Four Word Film Review

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The Four Word Film Review (FWFR) is a website founded in 1999 by Benj Clews. It is an online database of film summaries, all written in four words or fewer and submitted by site visitors. Its title is a bit of a misnomer, harkening back to the site’s origins when it was conceived as a collection of actual film reviews, of four words or less. The evolution towards film summaries rather than reviews has resulted in a far more entertaining and creative website.

The Four Word Film Review was nominated in 2005 for the distinguished Webby Award in the Humor category.

Contents

[edit] Reviews

Users of the site, by consensus called "FWFRers" (pronounced "fwiffers"), create the reviews and post them to the site where they are put into the FWFRer’s Pending Approval list. Clews and a team of volunteer editors (called "MERPs" on the message board, an acronym for the site's Multiple Editor Review Processing system) weed out submissions according to broadly defined selection guidelines. While controversial at times, the selection criteria are intended to ensure a vibrant, entertaining, and humorous website for the users. If the review passes the Pending Approval process, it is added to the site and other fwfr'ers have the opportunity to vote on it.

Exactly what constitutes an “acceptable” Four Word Film Review is often a source of heated debate on the site’s message board. As is the nature of cyberspace, the rules are ever evolving, and subject to both the whims of the site’s creator/owner, and the interpretation of the MERPs. There are, however, a set of basic understandings. Every page of the website features a “What Film?” box, which randomly selects one of the many thousands of reviews and allows the visitor to guess which film it refers to, then follow a link to the film to see if he or she was correct. This is probably the defining feature of the website, as it must be theoretically possible to guess the film based on the review in order for a review to be accepted, assuming one has actually seen the film or knew some basic details about it. The most common reason for the editors to decline a submitted review is “too generic,” meaning it doesn’t make specific enough reference to the film in question. Other reasons a review may be declined is that it exceeds the four word limit, it’s a quote from the film itself rather than written in the voice of the site user, or it simply may not be understood by Clews or his MERPs. A declined review is entitled to one appeal, where the site user may explain the review and why they believe it should be accepted. Appeals are limited to 100 characters or less.

It should be noted that many of the selection criteria are often bent, stretched, or broken to allow for particularly clever or otherwise entertaining reviews, according to the discretion of Clews. The only rule that is truly set in stone and which may never be deviated from is the most obvious: all reviews must be four words or fewer. No exceptions.

[edit] Examples of Reviews

[edit] Quality Reviews and Voting

Any review meeting Clews’s basic criteria can be accepted for publication, but few FWFRers are satisfied with a “straight” review, unless their goal is to simply write as many reviews as possible. Users of FWFR are encouraged to "vote" on reviews that they particularly like or find humorous, and the object is to accumulate as many votes as possible by writing humorous, clever, or otherwise entertaining reviews. The four word limit makes this far more difficult than one might imagine, and requires a great deal of creativity on the part of the users. FWFRers attract votes from each other by making use of alliteration, rhymes, puns, jokes, and numerous references to popular culture. Over the years, an entire cult has evolved around the website, leading to many inside jokes within the reviews themselves. Perhaps the most famous of these involves the now iconic “Icy Dead People” review of the film Titanic. This review, referring to the victims of that ill-fated vessel that froze to death in the icy waters, is an example of a “pop culture reference” review, as it is a pun on a famous quote from another film (The Sixth Sense). It quickly became one of the top vote-getters on the site, and has spawned countless imitators, all based on the same pun. Reviews are also judged by how completely they summarize the film, as it may be easy to make a specific enough reference to the film to fulfill the “What Film?” requirement, but to sum up an entire feature film in just four words is exceedingly difficult.Each fwfr'er is allowed to vote on a given review only once. A review with a high number of user votes indicates a high quality review.

The twenty reviews that receive the most votes each day are displayed in the "Top Reviews" section of the site. The Top Reviews section is changed dynamically to constantly reflect votes cast during the preceding 24 hours.

[edit] All-time top reviews

Perhaps the ultimate goal for a fwfr'er is to write a review that earns a spot on the site's "All-time top reviews" page. This page displays the one-hundred reviews with the greatest number of votes. Currently, long-time reviewer MguyX's review for Kramer vs. Kramer is the all-time highest vote getter ("I bet Kramer wins."), which only barely displaced the relatively less prolific pudking's review for Titanic ("Icy dead people.") at the number one spot. Other former number ones include Aardball's review for The Blair Witch Project ("Tense. Intense. In tents.") and noncentz's review for Breast Men ("Sale of two titties.").

[edit] Noncentz

For many years, a fwfr'er with the username of noncentz has been the undisputed champion of FWFR in both the highest number of reviews, the highest number of reviews on the All-time top reviews page, and the highest number of total votes. Recently, noncentz has been overtaken in terms of review quantity, but it is generally agreed on by regular fwfr'ers on the Fourum that noncentz's style is the gold standard of four word film reviewing.

[edit] Accolades

In addition to votes, FWFRers may accumulate Accolades. An accolade is any number of films arbitrarily chosen by the accolade creator because they share something in common. Examples of accolades would be films in a series or a franchise (the Star Wars films, The Terminator series, et al), all the films featuring a certain actor or made by a particular director, or films featuring a day of the week in the title. There is no limit to the number of accolades that can be created, nor any guidelines for their creation. An accolade can include as few as one film, or every film in the database. Each FWFRer's personal page includes a "trophy cabinet," showing every accolade they have ever completed. To date, the FWFRer known as "AC" or "Aussie Canuck" is the most productive completer of accolades, with well over 1000 in his trophy cabinet. Any FWFRer can create accolades, and many have made extensive use of this feature, offering long lists of films they challenge fellow FWFRers to review.

[edit] The Fourum

Attached to the site is a message board, called the Fourum, in which fwfr'ers can talk about the site, films in general, politics, sports, current events in fwfr'ers' own lives, or anything else they wish to discuss.

[edit] Games and contests

"Games and contests" is a popular forum within the Fourum. The traditional games include:

  • "Alternative Four Word Reviews" - four word reviews for things other than films. This game has not been as popular as the others or as the site itself.
  • "Avatar Contests" - a contest to come up with the funniest message board avatar that complies with the week's given theme. The winner of each contest gets to choose the theme of the next.
  • "Four Word Tasteless Obituaries (FWTOs)" - a chance to come up with the funniest four word obituary describing the life of someone (living or dead) as though they had just died.
  • "Movie Haikus" - a chance to describe movies using the haiku format of poetry.

[edit] External links

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