Am bending the rules a bit. There are twelve images commemorating December, but I’m not counting on anybody correctly identifying all. The winner identifies the most movies, and will receive $10 Amazon per movie identified. So if you identify eight movies and that’s the highest number, you win $80 Amazon bucks. If there’s a tie as per number of movies, prize goes to the earlier comment.

Cut off date is 24 hours from (about 2pm, 12/23/09).

To enter the contest, just post your list of movies in the comments below. Make sure you include a valid email address so I can send you the prize.

Hint 1: There’s a pattern.
Hint 2: Check out the movie review page.

Good luck!

1: ???

2: ???

3: ???

4: ???

5: ???

6: ???

7: ???

8: ???

9: ???

10: ???

11: ???

12: ???

It’s July, which means it’s time for another Identify The Movie contest. Here are the rules:

• Below are images from seven movies.
• Identify all seven by title in the comments below. First person to get all seven right wins. Make sure to leave a valid email address so I can send you the prize.
• For contest #7, the prize is a $70 Amazon Gift Certificate.

Hint: Images are taken from previous movie reviews published on this blog. If you are stumped, just peruse the movie review page.

Hint #2: All the movie titles this time around have something to do with the number “7” or the month of July.

Each month, I’ll add an additional movie image and up the prize by $10. So by year’s end, there will be 12 images and a $120 grand prize. Therefore, the last few months of 2009 will be the most difficult but also the most lucrative.

So without further ado, here are the seven images for this month’s contest. Fire away in the comments below.

1. ???

2. ???

3. ???

4. ???

5. ???

6. ???

7. ???

1. Below are images from five movies.
2. Identify all five by title in the comments below. First person to get all five right wins. Make sure to leave a valid email address so I can send you the prize.

Hint: The images are from movies previously reviewed on this blog. If you are stumped, just peruse the movie review page.

For contest #5, the prize is a $50 Amazon Gift Certificate.

This is a monthly contest. Each month, I’ll add an additional movie image and up the prize by $10. So by year’s end, there will be 12 images and a $120 grand prize. Therefore, the last few months of 2009 will be the most difficult but also the most lucrative.

So without further ado, here are the five images for this month’s contest. Fire away in the comments below.

1. ???

2. ???

3. ???

4. ???

5. ???

1. Below are images from four movies.
2. Identify all four by title in the comments below. First person to get all four right wins. Make sure to leave a valid email address so I can send you the prize.

Hint: The images are from movies previously reviewed on this blog. If you are stumped, just peruse the movie review page.

For contest #4, the prize is a $40 Amazon Gift Certificate.

This is a monthly contest. Each month, I’ll add an additional movie image and up the prize by $10. So by year’s end, there will be 12 images and a $120 grand prize. Therefore, the last few months of 2009 will be the most difficult but also the most lucrative.

So without further ado, here are the four images for this month’s contest. Fire away in the comments below.

Yes, there is a loose theme of people eating — I must be hungry.

1. ???

2. ???

3. ???

4. ???

1. Below are screen captures for three movies.
2. Identify all three movies by title in the comments below. First person to get all three right wins. Make sure to leave a valid email address so I can send you the prize.

Hint: The images are from movies I have previously reviewed on this blog. If you are stumped, just peruse the movie review page and see if any of the titles jog your memory.

Since this is contest #3, the prize is a $30 Amazon Gift Certificate.

This is a monthly contest. Each month, I’ll add an additional movie image and up the prize by $10. So by year’s end, there will be 12 images and a $120 grand prize. Therefore, the last few months of 2009 will be the most difficult but also the most lucrative.

So without further ado, here are the three images for this month’s contest. Fire away in the comments below.

1. ???

2. ???

3. ???

1. Below are screen captures for two movies.
2. Identify both movies by title in the comments below. First person to get both right wins. Make sure to leave a valid email address so I can send you the prize.

