As a long time geek, a man who was ridiculed, beaten and routinely made to suffer because of the things he enjoyed, I don’t like to heap hate on fellow members of the geek tribe. That being said, I really, really, really can’t stand Harry Knowles.
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For those who don’t have any clue who Harry Knowles is, he’s the king sell-out that runs Aintitcoolnews.com. AICN started out as a really great thing, a site where people “in the know” in Hollywood could secretly talk about rumors, tips and insider stuff without risking their careers. That glorious time has come to an end as now the website basically kisses ass, blows and gives a big thumbs up to any project that will fly him out to the set or somehow hook him up within the industry,
Knowles is self-serving and egocentric to a point where it’s unbearable. Few things on the site don’t revolve around Harry’s and he attacks things with his smug cooler-than-you attitude. For example, when Heath Ledger passed away Knowles’s write up on his site centered around the first time he “met him” and his “opinion of him when we met”, it was all about how Knowles knew Ledger and it just seemed in really bad taste. Most of what he writes is very self aggrandizing and meant to demonstrate to the readers that he’s plugged into the 'A scene' in Tinsel Town.
I want to set a couple things straight right out. I’m not one of the thousands who doubt that Harry is actually a geek or that he fakes his geekdom. I was an overweight movie buff for a long, long time and my bullshit-meter is pretty high. I believe that Harry is actually a geek but I also think he’s lost that part of himself and is now working too hard to be cool. I think Harry really believes he knows better than everybody else and instead of sharing his feelings, everything he writes has the tinge of “You don’t know but I will show you the way” which makes the site hard to stomach. I do check the site a few times a week because they usually have some good stuff but it’s so bogged down with the “Harry Knowles Show” that it can be hard to find any real information.
Knowles wants to make sure you know how much he knows about film, all the cool people he knows and all the cool stuff he’s done. He aligns himself with anything that’s considered “Geek Chic” in Hollywood and rides those coattails into being able to roll with the A list. I’ve been checking the site for years and I never heard anything mentioned about Grindhouse movies or 70s exploitation horror flicks before they became all the rage, then it was all over the site. Harry’s reviews all fall into the arena of Good or “Friendly Unkind” unless it’s a movie that doesn’t fall within the parameters of what Knowles covers, then it’s open season. Since the site gained popularity I don’t remember a single negative review that Knowles has given that hasn’t in some way been soft-pedaled unless it doesn’t fall within these “cool parameter” that Knowles and his cronies on the site have set up.
The other problem with the site is some of the rumored “payola” that seems to go on. If a movie company flies Knowles out for a set visit it’s almost a guarantee that the movie will get tons of coverage and a good review. I don’t want to call it a definite but Knowles goes on endlessly about who he knows, the cool movies he went and saw with such and such celebrity that it calls into question everything he does. For instance, how can I trust anything he says about Robert Rodriguez when he will NOT shut up about how they always hang out? I’ve also seen posts on other websites that are picked up later by AICN with no link back, as if they were the first ones to post it. Recently AICN have gotten better at that but not good enough for me not to be wary of everything they post.
The site is littered with tons of filler that makes it impossible sometimes to find anything worthwhile. Harry’s DVD picks, attend a top secret screening party, what Harry thought of this, that and the other thing. Then there’s AICN Comics and AICN TV and on and on. The main issue I have with it is that it feels like Knowles is trying to insert himself in to every aspect of entertainment culture solely to expand his circle of friends. Everything on the site seems calculated, like it exists just to make Harry Knowles famous.
I’d love for Harry to keep his hip Austin movie house geek bullshit off the site, stop with all the picks and peeks and thoughts and notions and for the love of God stop trying to relate everything to how you know the person involved. If all that were taken away then AICN would return to the cool site it once was. I could stand to lose all the advertising. I’m all for making a little money off your trouble but AICN makes it really overbearing, much like everything else on the site.
I don’t hate Harry Knowles at all, I don’t even know the man, I just think he’s seriously full of shit. All the years of free trips, hanging with celebrities, getting free stuff and the accolades of movie studios have really gone to his head. His site reads more like an advertisement of how cool Knowles thinks he is instead of a site for people who love film, geek tidbits and spoilers. I’m not a hater, so please spare me that diatribe. I’m just really sickened by what Harry Knowles says he does in the name of geeks everywhere, when it’s obvious he’s way, way too cool for that anymore.
