Sino Francisco

Rotten Tomatoes Project: Quizlets

Schedule: NOW to September

Rotten Tomatoes is seeking talented, literate, and sassy writers for a new project that we’re implementing for a client. We are seeking freelance writers who can write mini-quizzes (or “quizlets”) that will be launched online in a big way in mid-August.

The quizlets cover personality, relationships and dating, pop culture, humor, career, and gay/lesbian topics, with a range of 10-25 questions, 5-10 results for each. Different age groups will be targeted, with the main audience being the college-age crowd. We’re looking for people who can write with humor and provocative attitude, along the lines of Cosmo or Maxim. Attitude is key here — we want content that really grabs the reader’s attention.

Our project calls for the incremental release of 120 quizlets total over a period of three months. As a consequence, we’re hoping to find around a dozen or more writers who can provide at least 10 quizlets each (although more than 10 will also be accepted). We will be paying $75 for each quizlet which is published.

If you’re interested in contributing, please let us know approximately how many per week you’d be able to do and how soon you can start and e-mail Susan Nakasora at [email protected] with the following info:

Name
E-mail address
Instant Messenger information
Phone Number
Fax Number or Mailing Address

We will then send e-mail you a package of instructions and writing samples of previous quizlets. You must be able to edit a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet (the format in which the quizlet template is written) and be able to e-mail you quizlets to us. Finally, please note that because this is work for a client, any quizlets which are finally published will be the sole property of our client (i.e. you will not be able to republish them elsewhere).

Feel free to contact me or Susan if you have any further questions. Thanks!

Woohoo! New laptop… A sub-5 lbs. Fujitsu S6000 with a Centrino design. I was hoping the battery life would be better — looks like it lasts around 3hrs. when I’m using Wi-Fi. Nonetheless, I’m really happy with it so far and it’s definitely an improvement over my old Dell laptop which I lovingly call “The Brick” because it’s so heavy.

I’m somewhat relieved that I was able to get through this week without our servers self-destructing from the heavy Matrix Reloaded-related traffic. We even got Slashdotted and our servers seemed fine. Woohoo! Unfortunately, our traffic statistics server died a month ago so I’ve been unable to calculate our increasing page views and unique visitors.

It’s been a nice relaxing weekend… I worked really late on Friday night (past midnight) because I spent so much time setting up my new laptop that I had a pile of things to do (like fixing the statistics server) afterwards. But it’s worth it. I was able to be relatively work-free today. Woke up and visited the Santa Clara Farmer’s Market on a beautifully sunny morning. We had French crepes and bought fresh flowers and strawberries. After we got back, I watched Grosse Pointe Blank on cable while doing some more work on my laptop Later, I went to wushu at Wushu Central then took a refreshing nap afterwards. Finally, Jen and I went to Palace BBQ for Korean BBQ buffet. Let me say that again: KOREAN BBQ BUFFET. THe three sweetest words in the English language. Yum.

BTW, the more I think about it, the more I appreciate The Matrix Reloaded. I know that the critical views on it a pretty divided, but I just appreciate a movie that has me talking and thinking about it days after seeing it. I’ve spent at least two hours reading various forum postings on RT and Slashdot about theories. And I disliked Mulholland Drive…

Heh! I know it’s still early, but The Matrix Reloaded is now sitting at 57% Rotten on the Tomatometer. I suspect that this movie might turn out like Star Wars: Episode 2 where it teeter-tottered between fresh and rotten about ten times before finally settling in slightly fresh territory. We got alot of hate mail on that one with people accusing us of “purposefully” ratcheting up the suspense for traffic but I swear that we didn’t do a single thing out of the ordinary when compiling the reviews.

If Matrix Reloaded ultimate sits in rotten territory, the peasants are going to be coming to our offices with pitchforks. We’ll see….

I’m going to have to be short tonight. I’m currently at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign for Roger Ebert’s Overlooked Film Festival which Rotten Tomatoes is “sort of” sponsoring. I say “sort of” because we didn’t actually put any money in (not like the old DR days when we actually HAD money to sponsor things like Wushu stuff), but provided alot of free advertising promotion on our site as well as powered their forums. It’s been a long two days, but here are some highlights:

I’ve been perpetually bumping into Eric Byler, the director of Charlotte Sometimes. He’s an up-and-coming director and probably the only other Asian American guy (well, actually HAPA) my age around here. Charlotte Sometimes is going to be playing at the festival on Saturday — handpicked by The Big Thumb himself. Besides Eric and Ebert, I’ve never met anyone else at this festival before so it’s been a pretty lonely affair.

Actaually, I should correct that: The movies have been a great joy to watch (with one humorous exception), but the time between the pictures is pretty much just uncomfortable solitude interspersed with my fumbling attempts at conversation with some filmmakers and film critics.