Hint: The images are from movies I have previously reviewed on this blog. If you are stumped, just peruse the movie review page and see if any of the titles jog your memory.

Since this is contest #2, the prize is a $20 Amazon Gift Certificate.

This is a monthly contest. Each month, I’ll add an additional movie image and up the prize by $10. So by year’s end, there will be 12 images and a $120 grand prize. Therefore, the last few months of 2009 will be the most difficult but also the most lucrative.

So without further ado, here are the two images for this month’s contest. Fire away in the comments below.

1. ???

2. ???

1. Below is a screen capture from a movie.
2. Identify the movie by title in the comments below. First person to get it right wins. Make sure to leave a valid email address so I can send you the prize.

Hint: The image will always be from a movie that I have previously reviewed on this blog. So if you are stumped, just peruse my movie list and see if any of the titles jog your memory.

The first one is basically a freebee. The prize is a $10 Amazon Gift Certificate.

This will be a monthly contest. Each month, I will add an additional movie to identify (February = 2 images, March = 3, etc.) and up the prize by $10. So by year’s end, there will be 12 screen captures and $120 grand prize.

So without further ado, here’s movie #1. Fire away in the comments below.

1. ???

After a few weeks of pain, there is a winner to the second So Bad It’s Good movie contest where I watched terrible movies that become entertaining in their badness. This time out, the entries were Brain Of Blood, Exorcist II: The Heretic, Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte, and Stray Dogs.

Each was horrid / entertaining in its own way, but the edge goes to Exorcist II: The Heretic, for a few reasons:

• Fits in a category I have some fascination toward of horrid movie sequels — see Superman IV: The Quest For Peace, The Next Karate Kid, and Rocky V. The pain is all the more intense knowing its predecessor The Exorcist is a very good and darned frightening movie.
• All the well-known, talented names attached to this project: John Boorman, Enrico Morricone, James Earl Jones, Richard Burton, Louise Fletcher, Max von Sydow — that together, all failed at a basic level of coherence.
• Witness the failure of a child star — Linda Blair — in a role totally beyond her talents — well, let me just quote myself: “Linda Blair, the little girl Regan from The Exorcist, is an appealingly daffy young teenager, but in that rough child star mode — over-compensating in the acting department as if to demonstrate she has talent. She looks a bit like Carrie Fisher mashed with Chevy Chase’s daughter in National Lampoon’s European Vacation. Ultimately, Blair’s most notable contribution is a coat hanger for some really inventive seventies fashions.”

So yeah — the winner of this contest is Sprauge D, who writes a great blog called Diary Of A Rat. He’s getting a $50 Amazon gift certificate. Maybe he’ll use it to purchase the much superior Boorman film Zardoz?

Meanwhile, if you’re at all curious, despite my warnings — this trailer is all you need to see.

However, while browsing through the titles, I have noticed much of the content is of the sub-par variety — well, that’s putting it kindly — much of it is bottom of the barrel, scraping-the-insides-of-a-cut-out-bin-with-a-spork variety.

Take these choice titles for example:

• Soul Maid: When Moses (Joe Schenck) begins having seizures that bring religious visions, his world is turned upside down in this comic fairy tale. Moses soon meets his fantasy man, David (Tom Bailey), but goddess Glintentica insists he must help her prepare for a second coming. Soon, both David and Moses’s roommate, Ruth (Becca Connolly), realize that if they don’t do something to stop Glintentica, the whole gay population will be wiped out.
• Marina Monster: With a deadly bull shark trolling the waters of the local marina, Earl Molar and his girlfriend, Oceana, drop everything to convince their parents — competing owners of rival yacht clubs — to cancel the town’s annual “Around the Bay” race. Earl’s father is so obsessed with winning the race to pay off his towering pile of debts that he hardly has time to listen. But he’s also worried about the nosy reporter who’s been watching his every move.
• Superstarlet A.D.: An instant camp classic, Superstarlet A.D. is a racy romp that takes place early in the postapocalyptic next millennium in the lost city of Femphis, where the world has returned to the order of nature: All men have devolved into deadly Neanderthals, whereas women have gained a chromosome and are all physically beautiful. Studded with buxom burlesque starlets, the film is a celebration of cheesecake and the Mad Max mentality.

