"KEEP BUSTIN'."

The reviews of my reviews are in

tn_ykymSorry to be self-indulgent here but I gotta brag about this review I got from The Independent, which is from what I hear an actual newspaper.

Check this shit out

Makes me sound real respectable (and then mysterious at the end). Very wrong release date for Seagalogy, but way more positive a review than I ever expected.

I was also happy about this one on blogcritics, mainly because of this quote:

“To appreciate Yippee Ki-Yay Moviegoer, you should first appreciate movies. The only other qualification is being open-minded. If you are offended by street language or obscenity and base descriptions of human activities, you will be offended by Yippee Ki-Yay Moviegoer. If intelligent ideas — no matter how they are expressed — attract you, then you will enjoy Vern’s take on Hollywood and beyond.”

I think that’s the best description of what I do here. Street language and base descriptions of human activities.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 19th, 2010 at 11:18 pm and is filed under Blog Post (short for weblog). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

43 Responses to “The reviews of my reviews are in”

  1. First!

    Congrats Vern. :)

  2. Congrats Vern, looking forward to the book

  3. Congratulations Vern, hope to be reading this in the coming summer.

  4. I’ve always felt base descriptions of human activities were your strongsuit.

  5. Even though I’m British, I can’t help but read that Independent review and hear in my head the sort of
    Simpsons caricature of a snobbish British accent. Probably because the Independent is a snobbish broadsheet
    rather than one of the tabloids. Anyway, congratulations on the reviews Vern. I’m looking forward to ordering it at
    the end of the month.

  6. You left out obscenity. I’d say you do that well, too.

  7. “Vern isn’t an entirely real person.” ….well who the fuck is these days. Nice one on the book and the review man.

  8. Mike, can’t disagree with you more. I think it generally speaks sense although occasionally leans a bit far left for my tastes. Still, it’s nice to have a paper that presents a more balanced view of asylum than “Get the darkies out”, which is about where the Daily Mail and its ilk stand.

    Also Tim Walker is an excellent critic, and being compared to Mark Kermode (some of his reviews are on YouTube if anyone’s interested) is a huge compliment – he’s close to being the British Roger Ebert, from what I understand about Ebert.

  9. Jared – goddamn you, do NOT start that shit here!

    Vern – congrats, dude! though i have read all the reviews included in “Yippee Ki-yay Moviegoer!” (most, if not all, multiple times), i plan on picking this up at some point to a) show my support, and b) just cause physical objects are cool, and i can show it to my friends. it’s too bad that “Seagalogy” didn’t get this kind of mainstream exposure (or maybe it did, and i just didn’t notice… ?).

  10. Seagalogy got plenty of exposure, including Entertainment Weekly, MTV.com, The Guardian, and of course the butt-oriented Smooth Magazine which gave it five stars out of five. There was also a Dutch magazine somebody sent me that was not in English except for the headline “MY BALLS! MY BALLS!”

    Titan has done a great job getting coverage for my books, I can’t thank them enough.

  11. Vern, just bought the latest issue of Total Film in the UK and Simon Kinnear wrote the following review of the book on page 158:

    “If 95 per cent of movie blogging is moronic wtf lolz, Vern represents the other five – a scathingly irreverent but sure-footed challenge to snooty critics. Already a cult figure on Ain’t It Cool News, Vern’s distinctive style, masking merciless wit with foul-mouthed faux-naivete, is consistently amusing – the only danger is this self-confessed “asshole” being tames by respectability.”

    You got four stars by the way. Nice one.

  12. This might also tickle your pickle, Vern …
    My girlfriend is a teacher, and she has used your review of Transformers in school to show the young ones what a review can also look like. Although many were amused by it, there were reportedly also a few that took offence, because they view Transformers as a cinematic masterpiece.

    So consider yourself a part of a school curriculum. Respectable and subversive all at the same time.

  13. I am the butt-oriented critic who gave Seagalogy five stars. It was the best use of my butt-oriented powers to date. I also reviewed YKYMG. I’m gonna email Vern the review later. Maybe if I’m lucky this post will get updated and I’ll be a part of history. Butt-oriented history.

  14. Congratulations, Vern. The quoted review review nails it. I’m not easily offended, nor am I easily stimulated by the same old shit. This is a perfect review site for me.

    Keep up the good work.

  15. Congratulations, Vern!
    Usually I would now go all John Dorian on you and give you an (not sexually) excited hug, instead I do it like a real man and stop shaving for a week (That’s when it starts to look like a three-day beard on me), put my hat on, take a seat at the bar and then give you a nod and raise my glass of Whisky (-looking, peach flavored ice tea).

  16. Congrats Vern, Lord knows you’ve earned some good old-fashioned respect from people other then us.

  17. I guess I can’t accuse Germans of not knowing how to have a good time anymore. :)

  18. Jareth Cutestory

    April 20th, 2010 at 6:46 am

    I like how the first reviewer ends his first paragraph with the phrase: “But then there’s Vern.” I read that sentence with the theme song from MAUDE playing behind it.

