for the site. A weekly column I had just started, My Shame List, got axed in the transition, but Re-Views and Eric’s Bad Movies remain, and I’m still doing one-off features for them more or less weekly.

Meanwhile, I’m still writing movie reviews here and occasionally at Movies.com and in City Weekly, and talking about them with my voice on the “Movie B.S. with Bayer & Snider” podcast. Soon I will start a new weekly column at another movie website, too, which I’ll tell you more about when the time comes.

My little roundup of links that I used to do every weekend has been on hiatus while I’ve been sorting stuff out and doing summertime things, but I want to get back in the habit. Here’s everything with my name on it from the last fortnight or so. As always, thanks for pointing your Internet at my words.

“The Bourne Legacy” B-
“The Campaign” C+
“Celeste & Jesse Forever” B-
“Red Hook Summer” B-
“Ruby Sparks” B+
“Total Recall” C

Eric’s Bad Movies: “Double Trouble” (1992)
Eric’s Bad Movies: “The Mod Squad” (1999)
Re-Views: “Small Time Crooks” (2000)
Re-Views: “Bad Boys II” (2003)
Happy Anniversary to 1987, the Worst Year in Film History
The Aurora Tragedy: Have We Found Every Way to Exploit It?

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“Snide Remarks” used to be nothing more than a dumb weekly column that I wrote for my college newspaper. That was in 1997. Today, it has grown into a dumb weekly column that I write for the Internet! Like you, I marvel at how far we have come.

But with this progress has come change — change to the journalism industry, change to the way people access information and entertainment, change to my hair. I make a living as a freelance writer, working almost exclusively online. As a freelancer, it’s not feasible for me to spend time and energy writing something — even something I love, like “Snide Remarks” — without getting paid for it. I don’t have a “day job” that keeps me afloat while I dabble in side projects in my spare time. For someone in my situation, there’s no such thing as a side project.

At the moment, no reputable outlet is interested in paying me to write “Snide Remarks.” I know, I know: this is an outrageous affront to all decency, etc. Let us leave the remedying of that deplorable state of affairs for another day. In the meantime, I have found a way to circumvent the traditional publishing model and to keep “Snide Remarks” a-churnin’.

Basically, instead of convincing a publisher to pay me to write “Snide Remarks,” I seek to convince you — the readers — to commission the work. I’m crowd-sourcing.

We did this about 18 months ago, and it was a smashing success. I put in a bid for how much I wanted to be paid to write 50 columns; you guys passed around the metaphorical hat and raised the non-metaphorical money; I wrote the 50 columns.

Now it’s time to do it again!

For $6,000, I will write 50 more “Snide Remarks” columns. They will appear approximately weekly on Tuesdays starting Sept. 4. They will be marvelously funny and insightful, or at the very least will make fun of PETA.

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Greetings, friends! ‘Tis I, fictional Internet character Eric D. Snider! I would like to update you on what is happening in the realm of Snide Remarks, the weekly column I write in the English language for people who can read English.

A while back, I ran a Kickstarter campaign to fund the production of 50 Snide Remarks columns. I am pleased to report that last week’s entry, “Requiem for a Chair,” was the 50th. My obligation is complete. And only three and a half months later than originally promised!

Here they are, added to the archives as #619-668. These last 50 all have audio versions now, too, except for a few where the format of the column makes it unfeasible. I’ve been enjoying recording those more and more recently, especially the ones that are written as monologues anyway. It’s like I get to perform but without anyone having to see me!

And may I add that audio versions were not even part of the original contract. Threw those in for free, I did! That is added value for you, the customer.

Do I wish to continue writing Snide Remarks? Indeed I do! But must I make money writing it? Indeed I must. Such is the life of a professional writer: always needing to get paid for writing.

The Kickstarter thing worked well last time. Those who wanted to pay a dollar or five or a hundred for 50 Snide Remarks columns cheerfully (I assume) did so. Those who preferred not to contribute didn’t have to — and they still got to read the columns! Everybody was a winner.