Admittedly, I do have some sick fascination with awful content of this nature — I’m a closet fan of the “so bad it’s good” movie — a flick that is so unintentionally awful it becomes entertaining.

Last year I ran a contest which was the most fun I had in quite some time — forcing myself to watch absolutely horrible movies deemed “good” by readers of this blog, and review them. The winner of last year’s contest was the psychedelic-musical-camp-soft-port-satire masterpiece: Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls. Read the post to get an idea of what I’m looking for.

Anyhow, I’m reviving the “So bad they’re good” theme for another contest. The rules are basically the same as before: find a “so bad it’s good” movie for me to watch, except this time, it must be available via Netflix.

Rules:

1. Use Netflix to find a truly horrible movie. The title ideally will be available as “Watch Now” in Netflix. For information on how to find “Watch Now” titles, and in particular, lowly rated ones, see this post. Also visit the links found at Instant Watch Treasure Hunters. Or, if you don’t have a Netflix account check out this list of “Watch Now” titles.
2. Post the name of the movie you found in the comments below so I can rent it. Make sure you leave your email address so I can send you the prize.
3. The person who picks what I deem to be the absolute worst — yet somehow crosses over the line into unintentionally funny — title wins the contest.

Additional criteria:

• Please don’t nominate any of the horrible movies I’ve already seen (Alyas Batman En Robin, Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls, Creature, Do Or Die, Freddy Got Fingered, Ghost Rider, Ghost Ship, Mommie Dearest, Plan 9 From Outer Space, Reform School Girls, Tombs Of The Blind Dead, Tunnel Vision, Battlefield Earth). I don’t want to endure more pain than is necessary.
• You don’t have to have seen the film yourself to nominate it. Most likely you’ll base your choices on the box covers and descriptions provided by Netflix.

Yes, There Is A Prize

It’s been a while since I had a contest, so this time out, the winner will receive a $50 Amazon gift certificate.

Fire away in the comments below, and good luck choosing my future programming.

The rules this time out: just leave a comment with the name of a cool movie you’ve seen that you think I’d like. First movie title that I haven’t already seen (check this list to see all the movie reviews I’ve written as a start), wins the three DVDs.

Also, make sure you leave a valid email address in your comment so I can contact you to get your mailing address send you the goods.

That’s it, and that concludes this round of this DVD contest on the blog. Thanks to all who participated.

Post your guesses as to the name of this movie in the comments below:

• It’s in black and white.
• Features Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci who in one scene, beat the crap out of each other.
• DeNiro did a number on his body, gaining 60 pounds to play his character in a night-club.
• Another classic scene features DeNiro pouring ice cold water down his own shorts.

Even if you already have this DVD, you may be interested in the subject matter appropriate bonus DVD, so guess away.

Make sure you leave a valid email address in your comment so I can contact you to get your mailing address.

Post your guesses as to the name of this movie in the comments below:

• Takes place in a country I traveled to last year.
• Its director is the daughter of the director of this movie.
• Stars Bill Murray and Scarlet Johansson.
• I reviewed the movie on this blog.

Even if you already have this DVD, you may be interested in the subject matter appropriate bonus DVD, so guess away.

Make sure you leave a valid email address in your comment so I can contact you to get your mailing address.

Name the title of this flick in the comments below:

• Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
• Takes place in various locations around the San Francisco Bay Area, namely Muir Woods, Mission San Juan Bautista, Mission Dolores, Legion of Honor museum, and the base of the Golden Gate Bridge.
• Stars Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak.
• Even the opening titles are cool, designed by Saul Bass.

Even if you already have this DVD, you may be interested in the bonus DVD, so guess away.