    Mathias: I know a guy who is a TA for a university film studies course in genre film. I’ve been trying to persuade him to put SEAGALOGY on the course list, not so much to further the cause of Seagalogy as a legitimate field of study, but in order to generate some revenue for the author. But I like you idea better: get the kids familiar with Vern at a young age. He’ll be like Dr. Seuss to the little fuckers. Eventually Jim Carrey will star in a movie version of 5 ON THE OUTSIDE.

  19. Congratulations, Vern. Can’t wait to get my copy.

  20. Awesome Vern, and whilst I don’t really go for the “proud of what bit of land you were born on” stuff, it does make me smile knowing that you’ve been getting good reviews from some fellow englishmen(or women).

    I wish I’d got a copy of Seagalogy bought in for my uni library before I left, there was a decent selection of film texts dedicated to genre films and yours would have fit perfectly. (Also Mark Kermode’s wife taught me, so it could have found his way to him and we’d have some awesome cross atlantic critic union)

    As for exposure, I’m suprised at the extent of Seagalogy in the UK. I mean, don’t take offense Vern, but I didn’t expect to see it turn up in London’s Forbidden Planet, I didn’t know your excellence striving had reached that far. That’s some damn fine marketing from Titan books, they really seem commited to getting it out to every corner of the western world they can.

  21. oops, now i remember seeing some of the Seagalogy coverage, dunno what i was thinking. guess it’s just because it was back before the new websight, before we could get instant heads ups on things like that and discuss them.

  22. yeah that article made me realize, just who the hell IS Vern anyway?

    talk about mysterious….

  23. Vern just by reading this I gotta said It made me laugh:

    “I’m not a professional movie critic,” Vern writes in his introduction. “I’m just some asshole… [who believes] a well-rounded movie lover oughta have something to say about Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Claude Van Damme.”

    Just awesome. I´m 100 % backing you up.

    Well, I live far awy (in south america) and don`t have a credit card. But i`ll see if I can get a copy. You deserve it man. really.

  24. congratulations. for real.
    i’m very happy for ya, and i can’t wait to get my copy in the mail.

  25. Sorry to piss on your parade Vern, but Guru from Gang Starr just died.

  26. “giving quality nonsense the depth of analysis that it deserves”

    Love it. Congrats.

  27. Keep striving man

    Grats on all the praise you are receiving, hope bigger and better things keep coming your way.

  28. Congrats Vern! Wider Vern appreciation = a better world.

  29. Good For You Man,Maximum Respect Everytime.

  30. Well done Vern, you deserve it man.

  31. I’m actualy an Indepedent reader (not every day as it’s a pound a shot. That’s expensive for a newspaper) and have to disagree with the above comment that it’s a snobbish broadsheet. It is an open minded paper for the intelligent reader and doesn’t require Mr Fantastic arms to read it. I missed your review but would like to give you a pat or rather spade on the back for getting the exposure you deserve. Can’t wait to read your new one.
    Yeah, bad news about Guru to.

  32. The book also got a great, albeit small, review in this month’s Total Film (UK).

  33. Great work Vern – well deserved. Looking forward to getting a copy to bookend with Seagalogy. On that note, are you going to update with S.Seagal’s newer releases? You could call it the Cockpuncher edition… I’d pay for a book with cockpuncher in the title. Especially if it meant I got to see it on the Times bestseller list.

  34. Respect.

    Better watch, you;ll be getting more coverage and attention than Aintitcool soon and Harry won’t like that.

  35. BTW, I would love to repeat my suggestion that your next book should be about “geek properties” (Star Trek/ Wars, Lord Of the Rings, Harry Potter, Superhero movies…).

  36. Darth Irritable – the day Titan comes to me and asks me to update it I will be thrilled to do that. They have the rights to it for a long time, which is fine with me. I think it’ll be a while before that happens but I definitely plan to do it when the opportunity arises.

    CJ – nah, the next book is gonna be about Penny Marshall

  37. Vern, you do realize that probably now everybody here REALLY wants a Penny Marshall book from you, right? (At least I do.)

  38. Vern… Laverne… There’s a joke in here, I know it.

  39. YIPPEE (the abbreviated book title, not the exclamation) just arrived in the post, looking forward to reading it!

  40. I finally ordered it. I have to pay almost twice as much as Americans have to, because the shipping rates are fucking high and I probably have to wait till the end of next (!!!) month till it arrives, but I wouldn’t have done it if it wouldn’t be worth it.

  41. Yay, my copy has just arrived! WAY earlier than expected, but if our Janitor hadn’t found the package lying on the floor IN FRONT OF my mailbox, who knows how long I could have waited for it?
    It’s much thicker than expected, but that’s good. In fact it’s great! Can’t wait to read it.

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