Soon I’ll be launching a new Kickstarter campaign for another cycle of 50 columns. It’ll work basically the same as the last one, with a few tweaks. It will start soon. Don’t worry, once it starts it will not be possible for you not to know that it has started.

In the meantime, Snide Remarks is on hiatus. Think of it like a TV show. We ran 50 episodes, and now we’re on break until the new season starts. Except that the new season won’t start at all unless the people who make the show raise enough money. I even ended the last column on a cliffhanger, on purpose, just to mess with you. Better pony up the bucks, readers, or you’ll never know what happened to the chair!!

All laffy-laffs aside, I hope the regular readers know that I love writing Snide Remarks. There are things I write just for the money, but Snide Remarks isn’t one of them. I’ve been writing Snide Remarks since 1997, and similar weekly columns under different titles since high school. But I hope you also understand that as someone who makes his living as a freelancer, I can’t afford to write something regularly without getting paid for it, no matter how much I enjoy it.

Consider your gynecologist. You think she doesn’t love performing hysterectomies? Of course she does! That is why she became a gynecologist, because of the thrill she gets pulling uteruses out of ladies. But she still has to make a living. (The same applies if your gynecologist is a “he” not a “she.”) She cannot just go around doing hysterectomies in her leisure time. I mean, now and then, sure. At a party or whatever. But in general, we writers and gynecologists have to make a living.

So anyway, Kickstarter, coming soon. Thanks for your support. I love each one of you deeply, to the point that it is uncomfortable.

UPDATE: As threatened, the Kickstarter is up and running from now till July 20!

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!

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

OK, so there are three new wide releases this week, and I didn’t see any of them. I am not to blame, however! I am blameless.

Tyler Perry’s “Madea’s Big Happy Family” wasn’t screened for critics at all. I caught it Friday afternoon and reviewed it for Film.com. Eh, it’s all right, whatever. The Disney nature documentary “African Cats” screened in the largest markets but not the mid-sized ones, goodness knows why.

“Water for Elephants” — starring R-Pattz and Reese With her spoon — screened everywhere, but I couldn’t attend the local screening due to the local publicist’s longstanding policy of being insane. I will probably catch it at some point, on account of I liked the book and I like old-timey circuses.

I’m at the Tribeca Film Festival for the week, so follow me on the Twitter for updates and stuff, if you want.

New movie reviews:
“Madea’s Big Happy Family” (C+) [Film.com]

Movie columns:
– Eric’s Bad Movies: “Can’t Stop the Music” (1980), starring the Village People. I know it goes without saying, but wow, is this ever bad. Just embarrassing, baffling, what-were-they-thinking? incompetence. I actually had to turn it off halfway through and finish it the next day because it was becoming unbearable. It’s on Netflix Instant. You should watch the first few minutes of it, just to get the idea. [Film.com]
– What’s the Big Deal?: “Network” (1976). I’d been meaning to do this one for a while, but it took the death of the director, Sidney Lumet, to finally motivate me. I accept full responsibility for Mr. Lumet’s death. [Film.com]
– How “Gulliver’s Travels” could have been fixed. [Film.com]
– Why the “Don’t think about it!” argument is dumb. [Film.com]

My other stuff:
Snide Remarks: “Soccer Punch” — Portland gets a new national pastime.

Miscellaneous merriment:
– The venerable and cuddly online film journalist Drew McWeeny wrote what appears to be the first chapter in a fantastic superhero-oriented story. It’s really a fun read, and he says more is coming soon. [Mulholland Books]
– A very talented fellow named Terje Sorgjerd shot time-lapse photography on the Spanish mountain El Teide. This video compilation is breathtakingly beautiful. [Vimeo]

Subscribe to “In the Dark,” a weekly e-mail with the latest movie reviews, DVD releases, and other pertinent info.