Make sure you leave a valid email address in your comment so I can contact you to get your mailing address.

• This flick’s full title has 13 words in it.
• The director also directed Barry Lyndon.
• Peter Sellars plays several roles, Captain Mandrake, the President, and ____________ (title of the movie).
• George C. Scott as General “Buck” Turgidson has some interesting theories about communists and the American water supply.

This one is inspired by the digitization of my entire DVD library for use with the Apple TV. As a result, I now have a stack of DVDs I no longer need. So over the next few weeks, until the DVDs run out, I’m just going to give some away. But with a few rules to make it a bit more fun.

Basically I’ll describe a scene, and if you can guess the title you win. I’ll contact you via email to get your mailing address and I’ll send you the slightly used DVD of the movie described.

Mystery Movie #1

This is one of my favorite flicks. One truly funny moment is when John Cusack, the puppeteer, tries to guess the name of Catherine Keener’s character, Maxine. He has no way of knowing, so he tries every vowel imaginable and watches her reaction to guess her name. It ends up sounding like: BarrrRuuu– BellllLuuuu– Lllll– Carolllll– Taaaa-Sharrr— SusaaannnEmmmmilllly— Marr– laaarr– Maax…ine–M-M-M–Maxine?

Yeah, this is supposed to be rather easy. Fire away with your guesses of this movie’s title in the comments below, and make sure you leave a valid email address.

Rules:

• Just leave a comment on this blog, any post (not necessarially this one), and if you’re #4,000 you win 40 bucks — probably as a gift certficate to Amazon or iTunes or something like that.
• You have to leave a valid email address so I can contact you.
• I’ll delete all sploggy spammy comments so they won’t count as the #4,000.
• So act now, don’t delay, as mentioned before we’re only about 20 or so comments away from #4,000.

Good luck!

Update: The contest is over — Jon left the winning comment on an old Flash tips post. Congrats to Jon and I believe he was a total “drive by” visitor to the blog who had no idea the contest was even running. Thanks to all who participated, and the next contest will hopefully occur for comment #5,000!

Do you have any terrible ideas of your own? Enter the Webomatica Contest: Bad Video Game Ideas.

The third Webomatica contest should be fun for all involved. I’m looking for bad video game ideas.

1. Brainstorm an idea for a terrible video game. Some ideas, which should be pretty self-explanatory:
   1. Peak Oil
   2. Help Casey Serin Avoid Foreclosure
   3. Greedo: Who Shot First?
   4. Sausage Construction Set
2. For more brainstorming fodder, here’s a link to some awful video game ideas. Also check out some actual, terrible video games like Cheetamen (here’s a history site), Action 52, ET, this Japanese “ultimate challenge” game, Penn and Teller video game (read more here). Read this list of video games that got a bad reception.
3. (A video game based on one of the truly terrible movies you folks had me watch is possible, but a bit obvious).
4. “Bad” could mean “stupid” “cynical” “impossible” “gross” or “frustrating” it’s really up to you.
5. The best idea or two will be made into a small Flash video game by yours truly. That should be enough of a prize for anyone, I think — but on second thought I’ll throw in a $20 iTunes gift certificate. I’ll work with the idea person(s) directly, during development.
6. I have two playable examples coming up shortly — I think you’ll get the idea after those go live.

(Yes, there is a slight ulterior motive for this contest — I need to improve my Flash skills and small, self-contained projects are the easiest way to get my feet wet).

Please post any entries to the contest in the comments below, or write about it on your own blog and link here.

