LoveHate

On the 30th I did a Twitter “Drive Angry” search just to see if anyone had noticed the movie was on DVD BLU. They had. Over the years I’ve seen assorted people retweet praise for their projects. Eli Roth does it. Simon Pegg does it. Steve Niles does it. So I figured I’d do it. Within reason, of course. Too much and it annoys. Just a handful that grab my attention. Once or twice a day.

I wanted to go. Never been. But have heard great things. There was a catch. Would they “get it” and play along? Or would they hate on it? If the first then it would be a blast. If that latter then it could be awkward for both me and the performers… if they found out I was there. I could have reached out to determine… had I thought about it. But I didn’t. So I didn’t go. As it tuns out Billy Burke went and had a blast. Benson and the panel got it. The audience got it. I should have gone.

On day two of “retweet the tweets” I noticed the hate. Wait. I spelled that too small. I noticed the HATE. While there was tremendous love for our little movie. There was massive hate. And I caught myself giggling at it. I thought about posting one or two hates because they were so funny. And in truth, we knew going in this would be a movie you either got or didn’t get. We knew it would be either loved or hated. So it wasn’t a shock. But tweeting hate? That’s not how it’s done.

It was also on day two that I got a little star struck. Megan was watching Drive Angry. Megan Ganz? She’s a writer on Community! And she was photo posting Drive Angry on her blog. A writer from my favorite television show was watching my stupid little movie? Yeah, that’s geeky cool.

A few hours later I decid to check out more feedback. And there it was. Both love and hate. So I decided I’d tweet the hate as well.

… and the confusion.

There was a poster contest. People going nuts to get a poster. Others were praising the movie. Others were turning it off with disgust. I was completely fascinated by the whole experience.

How could one person call it the best movie of the year, while the very next person called it the worst? I don’t know the answer but I found the food delicious.

As for those sending me personal notes, they were all filled with love. And Old Milwaukee. While fun to read and certainly makes ya feel good about the 18 month investment it takes to make a little movie…

… not as fun as posting the hate.

And make no mistake. It was the movie that made her sick. Not the peppermint shots.

Roger Ebert thinks it was Stone Cold Steve Austin who got a boot in the face. Who am I to correct the Roger?

This guy doesn’t just have an opinion. He’s an actual twitter critic. Got a rating system and everything.

There’s a whole lot of wow in Tyler’s tweet.

I heart Barbara.

This one raises an interesting point. I saw several tweets by woman commenting on Frank beating up Piper. Some hated the movie because of it. Others loved everything about the movie except that part. I didn’t retweet those because they weren’t fun. They were personal and important and deserved better than being included in a goofy list. What really shook me was the handful that actually thought this meant we were condoning violence against women. So let’s discuss.

First off, I can’t tolerate rude behavior in a man. You strike your woman in front of me, I WILL get involved. Right or wrong, I have been in numerous fistfights as a result of this. Used to happen more often when I lived in LA. Not so much here. The last incident was couple years ago. I wrote about it. Late night Long’s Drugs, a guy and his girl were arguing and he grabbed her. He was gonna hit her. His hand was raised. I got in his face and belittled him until he took a swing at me. Then I punched him in the forehead and put him on the floor. Two things. One, I wasn’t aiming for his forehead but that’s what happens in real life. Two, his girl cursed me and cradled him in her arms.

Men like Frank exist. They cheat. And when caught they blame their woman. And when she stands up for herself they hit. And sadly, much of the time they get away with it. Not in Drive Angry. Frank loses his girl, his car and his life. As it should be.

There were other reasons Frank was as bad as he was. We needed the audience to accept the fact that Piper would go on this journey with Milton. Frank HAD to be that bad. There had to be zero reason for her to go back. There’s alot of LOVE and HATE for Drive Angry. Both extremes. Not one person has said, “I think she should have stayed with Frank.” We nailed that one, my friends.

We also needed to introduce the threat that was the Accountant. That mean tearing through someone. But we didn’t want you to HATE the Accountant. That meant he needed to kill someone you HATED. And thus was Frank. I think it’s cute that there are those who think we did just to give me a role. Story and character always come first. Always.

I honestly don’t mind the hate for the movie. But to think I or we condone violence against women annoys me.

No idea if Mrs. Wrestle is being sarcastic. Can only assume she is. But we always did intend there to be a heart at the center of the nasty little journey. And alot of blood, boobs and bad words.

If you turn off the movie upon reaching the title card, then you really hate violence, right? Or perhaps language? I’m not saying the guy is right or wrong. Just curious.

We tried to be equally offensive with sex, language and violence.

“I wish I had a time machine soo I could go back and not watch drive angry…” I don’t care who you are, that tweet is funny.

It’s the first time anything I have done has been labeled “shitiest”. I consider that a win.

This one made me smile. That’s BenDavid’s brother. :)

I kept an eye on Jeff over the next few days. He was still tweeting so thankfully a movie did not drive him to suicide.

I wonder if Jamey bought 10 DVDs.

And I like your style, James.

Ebert did not like Drive Angry. He got it. Understood what we were going for. Acknowledged that we succeeded. He just personally didn’t like it. And even though he didn’t, I LOVED his review. Now there’s a cat who can write a review. And I say that knowing good and well that he has never ever liked one of my movies. Not a single one. And while I have mostly stopped reading reviews of my stuff (I read four reviews out of the dozens and one DVD review), I still read Roger.

Yeah. Me too.

Now this was a first. One of the above got extremely annoyed that I had retweeted his/her tweet. And in turn tweeted to a professional critic to ask how said critic handled criticisms of their movie criticisms. Two things. First off, I wasn’t criticizing the tweet. I was just sharing it. If you don’t want that then either protect your tweets or get off twitter you twit. Second, I’ll never grow tired of critics who get offended by their critics. Dudes. Two words. Irony. Karma. Check em out.

Community. Drool.

I may tell this story later.

This exchange still makes me laugh.

I like Libby.

There are so many favorites in this one.

And in closing…

Now… if you made it to the end then I gotta ask? How many twitter users tried to click on any of the above links? :)