Sunday, May 29, 2005

You can reach me at...

Ever feel like you are not the person people perceive you to be? Ever wonder if you're horrendously disappointing people?

I'm not trying to get all deep and morbid on y'all. Actually, this is just a funny way of setting up the fact that I finally registered for a SiteMeter, which is the little Rainbow Flag-looking gadget you'll now find at the bottom of the sidebar. (It looks like one of those Out and Proud decals, and that's cool, too.) Anyway, the little feller is able to tell me what websites lead to the most traffic on my site, and even better, in the cases of search engines, what search terms people used to find me. By far the most common are a buncha variations on "Nick Davis" or "Nick Davis film reviews" or "Nick picks flicks," all of which suggest to me that people cannot remember the exact syntax of my tongue-twisting site name, which is my own bad. But look, y'all, I dare you to come up with something better that isn't taken.

From here, it gets funnier. When you discount all the stuff based on my name, the runaway most common search term is "three-legged man." Normally, I guess I'd be flattered at this quirk of Google, but y'all know it's just about that John Donne/Ewan McGregor piece I posted a while back, on the shared anniversary of Donne's death and Ewan's birth. Brothers don't tend to stay around longer than 0:01 when they click on my link—apparently, they don't all have metaphysical poetry in mind. (Not that I did either, at least not exclusively.)

The pattern continues, in more surprising form. Like, someone just hit me up by Googling the term "erotic stripshow." It only works in quotes, i.e., as a holistic phrase, but do you know that I come up first on a Google search of "erotic stripshow"??! This, it turns out, is because of a stray line of plot description in my capsule review of Secret Things. This wayfarer of the cybernetic ocean didn't get off too well, either; another 0:01 visit.

The third most popular search term is "Katharine Hepburn's brownies," though the amount of violence done to the proper spelling of Ms. Hepburn's name is enough to make anyone agog, Kate especially. (Did y'all know she used to return fan letters with the misspellings, typos, and syntactical errors circled in red ink, if there were too many for her to stomach? True story. Can't really see Reese Witherspoon or Scarlett Johansson doing that.)

So, I guess that's my site in a nutshell, at least according to Google: a 24-hour cabaret of well-endowed men doffing their duds while the oven preheats. Maybe you thought you knew what you were reading, but you haven't been paying enough attention between the lines.

P.S. It just occurred to me that an unwitting side-effect of this post is that all of the above phrases will be even better-represented on this site, only increasing the likelihood that people will use them to get here. As in most moments of crisis or ambivalence, my mind inclines toward what Paris Hilton would do or say in the same situation, and I'm pretty sure that she would advise me that no publicity is bad publicity.

So, make yourself at home, y'all. Here's a sifter and a dollar bill.

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7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Recently, the vast majority of people who find my site through a search engine are in search of nude pictures of Margot Stilley, the "star" of Michael Winterbottom's art-porn film "9 Songs," which I recently excoriated. That review has 400 hits so far in May; the next highest is "Y Tu Mama Tambien" with 120. (I have no nude pictures of Margot Stilley, in case you were wondering.)

A year or so ago I learned that I had spelled Halle Berry's name incorrectly in my review of "Swordfish," because the #1 phrase used to find my site that month was "Halle Barry nude".

9:43 PM, May 30, 2005  
Blogger NicksFlickPicks said...

It's sad, but I have now read unmitigated put-downs of 9 Songs by the three film critics I most trust: you, Tim Robey, and Nat Rogers... and I still can't wait to see it. I love Michael Winterbottom, I like movies about sex (though Intimacy was as awful as this one sounds), and I wanna see the concert footage. Why can't I ever be saved from myself?

But you sure nailed it to the wall. "This is the worst movie I have ever paid money to see in a theater." Youch. Did you see The Legend of Bagger Vance?

10:32 PM, May 30, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

A good friend agrees with you, but he put it a little more bluntly: "I wanna see the fucking." My favorite movie about sex is "An Affair of Love," and my favorite concert film is "Stop Making Sense." But I insist that it would be a bad idea to cram them together.

...Eskimo...

I sorta kinda liked "Bagger Vance," and I caught it on video anyway. (Don't hate me.) The also-rans for worst movie I've ever paid to see in a theater are "Paparazzi," "Sibling Rivalry" (although technically I got reimbursed for that, since I was reviewing it for my local paper), and... uh, I'm stumped. Probably "Paparazzi," because there was absolutely nothing of value in it. What's the worst movie you've ever paid to see (unless it's "Bagger Vance")?

11:56 PM, May 30, 2005  
Blogger NicksFlickPicks said...

I actually saw Bagger Vance at a free advance screening, so that doesn't count. I unknowingly checked my watch so many times that the person seated next to me actually asked me to stop.

My first impulse when I read your question was Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, but then I remembered Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, which I paid to see on opening day.

And then I decided this question deserves its own blog entry. Look for it soon. Though I might stand by these answers.

Oh, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion! Fuck. This is hard.

12:11 AM, May 31, 2005  
Blogger Dr. S said...

I still put Possession up there, and The Avengers, which I paid to see on opening day.

8:48 AM, June 01, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nick, I beat you to it.

2:39 PM, June 01, 2005  
Blogger CAW said...

Came across your blog this morning. Excellent writing style. Love the reviews and I will definitely be back often. (you have been warned..lol)

9:06 AM, June 07, 2005  

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