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n. hoop·la fac·tor (h  p lä f kt r)
degree of entertainment attained irrespective of critical worth |
FAQ |
1. Who are you? 2. Why should I care what you think? 3. So if you don't expect me to listen, why are you doing this? 4. I notice ads on some of your pages - are you in this for the money? 5. I completely agree/disagree with what you said about [insert film name here]... how do I tell you? Will you publish my opinion? 6. What kind of films do each of you like? 7. Which genres do you not like? 8. Why didn't you review [insert film name here]? 9. What is the 'hoopla factor'? 10. Can I get a job working for you guys? 11. Your reviews are great and helped me decide to see [insert film name here]. How can I show my appreciation? 12. I have a great idea about how to make hoopla.nu more accessible, user-friendly, fun or whatever. How can I let you know? 13. Can I request that you review [insert film name here]? It's really cool 14. I am the webmaster of [insert film review site here]. Can I enter hoopla.nu in my links page, or my review search engine? 15. If Stuart is so buff, how come he's single? 16. What does the RSS link on the home page do? What is RSS? 17. You guys seem to review everything a couple of months after I see it here in The States. You only ever watch videos or what? 18. I see you guys gave [movie title] four stars, and yet you said it wasn't perfect. What's that about? 19. The session times search box on the home page doesn't work - I keep getting a map of Australia asking me to select my state. Can't you guys code? 20. The home page has an 'Email updates' box - what is this and are my details secure? 1. Who are you?  Stuart Wilson is a young filmmaker in his mid-twenties, who dreams of making it big in the creative media, whether it be through writing or filmmaking. Having completed a degree in Media with honours, focusing mainly on film, he is part of a team of three that have made many short films that have been entered in competitions and festivals.Stuart works in telephony for the deaf, is unmarried, and buff.  Mark Lavercombe is a film-watcher in his early thirties, who has no formal training in film appreciation or film-making. He has, however, been a long-time film addict - tragic some may call him. Mark works when he has to, is unmarried, and - after a lot of work in recent months - is almost buff. Both Stuart and Mark are members of the Australian Film Critics Association. Mark is also now a member of the AFCA committee. 2. Why should I care what you think? No good reason, but given the volume of films we watch, we may be able to weed out the rubbish for you. Our combined experience may allow us to make some useful criticism... 3. So if you don't expect me to listen, why are you doing this? Mark told Stuart one day he needed to find a career in film, and volunteered to write a website to host his reviews. Stuart had been telling Mark for ages how great he (Stuart) was at reviewing movies, and that his opinion was all that mattered. Thus, a beautiful partnership was born... 4. I notice ads on some of your pages - are you in this for the money? Ha! The ads make us a meagre pittance when compared with the time and money we spend watching, reading and writing about film. Please click them to help support us, but don't think we are mercenary - there are better ways to make money! 5. I completely agree/disagree with what you said about [insert film name here]... how do I tell you? Will you publish my opinion? At the bottom of every review, there is a link to click that brings up our contact page. Feel free to email us about anything and everything that is on your mind. We may publish your opinions, as an addendum to our reviews, as long as they are not offensively worded, racist, sexist, or any other 'ists'. We may also edit your opinion to suit this requirement. The other option is to sign up at our forum, where you will have pretty much free rein to agree or disagree to your heart's content, (although the usual caveat about 'ists' applies). 6. What kind of films do each of you like? Stuart especially likes thrillers (particularly those in enclosed spaces), vampire films and anything with Mandy Moore (or Franka Potente or Kirsten Dunst...or Oliver Platt...go figure), but really he will watch anything. Mark especially likes romantic comedies, film noir and dramas, but has an old-fashioned yearning for mindless action at times. Our top ten lists are here. 7. Which genres do you not like? Stuart doesn't really dislike any genre. Apart from movies with Sean Penn or Robert Downey Jnr. Mark doesn't like thrillers or horrors, and provides much amusement every time Stuart makes him watch one, as he invariably jumps out of his chair at the slightest provocation. 8. Why didn't you review [insert film name here]? We are only two, and we can only watch so much. We review what we see, if we can be bothered, or we have something to say. Much of what we see is reviewed, but sometimes the volume gets on top of us and we pike. If there is a film we haven't reviewed, feel free to request we review it, or look for a review at our colleagues sites... Luke Buckmaster and his crew at In Film Australia review a lot of films, and may have something we don't. Stephen Rowley has some great thoughts on film, and is a fantastic writer - his reviews can be found at Cinephobia. 