I felt the same condescension.

When you click into the Adult forum, you know what you're getting. No one enters that forum looking for a review of the latest Cary Grant classic film to be released on dvd. If I want to see if a performer has done a nude scene, I'll look up the listings in the Celebrity Nudity Database. That's a conscious choice I make. Until this discussion, I didn't even know this site had an adult forum.

I'm not chastisting anyone for wanting to look at a woman's nude body or a man's nude body. I do object when that nudity is used unecessarily. What "artistic" statement is being made by using frames of nude women in a review/comparison of a disc?

But what about MEEEE?!?

what i learned in this thread: when a heterosexual male shows any kind of partiality to female nudity outside that of the clearly defined lines of graphic pornography, he is an unnatural, creepy, offensive lech. got it.

In that case you need to read the thread again. That's not what this thread is about.

I've been to DVD Beaver a few times and I do think their comparisons are a good resource. That being said, let me be the one to summarize all the said and unsaid comments and criticisms:

Design of the Site. I'd have to agree with the member who referred to the site as an eyesore. I remember at one time that the site had a much simpler layout. Obviously hiring a designer would be out of the question because of the expense, so I would recommend using CMS to make the site more visually appealing. It will keep readers there longer, will make them see more pages, will make them more likely to help you. And, if you are spending a ton of time editing HTML to bring up a review, this will make it a snap. (Note: All the CMSs I linked to are free open-source ones).

Costs of the Site. Are you with the wrong host perhaps? Spend an hour to research other alternatives. Hosting is a commodity and there's no reason to pay so much for it.

Revenue. You already have dozens of ads everywhere; the site is hardly "advertisement free" as you claim. I don't think adding something like Google AdWords will make it worse. I would also turn the yearly asking-for-money into a pledge drive, with a goal that needs to be met, so everyone can expect it and it doesn't come as a surprise.

I wish you the best of luck.

Although I'm enjoying the intellectual (and pseudo-intellectual) debate concerning nude screenshots, you are all missing the point. He includes the nudity because it increases his hit count. It's that simple. Whether you agree with it or not, it's wise marketing.

You guys have been around the Internet enough to have figured that out, right?

I'd be the first to agree with you, except that this whole thread exists only because Gary is not a shrewd marketer. You may still be right--maybe he figured out this one aspect of Internet exposure (yes, bad pun intended) and missed the boat on the others. Something about that theory still doesn't sit right with me though. We're talking about a guy who generally won't even allow reviews of good mainstream films to appear on his site "on principle."

I think the guy just likes the ladies. If I had to capture a hundred screencaps a month, I'd probably at least do something for myself to keep it from becoming a chore.

Mmmm....let's see...you refer to Gary's screen caps as being "creepily lecherous." cmleidi says they are "creepy and unnecessary." "Unnecessary?" Wow. I'm glad someone knows just what is "necessary." FilmFanSea has you guys pegged. I guess you're a liberal elitist, since you say you are, or at least want to be, but, personally, I found the recitation of your resume "unnecessary." And frankly, if FilmFanSea is a nuclear physiscist or evolutionary biologist, it will be necessary for me to declare him the winner in the resume contest.

I understand the condescension. Wait, I mean their condescension, not yours, where you talk about how smart they are and then express your disappointment that they aren't as smart as you are. What I find "creepy" is the notion that a particular frame capture from a non-pornographic movie is creepy, lecherous, or "unnecessary" (the unnecessary claim really blows me away). I also find it more than a little strange that a self-professed smart, elite, liberal, first amendment attorney could catagorize a site like DVDBeaver as a "porn site." Wow.

Agreed. Terms like "creepily lecherous" and "creepy and unnecessary" are caricatures and generalizations.


Ummmm. "Creepily lecherous" and "creepy and unnecessary" don't seem particularly "nuanced" --just me, I guess. But when did "American social norms" cease being prudish and conservative?


Wow. That's quite a bottom line. Gary is a "pornographer" and DVDBeaver is a porn site. That's what I call "nuance."

When I read some of the comments in here (from the likes of illennium) it makes me even more scared about where the USA is going.

It seems to be full of crazy fuckers who think it's OK to trample on other people and abuse them.

Are we reading different threads?

I can tell. Too bad the nudity is unnecessary. In every instance I've seen he could have made his point without using screen caps that had nudity. If it wasn't necessary, then it's unnecessary. QED.

