Corona | Coming Attractions

Papa Vinyard leaves us clues about his age:

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/63408

You're gonna need a bigger thread....

You know the thing about an AICN writer: he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes, like a doll's eye. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'. Until he bites ya and those black eyes roll over white.

Based on Tom Hanks recent track record, and that the movie is about fighting over book rights (or something), I'm going to go ahead and assume I'd be bored out of my mind watching that movie. And that they (supposedly) went to The Phantom Menace for any kind of inspiration, well, you know.

I showed the trailer to a friend. His reaction:

"It's interesting that the central drama of this movie is 'Will the corporation get to debase the innovative person?' And, like in You've Got Mail, the answer is 'Yes.'"

 I never thought of it that way.  Heart warming globalisation with the life affirming destruction of the independent trader.

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/63509

I started to read the paragraph following the embedded video in the above link without first checking to see who wrote it. I didn't have to get all that far in the paragraph before I realized it was Draven.

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/63591

The fallout from the above has been enjoyable to watch. The Talkbacks are something to behold.

See if you can make it through his Kickstarter video without cringing. If you manage that, try to read through his pledge rewards.

Red Letter Media's response has netted some decent comments, too.

Oh, shit. Dalty can't click. Just for you, Daltikins:

https://www.facebook.com/redlettermedia/posts/10151589672532634

This looked like it was gathering pressure last night when I had a quick look.  Glad to see it has exploded!!!!

Poorly qualified, lacking in self awareness man-children trying to run AICN as they did back in the 90s.  Fail.

It's losing backers. It was at eighteen percent. Now it's at seventeen.

 $100,000......  is that his catering budget?

 This is fun.

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/exhibitionist/2012/04/harry_knowles_new_video_show_i.php

That was good stuff. I wish the sfweekly folks had reviewed every episode.

Harry apparently threw a party for himself this weekend to try to raise more money for the Kickstarter thing. He announced via Twitter or Facebook or something that they had raised "well over $10k" at the party. Pretty soon after that, the Kickstarter total added exactly $10,000. All at once. In one big lump.

I'm not sure exactly how Kickstarter donations work, but it was my understanding that it was all done via credit card, and that a person couldn't contribute to his own Kickstarter. It sounds a little like Harry collected people's money in person and added it in (or had someone else add it in) all at once. If that was, indeed, what he did, it sounds incredibly iffy. It sounds like he took real money, pocketed it, then pledged a numerically comparable amount.

What happens if the Kickstarter fails, then? It looks like it's probably going to. It's still only at $30,000. Do the people who donated real money get their $10,000 back? (Also, he claims "well over 10k," then the total jumps exactly 10k. What happened to the "well over" portion? Did Harry stuff it under his tit when no one was looking?)

I'm only going off what people are saying in the Talkbacks. They could be spouting misinformed garbage. It's more fun to hop on the ride and assume they're onto something, though, so that's what I'm doing.

Here's a post from a Talkbacker named TAUMarek:

UPDATE!!!! This is about to get even more shady that it already is. Harry said on Twitter that they raised "well over $10k" tonight at the party. The only way that shows up or counts toward the project is if they put it on a credit card and pay it to Kickstarter, and the max amount you can do in a single transaction is $10k, so they are going to need to do multiple transactions and have credit cards with high limits to make that happen. Kickstarter doesn't count anything unless it is done via credit card so they can collect their 5% fees.

What is really shady about this is how was this "well over $10k" collected? Why didn't they have computers or iPad's set up so people could donate at the party so it would count right away.

There are only two possibilities here and both are shady as fuck. Possibility #1 is that Harry was taking cash donations at the door and now there is no accountability to return the money if this thing fails. Anyone who donated on the actual Kickstarter page is protected, so why not have them donate directly there so they could see the funds rise publicly? Possibility #2 is that Harry is lying about getting donations.

What a crock of shit this is.

It sounds vaguely like TAUMarek knows what he's talking about. I dunno.

Some folks are suggesting Harry put in a pretend $10,000 pledge to drum up interest and give people the impression that things are going well and that faith in the project is renewed. These same people suggest that, if this is the case, he'll more than likely pull the pretend pledge right at the end. If the grand total clears $110,000, I mean.

I don't know much about Kickstarter culture. People in the Talkbacks are saying it's common practice (and common courtesy) to update your Kickstarter page with new info and stretch goals to keep people invested. These people point out that Harry--or whoever set up the project for him--hasn't updated since the page was started.

It's also pointed out that it's common courtesy for someone with a Kickstarter to support other Kickstarter projects with pledges--even if the pledge is only the dollar minimum. Harry hasn't done this. The always-and-utterly-self-involved Spike Lee has backed other projects. Did he back them solely so he wouldn't look bad? Probably, but he still made some effort to pretend he wasn't a total douche. 

