Hollywood Bitchslap - Frequently Asked Questions

1. What's the story?
2. How do I use the site?
3. Who are the reviewers?
4. How do I become a reviewer?
5. Speaking of ratings, I'm looking at them and the results don't add up to what's listed on the star rating. What gives?
6. What's this Public Forum?
7. Can I post on it?
8. Didn't you guys used to work with Filmink Magazine?
9. Who are the team behind Hollywood Bitchslap?
10. I like your site. Can I link to it?
11. I have a movie site too. Will you link to me?
12. Can I syndicate your site?
13. What's with the bad language?
14. Do you have international versions of HBS?
15. I have a film I want to promote. Can you assist me?

1. What's the story?

Essentially, we got sick of being continually conned into paying to see the latest big Hollywood blockbuster franchise movies, believing the hype and coming out feeling thoroughly anally probed. We pay a heap for tickets, we pay way too much for popcorn and soda, and we expect we'll be rewarded at some point in the process with a quality film. Well, for too long these wishes have been ignored, so now we're fighting back. This is the place where Joe Public smacks the heck out of the studio execs that treat us like cattle.
We've taken on the studios a number of times, and we're yet to be beaten. When they started sending out employees pretending to be 'excited' film fans who wanted nothing but to talk about the studios' upcoming films on websites across the country, we investigated, proved the messages were coming from studio computers, and then took the news to the LA Times. The result? The studios don't pull that crap anymore. When we noticed that Rolling Stone's Peter Travers was being quoted in every single movie ad because he always had something nice to say about a film no matter how bad it was, we started listing his quotes every week and keeping score of how often he was whoring himself - the result being that Travers has recently cleaned up his act.
Don't let a terrible movie crime slide by unpunished. Be heard. You can make a difference.

2. How do I use the site?

Well, it's not rocket science, sparky. You click on a title and it gives you a page that shows you allllll the information we have on the project, any reviews that our team of reviewers have posted, plus the opinions of all the users who have rated the film. If you want to voice your opinion on the film you selected, just fill in the boxes (name, location and comments), select a rating and hit submit. The page will be automatically updated to include your rating, the scoreboard for that film updates and BAM! - you've slammed the establishment. Bravo, you! Now you may flex.

3. Who are the reviewers?

All sorts of folks. We've got directors, production crew, students, journalists, actors (no names, they want to keep working), we got folks who take a wage from the studios we slam, we've got people who know people, and a hefty slice of average folks who don't dribble when they talk and just like a good flick. This allows us to get a good cross-section of opinions on each film released. We don't cow-tow to any group or organization. We pay no heed to reputation and earning power. If something is less than worth our eight bucks, we say so, no punches pulled.

4. How do I become a reviewer?

Click here. Submit your review, on any film you like, and we'll take a look at it. If we think your review is funny enough, or intelligent enough (preferably both) then you'll be contacted by mail with your account login and password - meaning you can review anything, anytime, with our automated system.
If your review isn't quite up to standard, you'll probably not hear from us. It's not that we're slack or don't want to know you, but telling someone their review blew donkey meat almost always leads to offence, which we like to save for people who really deserve it. If you don't get a congrats email telling you about your new HBS/EFC account, just try again. You can try as often as you like.
When you submit a review, please take note of the following tips:
1) Spelling does count. It really, really does. If you spell poorly and we put your stuff on the front page, it reflects poorly on all of us. You gotta spellcheck, baby.
2) Grammar and punctuation also count. Caps, periods, you don't need to be an English teacher, but we like to know when your sentences are supposed to have ended.
3) By all means, curse the house down, but make it worthwhile. We can deal with the F word, but not as every second f'ing word in your f'ing review. A well placed F word can be poignant. A beautiful thing. Place your F words well and earn extra points towards a John Deere combine harvester.
Of course, if you don't want to be a reviewer (and why would you, they're all web-footed and smell funny), you can rate as many films as you like without registering. We don't mind. We like you. You have a nice butt in those pants.

5. Speaking of ratings, I'm looking at them and the results don't add up to what's listed in the star rating. What gives?

What, you don't trust us? The reason is that each official review has a rating associated with it which counts more than a user rating. Why? Because we know that the official reviewers tell it how they see it, but sometimes non-official folks tell fibs. You do. Oh, yes you do. We've seen you. Especially you guys who work for studios and pretend you don't. "Superstar was the funniest movie I've seen in years!" Yeah, sure it was 'Sholly Mannon'.

6. What's this Public Forum?

It's a messageboard, bro. Post messages, talk about movies, pick up a skank, do a drug deal, plan the fall of Scientology, crave Catherine Zeta-Jones, quote The Simpsons, whatever. It's your forum. Tell it how you see it. Advertising is verboten, though. If you try to get a free ad out of our site by posting something in our forum, you'll be ridiculed mercilessly and beaten like a dog in the street.

7. Can I post on it?

No, you can't... YES, you can post on it. Why would it be there otherwise?! And didn't we already answer this in the last question? Pay attention. (In order to post, you do have to register with a valid email address, but reading it doesn't require registration.)

