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10 Movies to See Instead of "The Artist" -
On DVD: "Myth of the American Sleepover" -
The Problem with "Hugo" (SPOILERS) -
Review: "Act of Valor" -
Review: "The Forgiveness of Blood"
Interview: Joshua Marston
100 Years of "Titanic" Exploitations
Review: "Pina"
Review: "Titanic" 3D Preview
Review: "The Raid"
Review: "Sound of My Voice"
Review: "The Hunter"The New Spout
Welcome (back) to Spout, the blog devoted to the movies you love. I’m Christopher Campbell, your lead blogger as well as a curator of others’ writings, which will primarily focus on and serve as prompts for discussions of great and important films and filmmakers. Maintaining a critical yet positive voice, we will continue to provide you with smart and conversational pieces, both short and long, on anything from the classics to new releases, from any nation, genre or format. Basically anything that's relevant, timely or of contemporary interest to you, the reader and participator.
You may remember me from the old Spout blog, where, writing alongside Karina Longworth and others, I was mostly known for lists and topical roundups, some of which we've brought over here, as you can see below this introduction. These kinds of things will continue, perhaps with less frequency, and there will also be other exciting features, regular and otherwise. While some of you will notice that the community aspect of the old Spout.com is gone (possibly only temporarily), the blog shall retain some of its social atmosphere and character. What there won’t be so much of is news, reviews or snarky, negative commentary on the development and production of movies leading all the way up to their release date.
You may know me also, or instead, from such film sites as Cinematical, MTV Movies Blog, Pajiba, Screen Rant, First Showing, Cinescene and The Reeler. These and other favorite blogs and hubs cover the news and straight film criticism just fine, so who needs more of the same? The only exclusives I’m interested in here are sentences, paragraphs and the ideas about film they communicate. What I would especially like Spout to be is the space between academia and movie geekdom.
I have my fanboy tendencies, yet I also have an education in film studies, so I fall somewhere between the inclination to be an enthusiastic defender of blockbuster fluff and a pretentious snob bent on supporting only artistic, world, classic and indie cinema. Instead of either, I balance both sides of my cinephilia and come out simply loving and promoting what’s good -- or at least what’s worth a look.
There’s plenty of room for us to grow and evolve, and I’d love to hear constructive feedback as we revive the blog and define its new direction. I invite you to join us on our return journey through the past and present of film and encourage you to participate in the discussions in our comments section, or on your own blog -- which I’ll gladly follow -- in order to keep the conversation going.
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18 Comments
Christopher Campbell | August 13, 2010 9:24 AM
Guys, The Spout movie database and user-generated lists are no longer available. All movie-related content on Spout was owned by Rovi, which licenses their movie database to hundreds of sites on the Web. In the change of ownership, the relationship with Rovi expired.
dsmith321 | August 11, 2010 5:46 AM
When will the spout database be back? This is crazy.
Oh Spout you dun goofed | August 2, 2010 12:43 PM
I was a fan of the original blog format. The articles here so far have been exactly what you state you are trying to avoid: rehashes of other blogs. I'm not going to rail on you in particular, as I'm sure you're trying your best to keep this site alive, but I thought the community element was always the main-stay of the brand. Doing away with it just leaves behind yet-another summary-blog that I have to skim over in my RSS feed reader. For everyone else that's annoyed. MUBI.com That is all :)
Imacloud | July 28, 2010 8:45 AM
I'm with the rest, I'm hysterical about my missing lists! and I can't comprehend much until I recreate, or retrieve them...
KnightRyder | July 21, 2010 7:23 AM
Yes, please bring back the data from the old spout.com so we can retrieve our lists that contain thousands of movies and ratings...I at least want to print it out! I agree with someone else who said a simple email would have been nice....
