Joe Carnahan quits blogging
Joe Carnahan, the writer and director of Smokin' Aces, Narc, and the upcoming White Jazz and Killing Pablo, has been blogging on and off for some time now over at Smokin' Joe Carnahan, and he's provided one of the more personable celebrity blogs there are.
However now he's calling it a day, and while he doesn't say exactly why, if you've followed the blog it's pretty clear why.
Although he's had a few problems in the past with revealing a little too much on upcoming projects than the studios and executives would have liked, he had curtailed that quite quickly, which was a shame. We saw early concept art for White Jazz, which was quickly pulled off, and information on the Smokin' Aces prequel.
However I don't believe that's what stopped him, because we were still getting some interesting reports from his Killing Pablo, just not enough!
No, it seems the real problem was us, the readers, or rather the commenters.
Well not the majority of commenters, but the reason that I, and many other sensible people, hate the Internet, the people who are commonly referred to as trolls. Those who come onto a site and are just abusive and antagonistic to try and get a rise from others, basically people who use the Internet to hide behind and vent all they find that they can't vent or deal with in their own day to day lives.
Most of us are well balanced individuals and can hold discussions in real life and on the Internet, but there are those that relish abusing and attacking others as soon as they are well hidden enough to know that there's no comeback. Of course put these cowardly people into a real life situation and chances are they either aren't allowed out by themselves past tea time or would turn to jelly faced with an actual human being.
Over at Joe Carnahan's blog these kind of people were rampant and there were a fair number of attacking and extremely negative comments made towards him and his films. That wasn't all there was though, there were plenty of fans and positive comments made, I even left a few myself, especially when he was kind enough to recognise the Filmstalker review of Smokin' Aces.
However he didn't do himself any favours, he engaged these people head on and took a lot of what they said to heart, and that's a shame.
You see because of these people we're now losing the voice of the writer/director and he'll disappear back behind the marketing machines of the studios of his films. We're going to lose this view behind the films and the productions, this valuable source into pre-production and development.
I do wish he'd found a way to keep going, either by stopping comments or by asking for full registration to allow commenting. Maybe even employing someone to run the comments side for him, someone who could act as a go between and deal with these people while taking the real comments and questions to Joe for him to answer.
Unfortunately this isn't going to happen and his site is closing, and it's down t those abusive, arrogant people who can't be bothered to be polite or considerate, haven't heard of constructive criticism, and who find great personal achievement in attacking other people and bringing them down.
Personally I can't be done with them and would rather engage in intelligent discussion and debate, even if it does get heated.
So it's a sad farewell to Joe Carnahan's blog, but hopefully it'll allow him to stay focused on his film-making and produce some excellent films. I for one am looking forward to his future projects.
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