Harry and "effort" don't really get along, so it's no surprise he'd dump a Kickstarter project on the world and leave it there to rot.

The Swollen Goi... wrote:

Harry and "effort" don't really get along, so it's no surprise he'd dump a Kickstarter project on the world and leave it there to rot.

But at least you can't accuse him of trying too hard.

He does that, too. The man's a cesspool of contradiction.

Here's something I don't get:

Harry says, "For the past 10 months I've paid the studio rental fee out of my own pocket to just preserve the 'Basement Set' intact from the first season of AIN'T IT COOL With Harry Knowles."

I've read that the dude is dumb with money, and this is pretty solid evidence of it. What the fuck do you think your set is, Harry? The Bates Motel lot at Universal? Sets are built to be dismantled and rebuilt. You dismantle that shit, rent a storage unit for under $100 a month, and save yourself thousands. 

This will not end well.

As trite as this may sound, but where are all of Harry's rich Hollywood friends he has shilled for over the years.

Here's the thread where Knowles announced the party:

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/63618

Here's an interesting post on that page from damn_dirty_ape:

I have a slightly unique prospective on this supposed fund raising lark that Knowles is doing. By profession, I'm a fraud investigator (qualified with the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners) and as a hobby I make home movies. So with the latter experiance, I do have a grasp of being able to budget a production and I am seriously struggling to understand how on Earth something that is essentially a series of amateur movies - which could easily be set in Harry's own den and shot on an HD-capable DSLR (I use a Sony A57 and it produces superb, semi-professional results), edited and titled on some cheap softwear like Sony Vegas and shot by, say Harry's wife - should cost anything like $100,000. Even taking into account unnecessary extras like a professional stuio and director, this silly show could easily be brought in way below the costing that Knowles has atibuted to it.

Now, my wearing my professional investigator's hat, my suspicions are raised. One of prime drivers behind civil fraud is debt, and I have seen many, many cases were people who generally would not consider any wrongdoing driven to extreme measures and dind themselves "dipping their hand in the till".

We all know the site had major tax issues and I doubt they have been resolved (if they have concentrated in clearing the arrears they've probably neglected current liabilities). And it just occurs to me that this whole Kickstarter project might be inflated deliberately so Knowles can get the budget he really needs to endulge his ego in his silly kids show and at the same time cream off some surplus to bale AICN out of difficulty. You can see how he would justify it to himself - he keeps bleating on about the "AICN community" so in his mind he probably thinks there is nothing wrong with syphoning some of the show's budget into paying the site's debts.

Obviously this is pure conjecture on my part and there is no real evidence that Knowles intends utilising some of the funds raised for other purposes. And indeed I would concede the more likely situation is that Knowles is just a bumbling idiot who doesn't know how to budget and has just pick a number out of his arse. After all, it is a bit of a stretch to suggest that Knowles - a man whose very existence casts doubt on Darwinian theory - is actually bright enough to work out that he could scam people in this manner. But we have seen in the past that Knowles can act unethically so I'm not ruling out the possibility that his plans for the Kickstarter funds, if he reaches the target figure, include settling his old debts.

Which raises another question. We know the tax arrears in 2012 stood at $300000 and that Legendary Pictures bought $100000 of advertising (hence the absurd number of puff pieces on Pacific Rim) but have they resolved the balance AND the current year's tax? If not, perhaps AICN is still in bad shape financially. I'm willing to bet the IRS are not going to be overly tolerant about these arrears and are probably pushing like crazy for payment. Thats interesting because, as a former investigator for the UK's equivalent of the IRS (HM Revenue & Customs) I can tell you that inability to pay tax demands is a very large motivator for fraud.

So to anyone who is minded to pledge some money to Knowles' vanity project, I would strongly recommend you do tour due diligence first and ask for disclosure of not only a detailed breakdown of the budget of the show but also current management accounts of AICN Inc as well.

Did Harry really have a tv show?

It was a web series hosted by Nerdist on YouTube. The episodes were generally between ten and fifteen minutes each. It's hard to come away from watching them without wanting to punch Harry.

I don't need any show to make me want to punch Harry.

It wasn't all that popular. It wasn't even popular among Nerdist videos. Some of the videos had fewer hits than that dumb Chris Latta tribute I posted in 2006.

I watched almost every episode. Some were better than others, but I mainly watched them because they were online and free. They were basically an outlet for Harry to show off all of the stuff he has collected over the years. It is an impressive collection but c'mon...someone else already mentioned it, but he is a 40 year old man showing off his GI Joes and comic books. Basically no one cares.

The simple fact he is asking for free money for "that" show is a joke.

Harry has stooped to begging celebrities for help via Twitter:

https://twitter.com/headgeek666