Amongst my more fumbling attempts, I went up to Neil Labute, a director that I greatly admire, and fumbled over my words and gave him a RT t-shirt. I already knew that he was a fan of Rotten Tomatoes since he e-mailed us earlier about some missing reviews for the horrible Possession. Of course, I didn’t mention my dislike for Possession, but I did emphasize the fact that I saw a stage production of The Shape of Things and was eagerly awaiting it’s theatrical debut. Actually, I just looked at the RT page and it’s currently slightly rotten. Doh… The funny thing is that he was in the elevator ride up with me, Eric, and Mark Caro (film critic from the Chicago Tribune) and I was a bit too nervous to talk to him directly. Thank god that Eric was composed enough to tell him that the RT t-shirt that Neil was carrying in his hand was the same t-shirt that he (Eric) wear all the time.

Other moments of social awkwardness: Jacqueline Kim, star of Charlotte Sometimes walked into the large movie theater and asked a couple in front of me if the seat next to them was free. I recognized her from the film right away and told her (unsolicited) that the seat next to me was free. I think she thought that I was hitting on her because she gave me a slightly betwixt look. In any case, I tried to recover by introducing myself and shaking her hand and asking her if she was, indeed, Jacqueline Kim. Unfortunately, I think this might have freaked her out a little more based on the next expression on her face (glancing around to see if there were other seats further away from the freakazoid). Finally, I told her I had recognized her from the film which I saw in San Jose at the SFIAAFF and that, in fact, I had met Eric years ago before the film was ever made so it was great to see his finished product on the screen with her on it. Uncomfortable silence ensues… I don’t think I quite recovered from that awkward conversation and I felt completely uneased while watching Blood and Wine with her sitting in front of me.

Okay, the final awkward story actually occured this morning. I was invited by Professor Nate Kohn, the director of the festival, to sit on this morning’s panel on “What Use is Film Criticism?” with a bunch of film critics. I let him know several weeks ago that I would be able to participate, but that as a programmer and NOT a film critic, I probably wouldn’t be the most qualified speaker. In any case, the panel consisted of some 10-15 people — so large, in fact, that they didn’t have either a table or microphone for me and I was relegated to the very end of the platform. It’s a bit daunting having to sit without cover for the whole panel. Film critics are a very vocal bunch so I was only able to insert any comments after one of the audience members, a UofI Film professor, specifically asked for my opinion since so many of her students were RT fans. That was pretty nice of her… I don’t think I would have spoken up otherwise because it would have meant interrupting one of the other panelists.

Chris Gore from Film Threat was on the panel, too, and I was a bit fearful of meeting him — Film Threat has such a maverick reputation amongst hardcore indie movie fans and I was a bit afraid that he’d consider us as unfriendly competition. However, despite all of that, he was actually really friendly throughout the day the couple of times we bumped into each other and actually began complementing the site (although he confused one feature that he especially liked with a feature that only exists on MetaCritic).

Oh… the movies. The Right Stuff on the big screen rules all! Unfortunately, the print was scratchy and the guests were a bit too removed from the main talent (e.g. none were the GREAT Philip Kaufman, Dennis Quaid, Ed Harris, Tom Wolfe, Sam Shepard). It’s still one of my favorite movies of all time and watching it on the big screen makes me love it all the more.

I watched FOUR movies today… Stone Reader is a great, entertaining little documentary that should play really well to anyone who has a love of reading. Ranch: You might want to hunt down a copy/screening of this movie because they’re especially marketing it to librarians. Alot of the movie takes place in libraries and basically involves the director of the movie’s search for a one-hit wonder author who wrote The Great American Novel — no, not Salinger… an unknown author named Dow Mossman who, by the end of the movie, becomes almost mythic folkhero to the captive movie audience. Very entertaining and with a fantastic payoff at the end.

The next film was — different. Ebert wanted to introduce the Japanese lost filmic genre of benshii. Basically, benshi’s were live performers who narrated and provided spoken dialogue to silent films in the early 20th century in Japan. The benshi were stars of their time, bigger even than the stars on the screen. Well, the artform disappeared with the advent of the Talkies, but has recently been revived in Japan and, oddly enough, Mexico. A troupe of Japanese-Mexican benshi singers performed live as a silent Mexican film played on-screen. Some things you can only take in small doses… for some unintelligable reason, the singers decided to perform the movie in a mismatched mixture of Spanish, Japanese, English, and when the occaision arose, half a dozen other languages including about two minutes of various dog barking sounds. Strange strange strange. It was an intellectual curiosity for about ten minutes before it descended into a major headache.

Neil Labute’s Your Friends and Neighbors played next which I enjoyed alot — I think. I don’t think you can really embrace this movie because it contains so much cruelty in it, but I do really appreciate it and would recommend it to my friends (but definitely not my mother). I really love Labute’s writing and his skill with characters. He’s often compared to the infinitely inferior Todd Solondz (in my humble opinion) but is a far more gifted writer, I think. Labute has a love for his characters even if they are often morally repugnant. The best satire laughs at it’s subject, but also partially has a love for it. I feel like Solondz is just there for shock value and gets cheap laughs with no empathy for his characters. He’s basically a literary bully to his own creations. Labute, on the other hand, is so gifted at making the audience shocked, laugh, but most importantly, IDENTIFY/EMPATHIZE with his characters. Strange thing is that despite his tendency for writing such extreme characters and the fact that, along with Mamet and Lonnergan, he might just be the most sought-after playwright these days, he seems to be a really normal guy in person and lives/writes from his home in a small suburb of Chicago.