Each is horrid in its own particular way, but for the purposes of this contest I declare the winner to be Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls. You can read my review, but here are some reasons why this is my new favorite terrible movie:

• It’s real throwback to the sixties, complete with a girl rock band. All those James Bond movies, The Prisoner, and France Gall songs formed a soft spot which was perhaps easily exploited.
• Some pretty cool music — post psychedelia rock bands with horns and strings, reminiscent of the Carpenters, Brady Kids, 5th Dimension, The Association, etc.
• A shocking ending that even I wasn’t prepared for. Z-Man. Aargh.
• The acting is bad, but not so bad that I couldn’t tell one character from another. They’re each distinctly awful in their own way.
• I wasn’t bored during this movie. Confused maybe, but consistently entertained, and just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did. Several times.
• The bad movie clincher — the absolutely crappy narration at film’s end, that attempts to explain and justify everything we’ve just seen.
• I really believe the makers were trying to make a good film, but failed miserably. So this is not an instance of someone intentionally making a bad film to be funny or to save money.
• Roger Ebert wrote the screenplay.
• This film was so bad-it’s-good that I rented the preceding movie, Valley of the Dolls, made by an entirely different team (a review is forthcoming).
• I even want to get the soundtrack. Carrie Nation forever!

So the winner of the contest is Daniel Z. He runs a site over at Podophile. Congrats on a job well done, and I shake my fist in both anger and congratulation. His prize is on its way.

Thanks to all those that entered this contest and I look at several of you in a slightly different light. As a special bonus treat, here are some additional YouTube videos so you can experience a bit of the pain.

The prize this time is similar to the last contest: $20 Amazon Gift Certificate.

The contest is pretty simple and somewhat self-serving, as I’ll hope to get several blog posts out of it. It’s a so-bad-its-good movie contest.

1. Basically, nominate the absolute worst film you’ve ever seen in the comments below.
2. Make sure it’s available through Netflix.
3. Please leave a valid email address so I can send you the prize if you win.
4. Please nominate only one movie per person.
5. I’ll watch all the suggested films, review them, and decide which was the worst of the bunch — that is so bad it actually was entertaining. The person who nominated the so-bad-its-good movie wins the prize.

As a hint, this is the sort of entertainment I’m looking for.

I’ll close off the list of nominees after I get five movies to watch.

Okay, have fun, and I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

• Eric Berlin of Online Media Cultist.

The comment was on the post: Link Sharing: 5/10/07 and read as follows:

“I dig the stats portion of your link sharing columns, very cool!”

Perhaps not the lengthiest content worthy of an aspiring novelist, but this contest was about timing, not quantity. And brevity is the soul of wit, right?

Eric has his own technology blog at Online Media Cultist. It’s no surprise that I’m a regular reader of his blog. He has a good handle on tech events and offers up well-thought out opinions in an entertaining style. I first noticed his blog when it was called Dumpster Bust, and if memory serves me correctly, I also ran into Eric over at MyBlogLog. He told me about Blogcritics.org where he’s an editor. Yes, I know I need to write more stuff for that network — I hope to get back on there after Gilmore Girls goes off the air.

So that’s it for the contest. I hope it was as fun for you as it was for me. I was chuckling at the slew of comments appearing early on in an attempt to win the prize, but everyone vanished as soon as the prize was about to be won!

I think I’ll do another contest in the future. I’m already considering a $50 iTunes gift certificate for comment number 5,000 — sometime in 2008.

Yeah it kind of scares me too, but Webomatica is nearing 2,000 approved comments, including trackbacks. I think that’s worth celebrating — as I’m not going to celebrate Akismet blocking spam number 10,000.

I want to encourage friendly comments on this blog, so just continue with business as usual, but whomever leaves comment number 2,000 (meaning, either a trackback or comment on any post of this blog) will get a friendly email from me with a prize — I’m thinking a $20 iTunes gift certificate. That value of $20.00 is similar to comment number 2,000. If it’s okay with the winner, I’ll post some info promoting their blog or website.

So here are the guidelines:

• Comment on any post on this blog.
• Trackbacks count, too.
• Please don’t spam.
• Make sure you fill out a legitimate email address so I can contact you. Email addresses aren’t shown publicly; only to me.

I’m not divulging the number of comments I’m at right now — just know the number is within striking distance and based on the past, I estimate it will be hit sometime today… within the next week or so.

So… plz comment!