Pippin06 | July 17, 2010 6:47 AM
I have to say, this is quite astoundingly horrible. I knew Spout was on its last legs, but I thought the jump to indieWire meant something good for both platforms. A new component to bolster both websites. I've been using Spout since the beta test, which is why I refused to give up on it completely even as I dialed down my usership to strictly blogging, personal (not group) listing, and rating when the former owners of the site abandoned it. I express equal frustration with the fact that those lists, some of which I used personally, are now inaccessible. I also express frustration with the notion that Spout is now just a forum for some (or one) of its bloggers that I never really read anyway and probably won't be reading in the future. There's probably nothing that can be done about this, and I have found other possible film communities that use some of the same principles that I like (I recommend filmaster to anyone who enjoyed Spout). But this was a poor move, I think, on the part of whomever did make the decision. Sad too. I'm glad I exported my blog to other sites. Hope to see some of you around elsewhere. pippin06 (of apple fame).
Dinky Dean | July 17, 2010 6:39 AM
I'm all for forward change and redesign ... but I've been keeping lists here for years and have come to rely on that data. While the old Spout was full of site lag, bugs, missing data and misinformation - the feature that was always useful was the lists. I viewed Spout as a utility for me to create and save film information what with the tag cloud features, the sorting and the ability to reference databases of films in comment posts and articles. For example, myself and others had built what I believed to be the most comprehensive list (including descriptive and important sublists) of GLBT cinema. All for naught. This redesign might be an advantage from a maintenance perspective but you've now eliminated an audience demographic. That our data, time and efforts have gone to waste is a true travesty. Additionally I believed that the true spirit of "Spout" was that we regular users could come to "spout" about our own beliefs and feelings about films. I don't know whether that was a successful feature or not but to retain the name "Spout" and kill the whole spirit of "spouting" seems backhanded. Maybe you should have considered an entire re-branding rather than just a new logo. While I realize that this was probably not the article poster's decision - I feel the conversation is rightly placed here as here is where "constructive criticism" was welcomed. Is our data still in existence? Can it be revived? And if not can you direct this portion of your audience that you've eliminated to a site where we can have this utility-like feature for the storage and creation of movie lists? (Netflix is not the answer as they are further lessening their support of the list and social aspects of their site as well.)
Dalton | July 17, 2010 1:26 AM
I'm not trying to rip on the blog writer. It probably wasn't his decision. I just don't know where else to talk about this. The new site isn't big on contact info. I really, really, really wish somebody would have warned us before making this change. Is there any way for me and my wife to get our movie lists back, at least temporarily? I don't want to keep bugging you guys, but this was handled really poorly.
Former Spout User | July 16, 2010 10:02 AM
What the fuck!? So much for all the work I put into compiling lists and arranging categories. The way you handled it SUCKS!
William Goss | July 16, 2010 7:39 AM
Chris just contributed to the blog over there, guys. Something tells me that he wouldn't have gotten rid of it, not to mention your lists, if he actually ran things over there. Ease off a bit.
former fan | July 16, 2010 3:31 AM
so all our lists and information we've been using to keep track of movies seen are now gone? the least you could've done was to send out an email warning us you're taking the site down so we can try to back up all the data. the way you handled it is disappointing.
ScreenRant | July 16, 2010 3:31 AM
Welcome back!! Vic
Mom | July 16, 2010 1:37 AM
(standing ovation)
Paul DeBenedetto | July 16, 2010 1:03 AM
UM HELLO I ALSO HAD A LIST OF MOVIES IT WAS GHOSTBUSTERS, CADDYSHACK, AND A FEW GOOD MEN PLEASE PUT IT BACK THIS IS RIDICULOUS.
Aida L | July 15, 2010 5:44 AM
Glad to see the Spout blog back and looking forward to seeing how it develops!
Dalton | July 15, 2010 5:23 AM
So...what happened to my Spout profile? My lists of (thousands) of movies? Please don't tell me they're gone.
William Goss | July 15, 2010 3:51 AM
(starts slow clap from the back row)
JBD | July 15, 2010 2:12 AM
(continues clap)