I have no problems with the nudity on the site myself. But the fact that there are more bared breasts in DVDBeaver's reviews than there are in DVDTalk adult reviews (not counting the cover scans, we have no control over that) does tend to support the 'unnecessary' argument.

I personally enjoy nudity, and engage in it quite often (right now, in fact!!!).

Isn't he? We really have no idea how much his yearly "I'm going to shut down the site unless it's saved by you" threat/appeal brings in. He may make up a portion of his expenses, he may make up all of his expenses, or he may make a huge profit. No one really knows. He may be pretty shrewd after all.

What IS up, Numanoid?

Well I'm not trying to jump in to this discussion just thought I would add a few things. First off Gary's rules for screencaps don't concern nudity but just gore. I would much rather see a breast than animals being slaughtered in Mondo Cane. Also Gary doesn't make every screencap and write every review for the site. There's a lot of contributors to the site and I doubt he refuses or denies a review due to too much/little nudity. And lastly it's his site he can pretty much do as he feels, and it's quite clear it's an arthouse criterion lovin place from the start.

As DoubleDownAgain said, I'm not sure you're processing the information here correctly. I take it you think I'm a "crazy fucker," which is fine (nice contribution to the thread, by the way), but if you can find a single relationship between what I'm talking about and the direction the country is going, I'd love to hear it.

That is a definite possibility. At the same time, that just strikes me as a really poor way to run a business--that sort of thing could build up a lot of bad will over time. It also feels kind of dishonest, and Gary seems like an honest guy.

OK, well, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary (just the first one that came up on Yahoo), "unnecessary" simply means "not necessary." So, what does it say about "necessary?": "1 a : of an inevitable nature ; b: that cannot be denied without contradiction; c: determined or produced by the previous condition of things; 2: absolutely needed."

So, my challenge to the use of the term "unnecessary" is not based on making a case that a particular nude frame cap is necessary or unecessary, but to the notion that any particular frame can be determined to be "necessary." No particular frame cap is "inevitable" or "absolutely needed," or even "determined or produced by the previous condition of things" (this condition may apply to specific cases but it doesn't apply in general). So, if you can't tell us what's "necessary," you can't tell us what's "unnecessary." Or, looking at it another way, every possible frame capture is just as "unnecessary" as every other possible frame capture.

Therefore, is seems to me that calling a nude frame cap "unnecessary" is nothing more than an expression of taste or opinion, and I see no basis for objectively determining the superiroity of your taste or opinion, or mine, over that of, say, FilmFanSea, or Gary Tooze, or that of a self-professed "first amendment attorney."

So, in the strict sense of the word, I agree that a nude frame cap is "unnecessary," but since it is no more unnecessary than any other frame, calling it unnecessary is either meaningless, or is intended to convey a judgment apart from how the word is defined. Therefore, I think it is reasonable, as others have suggested, to conclude that "unnecessary" in this context suggests something about how the speaker perceives those social norms illennium mentioned. In other words, someone who really has no objection to nudity has no more reason to find a nude frame cap anymore unnecessary than any other particular frame cap.

Boobs rule.

There, I said it.

No, its just one more hypocritical action on the part of the holier than thou man behind DVD Beaver. I have no problems with The Blue Room here, because this is a website that is unshamed of its mainstream commercial appeal.

As for DVD Beaver, there's a whole lot more wrong with it than just the fact the guy likes to slip in nude screen shots every chance he gets.

In the interest of full disclosure-I was banned from the DVD Beaver listserve because I dared question the legality of certain actions that Gary, the owner, was promoting, ie making "back-up copies" of DVDs and then selling the originals on places like eBay. Sorry, but I cannot support a website whose owner runs it like a petty dictator and silence any sort of robust debate. Interestingly, I had a disagreement with the owner of this website about a topic two years ago. He wrote me off the list and guess what happened? Nothing. Nada. Still here. Still contributing (once in awhile). There's a definite party line on DVD Beaver--Gary's.

I find it ironic that he's crying about not having money because of his moral principals and then has no problems playing fast and loose with the copyrighted properties of others.

Hell hath no fury like Litza scorned.

Snootchie bootchies!

Congratulations to DVD Beaver for being mentioned in The New York Times.

Would've been a good day to have Google Ads up.

(My friend got linked from one of the biggest websites and he earned about $900 that one day).