Listen to “Movie B.S. with Bayer and Snider,” a weekly Internet radio show featuring Jeff Bayer and Eric D. Snider, at Cascadia.fm. It’s live at 11 a.m. (Pacific) every Friday, then downloadable as a podcast. Ignore the iTunes “explicit” tag; we always keep it PG.

This used to be the Friday Movie Roundup, a collection of links to my reviews and movie-related features from the previous week. But from now on it’s the Friday Roundup of Links to Many Types of Things (title still in development). It’ll still be the movie stuff, plus links to anything else I happen to have written that week (like “Snide Remarks”), plus links to things that aren’t mine but that I found amusing during the preceding seven days.

So if you don’t check the site hourly, or subscribe to the RSS feeds, or follow me on Twitter, you’ll still be in the loop as long as you remember to look at this blog once a week. If you can’t manage that, just give me your phone number and I’ll call you and tell you when there’s something I think you should read.

New movie reviews:
“Scream 4″ (C)
“Rio” (B)
“The Conspirator” (C)
“American: The Bill Hicks Story” (B)

Movie columns:
– Eric’s Bad Movies: “Johnny Mnemonic” (1995). I was astonished to realize that despite Keanu Reeves’ well-deserved reputation as a terrible actor, I’d never featured one of his movies in this column. Finally rectified that situation with a movie that I can remember watching on VHS in late 1995 at my friend Nick’s house, but of which I had no actual memories. [Film.com]
– What’s the Big Deal?: “Eraserhead” (1977). Goodness knows I don’t like weirdness just for weirdness’ sake, but David Lynch’s debut is mesmerizing. [Film.com]
– Why a New Pee-wee Herman Movie Is a Bad Idea. Come, let us reason together. [Film.com]

My other stuff:
Snide Remarks: “Leaving in a Huff” — AOL’s new friend kills Cinematical

Miscellaneous merriment:
– Someone on Twitter called this “the ‘Troll 2′ of websites.” [Yvette's Bridal Formal]
– One of my all-time favorite stupid lines of dialogue is in “The Fast and the Furious.” It involves the term “sandwich crazy.” [YouTube]
– An image-based name-the-movie game called Clockbusters. The only one I couldn’t get was the one with the old man napping, the motorcycle, and the boy in the bow tie. [Veer]
– From “Saturday Night Live,” Kristen Wiig as a Southwest Airlines flight attendant. Great example of how so-so writing can be made hilarious by sterling delivery. [Hulu]
– Stephen Colbert can’t keep a straight face talking about pap smears at Walgreens. [Colbert Nation]
– How to fold a bandanna. Trust me, even if you don’t need to know how to fold a bandanna, you need to see this video. [YouTube]

In a perfect world, I would be writing “Snide Remarks” every week, and you would be reading it, and all would be edified. Our world is imperfect — but together we can take a step toward remedying that!

I’m excited to officially announce a Kickstarter campaign for A Year of Snide Remarks. It launched just before Christmas, but I wanted to wait until after the holidays to start the big push. THIS IS NOW THE BIG PUSH.

Here are the basics. I love writing “Snide Remarks” but can’t justify the time and energy it requires if it’s not producing income, because I’m a freelance writer and not independently wealthy. And since no reputable publication will pay me to write “Snide Remarks,” I now come to YOU, the readers, to be my employers.

For $5,000, I will write “Snide Remarks” every week for a year. (Well, 50 columns. I get two weeks off.) It’s unseemly to discuss financial matters in such a public fashion, but there it is. That’s my price. Five grand for 50 columns. Now you people, you pitch in, pass the virtual hat around, and collect $5,000.

Kickstarter works on an all-or-nothing basis. We have until Feb. 1 to raise $5,000 in pledges. If that money is raised by Feb. 1, then I’ll write “Snide Remarks” every week for a year, starting March 7. If we don’t get $5,000 in pledges by Feb. 1, nobody pays anything, no columns are written, and everyone is sad.

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