Finally, the GREAT Bob Rafelson was here for the screening of the Jack Nicholson thriller, Blood and Wine. After reading Raging Bulls, Easy Riders, the chronicle of the great filmmakers of the late 60’s/early 70’s, Rafelson stands like a larger than life character in my mind. The movie is from the mid-90’s and costars Michael Caine and Jennifer Lopez (in her first film role) and would be a very standard procedural heist thriller if it weren’t for some really superbly written and expressed character details. Another very strong movie that manages to rise above the standard thriller…

In any case, I got up at 8am and pretty much watched about 9 hours of movies today so I’m going to hit the sack.

Tomorrow includes 2.5 days more of movies. I THINK I’m enjoying myself, but I’ll have to tell you later.

Did you watch Better Luck Tomorrow yet? Currently, it’s 86% FRESH on the Tomatometer.

If you haven’t, you SHOULD DAMMIT! Okay, I won’t be so pushy, but I do have a selfish reason for it. Rotten Tomatoes is hosting the Official Better Luck Tomorrow Discussion Forum which should turn out to be a nice explosion of discussion if I’m right. Please, PLEASE, PLEASE help me by posting your questions for the cast/crew, issues, complaints, love comments, porn pics (ok, maybe not that) and help me show the studios that we can actually operate a thoughtful discussion forum on Rotten Tomatoes

WHY HAVEN’T YOU POSTED TO THE BETTER LUCK TOMORROW FORUM YET!?!

Rotten Tomatoes was nominated for a Webby Award in the film category! Please click here and vote for Rotten Tomatoes, thereby justifying my means of existence for the past three years. Be sure to tell your friends to vote!!!

Slashdot | Spirited Away Set for 800 Theatre Rerelease

Woohoo! Rotten Tomatoes got /.’d today! This is the first time that we have actually been mentioned by name in a slashdot posting. For those of you who don’t know, slashdot.org is the central blog for the Linux/nerdy community and to get /.’d is a pretty big deal (i.e. a crap load of traffic gets sent to you). The most ironic thing is that our servers managed to survive the /.’ing (thank god for last week’s server upgrade) — but right now Slashdot’s images server is out. WE MANAGED TO TAKE OUT SLASHDOT!

I’m somewhat ashamed to admit that the 24/7 news coverage has me addicted like I’m on crack or something. As I’ve said before, I’m really a news junkie, but there’s a certain point where you realize that you’re going in excess. For me, that point is probably when I realized that during the day I was checking drudgereport.com every 30 minutes while simultaneously listening to NPR. At night, I’ve been staying up until 3am in the morning flipping between CBS, MSNBC, and CNN coverage of the war. Must stop… I had a similar obsessive reaction following 9/11, and again at the beginning of the Afghanistan campaign. Is there some kind of methadone for news coverage? It’s really quite gross… Like some kind of passive fascination.

What’s hot this month? How about people getting engaged, or married…? I found out about at least FOUR couples within a one week span: Joel and Angela, Ollie and his Taiwainese chickie, Flea and Hien (who I don’t know formally, but oddly recognize from pictures), Bryan and another Angela. Also.. Xanga. As Leslie says, it seems that the Asianz luvs their Xanga.

At some point, I need to begin writing my movie reviews. Pat and I had a very interesting discussion today about what the next big feature for Rotten Tomatoes should be. We finished doing our new video games section in the winter. While we have a couple of odds and ends left to do, it’s really about time for us to plan our next step. Everyone seems to be pushing us towards doing something subscription-based, but I still have very grave doubts that there’s enough viable things that we can offer to justify the effort into developing a subscription program. Patrick and I agree alot on this point that we can’t just throw just a bunch of small features out there and let it fail — there has to be something really compelling that would convince several thousands of our readers (ideally, more like five to ten thousand) to part with their money. At the same time, I’m very adamant that the “subscription features” have to tie directly in to Rotten Tomatoes’ strong brand identity. We’re the site that people go to when people want to figure out what movies to watch (and now, what video games to play); that means, movies, video games, and reviews. I don’t want to shoot off onto some tangent by offering something that’s not related to our brand. Both of us really our fascinated by this Xanga thing and the fact that it’s really well designed to ensnare people and their friends and get a sizable portion of them to subscribe. I’m not saying that I necessary want Rotten Tomatoes to do blogging, but I think both Pat and I want to find something as compelling as the blogging experience, but transferred to Rotten Tomatoes. I need some kind of divine inspiration to hit me…