9. What is the 'hoopla factor'? Well, Stuart felt that sometimes the shit he watches is really fun and enjoyable, but is technically a poorly made film, and he wanted some way to express that. The hoopla factor is how much we enjoyed the film, irrespective of whether we think it well made or well acted. Sometimes the hoopla factor will be high even if the film is awful. Sure, it's biased by our own tastes, but which other reviewers can give you this double format opinion? We will tell you we think a film is technically great but not enjoyable, or vice versa, or both! 10. Can I get a job working for you guys? No. We are doing this in our spare time, and are not employing anyone to help at present. 11. Your reviews are great and helped me decide to see [insert film name here]. How can I show my appreciation? Well, tell your friends, family or anyone else who goes to films, that hoopla.nu rocks! The more people who come here, the more we enjoy what we're doing. If you use the web, feel free to link to hoopla.nu, as any links will improve our position in search engines like Google. 12. I have a great idea about how to make hoopla.nu more accessible, user-friendly, fun or whatever. How can I let you know? Click on the contact tab, and email us. Any feedback on how to make this place better for you, the reader, is much appreciated. 13. Can I request that you review [insert film name here]? It's really cool... Well, you can email us and let us know, but we can't guarantee we'll see it within any timeframe. We are both busy men, but we'll try to help where we can. 14. I am the webmaster of [insert film review site here]. Can I enter hoopla.nu in my links page, or my review search engine? Of course, and once you have, please email us and let us know! 15. If Stuart is so buff, how come he's single? Actually, he isn't anymore, lucky lad. 16. What does the RSS link on the home page do? What is RSS? RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, and is the wave of the future. RSS allows a web user to set certain things they want to hear about, and the information is sent to them instead of them needing to go find it. In the case of hoopla.nu, RSS allows you to receive an update whenever we put up a new review, without having to come here and check. An RSS aggregator is a program that sits on your computer, and intermittently checks your designated sources for updates, and then tells you when there is one. Say, for example, you have several newspapers, hoopla.nu and a couple of internet sites on your aggregator... it will notify you whenever any one of those sources updates. Cool. If you are surfing with Firefox, which you certainly should be, you can click the orange RSS button at the far right edge of the address bar when on our front page, bringing up the 'Subscribe to hoopla.nu RSS' option. Click yes, and hoopla.nu will be in your bookmarks, and automatically updating! In the newest versions, the orange RSS button has been replaced with  , but it still has the same functionality.If you do insert hoopla.nu in your aggregator, please set it to check for updates no more than hourly - we usually only update once a day at most, so checking more frequently is a waste of your bandwidth. 17. You guys seem to review everything a couple of months after I see it here in The States. You only ever watch videos or what? Well, we both live in Australia - which we love - but the local movie distributors seem to think we don't mind being months behind the rest of the world. In many cases a film is available for purchase on DVD overseas, before it arrives in cinemas here. We do get some films earlier - Australian films obviously, but also some Asian titles - and we will endeavour to provide our overseas readers with reviews. You can read further on this issue in our Australian Release Dates rant. 18. I see you guys gave [movie title] four stars, and yet you said it wasn't perfect. What's that about? Well, in Australia, the most commonly used grading format for movie reviews is a 0-5 scale, whereas if you come from the USA, for example, you'd be used to a 0-4 scale. Staying true to our roots, we have decided to use the 0-5 scale we know and love. Obviously this means that if you see we scored a movie a four, we thought it was pretty good, but it isn't the best, as it could have got a 4.5 or even a five if we really loved it. 19. The session times search box on the home page doesn't work - I keep getting a map of Australia asking me to select my state. Can't you guys code? We've recently starting using this search feature via yourmovies.com.au, and we hope you find this as useful as we do. Our search box does require you to have selected your favourite cinemas at yourmovies.com.au before it will work, which is a quirk of their site not ours. Once you have done this however, you can search for session times right from our front page, and not just limited to your favourites... you can get results for any state in Australia. 20. The home page has an 'Email updates' box - what is this and are my details secure? After several problems with running our own mailing list, we had recently been using the service provided by SendMeRss.com. Sadly, SendMeRss.com is no longer available, meaning we've been forced to find another provider to allow readers to sign up for email updates when a new review is published. Our new recommendation is Feed My Inbox, and Mark has been testing their service for several weeks with great success. Basically, if you wish to subscribe to our RSS feed of reviews, but don't use a feed reader or similar software, you can opt to receive an email (not more than daily) whenever we publish a review. That way you'll never miss Stuart's words of wisdom or Mark's sage advice. Of course, this service is provided by an external website, meaning hoopla.nu cannot and does not guarantee your privacy - the Feed My Inbox privacy policy can be found here, and you can read more about their service here. |
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