The Fake Life - Love movies? We do too!

Friday, August 17, 2007

The End Of The End

The monster is dead, the woman kissed, the children saved and the bomb blown up real good. The story is done. The characters have been arced. The movie is over. It was pretty good, with some very exciting bits, some boring stretches, a couple of good gags and, all your friends agree, not nearly enough tits. Yes, The end of The Fake Life's final two weeks is here and there isn't going to be any more. So all that's left is to clear up the tissues, finish up that bottle of scotch you snuck into the theatre, remember our fallen comrades and watch the end credits:

Hello, I'm Chris Oliver and I am not being written by Andrew Clarke because I forgot to write a final paragraph myself. I must say that Andrew Clarke was by far the best writer for this site. Fuck y'all, all y'all. Peace out.

Well, it was fun, educational and every so often incredibly frustrating, but there you go. Thank you to everyone that read this stuff, to Charlie for coming up with the idea, to George for being an awesome editor, and to everyone who contributed. Now I can go have a shower and start watching films without the need to think up something clever to say about them afterwards. I don't know where Internet Heaven is (ed - right next to Robot Heaven), but I hope there's free porn there.

And now was acknowledged the presence of the The Fake Life. It had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their memes, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of MODOK expired. And Darkness and Decay and The Fake Life held illimitable dominion over all.

Even though this web site idea Charlie and I hatched back during a random chat session a year and a half ago turned out to be a failure in the end, I'm walking away happy and proud. Why? Because the shit I've learned about just simple dealings with people, both good and bad, has been more enriching than any sort of popular or monetary success we might have had. I say that earnestly. I have zero regrets. And I'm proud of the small community that's arisen over here, even if I don't understand a quarter of what Brad, Matt, Jon, Carl, Tim, Tom, Luca, Neal, The Question, Batman, R.L. Stine, Van, and others are fucking saying.

We made our small little impact, and we got our much appreciated support from a modest number of people. And that's awesome. But I learned, from my earliest stint at CHUD.com to here at TFL, that I'm just not cut out to be a writer. Not a writer writing about films anyway. Creatively, I don't see where I can really go with it. My passion has been and will always be the cinema, and I will continue like I have been for years to work at learning as much as I can about it so that I can hopefully someday make a contribution that isn't a slap to its beautiful silver face. That or I'll just bartend and grow fat off the tips of degenerates, which as I understand it, is quite viable. Especially when you look like Sonny Landham.

So, a million thank yous to Andrew Clarke, Chris Oliver, Doug Slack, Bill Nolen, Carlton Stevens, Shane Yaroch, Bobbie Oliver, Scott Roche, Brad Millette, Matt Hedgecock, Ben "Katanga" Miro, anyone who ever contributed even just a minute of their time to this blog, and of course, my good friend and partner in crime, Charlie Brigden. I hope all of you out there have had a great time. If not, kindly go fuck yourselves. Wu-Tang!!!

Well, it's been a little past one year and four months since a few of us got together and headed for pastures new in the form of The Fake Life. We've had equal amounts of support and protest along the way, together with some pretty good articles, at least when we could be bothered to post them. At times it's been brilliant and rewarding, other times it's been frustrating and demoralizing.

Where it's always been brilliant and rewarding is where some of the contributors are concerned, namely Andrew, Doug, Chris, Katanga, Scott, and last but certainly not least, George, whose eternal support and superior editing skills have always been the backbone of this blog.

But it's over. And I think it's the right time. If we were to go back to the beginning with the knowledge I have now, I'd definitely do a lot of things differently, and probably change our focus greatly. But now is not the time to do that. I can only wish our friends luck in what they do next, and perhaps hold a glimmer of hope that maybe one day, we'll do something together again.

Until that time...