8. Didn't you guys used to work with Filmink magazine?

We did. We had a good relationship. We provided them with a site, they provided us with content. Heck, we even provided them with some content for their magazine, just because we're nice. Everyone skipped about and caught butterflies in butterfly nets and ate capsicum sandwiches on little blankets in the grass and laughed and played together. It was a sweet and charmed life. But then one day they decided we suck and pulled out of our deal owing us a considerable dash of cash. There's no accounting for the way some people do business, eh? So if we make jokes about the editor of Filmink, a hairy Russian guy who lives with his parents called Dov, you'll understand that we're simply keeping the bastards honest. Won't you?

9. Who is the team behind Hollywood Bitchslap?

We're the mystery men. The players to be named later. The guys who snubbed the prom. The white guys who get creamed by the Globetrotters. The folks who sat for Elia Kazan. The guys who inspired High Fidelity. The fat dudes from the front of the SAG picket line. Those goofy kids who foiled old man O'Brien's devious plan at the old warehouse. We are the schmucks who can quote every line of Bottle Rocket, and own all of Brak's albums. We are the crowd who impose ourselves on the movie biz during the day, and bite the hand that feeds us at night. We're hacks, bitches, bastards of the highest order. Tough to please, easy to love, we look great in black and use tofu as bait. We know where the bodies are buried and we didn't say nuffin' when Sammy The Bull turned stoolie. We're made men, hard women, faster than a screaming bulldog, more powerful than an oil company lobbyist. We don't leap tall buildings with a single bound because, seriously, what's the point?
We're all these things but, sorry, we're not giving out our personal details. Frankly, we fear what might happen if Stephen E. De Souza reads our reviews of Knock Off. You just know he'd get Jean Claude all coked up and send him around to say "hi". So you wanna contact us? Here's the emails.

Web stuff, suggestions, bug reports, link requests:

Feedback, more information, bitch about our language, report a terrorist:

Errors, corrections, cast omissions:

Ad sales, sell your soul to our readers:

Help, support, swimming lessons, advanced latin tips:

Merchandise queries, coming soon:

Publicity queries, interview requests, promotional opportunities:

Please note that all email we receive becomes property of Hollywood Bitchslap, Inc. and we reserve the right to repost any portion of the email on our website. So go easy on the death threats there, Mr Southern Baptist. Also, if you spam us and tell us that you're emailing us "because we expressed interest in your product", we'll know you're a damn liar and we'll report you to every law enforcement, spam-filter and vigilante organization we can find. And then we'll delete your mail without reading it.

To see select information about some of the individual people involved in the site, check out the credits.

10. I like your site. Can I link to it?

Oh.... okay then. Heck, we'll even make it easy for you. Use one of the following HTML fragments for your link:

Text link:
<A HREF="http://hollywoodbitchslap.com/">Hollywood Bitchslap</A>
which will display as: Hollywood Bitchslap

Graphic link:
<A HREF="http://hollywoodbitchslap.com/"><IMG SRC="http://hollywoodbitchslap.com/images/hbsnow.gif" ALT="Hollywood Bitchslap" BORDER=0></A>
which will display as:

Animated graphic link:
<A HREF="http://hollywoodbitchslap.com/"><IMG SRC="http://hollywoodbitchslap.com/images/hbsnow-ani.gif" ALT="Hollywood Bitchslap" BORDER=0></A>
which will display as:

10b. I'm Australian. I wanted to link to eFilmCritic, not HBS.

Hey! That's not a question! We'll let it slide this time, though, because we're impressed that you're actually reading closely.

Text link: <A HREF="http://www.efilmcritic.com/">eFilmCritic</A>
which will display as: eFilmCritic

Graphic links coming soon!

11. I have a movie site too. Will you link to me?

Nope. We don't have a links page and have no plans for one. Anyone who helps us out with providing content is amply linked from their reviews, anyone else has to think of a way to make it worth our while. If you wish to get a link to your site, please contact our sales department at for rate information or to discuss ways we can work together and make both our sites better.

12. Can I syndicate your site?

If you mean, can you steal our content and put it on your site, then no, you can't. Feel free to contact us about some kind of deal, however. If you mean, do we have an RSS feed that you can use, then sure!

Hollywood Bitchslap RSS Feed FeedBurner

eFilmCritic RSS Feed FeedBurner

You can also add our Google Gadget to your Google Homepage:

13. What's with the foul language?

Open the door and listen, man. This is how people talk. We're not responsible for your offspring - you are. We reserve the right to say "fuck" whenever appropriate, and our UK reviewers might throw in a "bollocks" if they feel it will emphasise how "bollocks" something is. If you get offended at what our reviewers or users say, that's tough, offence is freely given to all who choose to accept it.

14. Do you have international versions of HBS?

We sure do. They are all listed here. Currently, we have US and Australian versions, with release information specific to those countries. UK and French versions are on the way (if you know people who'd like to assist in setting those sites up, let us know). Down the line we'd like to have an HBS site in every major movie market, protecting the wallet of film fans everywhere, but the reality is that our French is pretty bad.

15. I have a film I want to promote. Can you assist me?

We sure as heck can. We're happy to promote new films, whether they be commercially released or independent. We're always looking for interview opportunities with actors and filmmakers. If you have something to say (and can keep our readers awake), then email us at and we'll be right back to you. Unless your surname is Galooly.

  Disclaimer: Please note that the opinions expressed by the reviewers and/or raters are not necessarily those of Hollywood Bitchslap, Inc., the editors, programmers or copyright holders. If you have a beef with something someone says, take it up with them on the page in question or blow it out your ass.