General Site Questions FAQ

Where am I? Who are you people? How did I get here?

A) I loved you in Memento.

B) We are the staff of BoxOfficeProphets.com and you probably got here using a search engine or another movie Web site with links to us (e.g. imdb.com). If you would like further information along these lines, please visit our guided tour of BOP.

How much are you making off of those suckers at the Hunger Site?

Well, it certainly helps me pick up women in bars by telling them how much food I have donated to needy children in third-world countries this year, but from a purely financial perspective, we have never made a penny from this link. Rather, we support everything about the generous nature of this organization and desire to do what small part we can to increase awareness for them within the Internet community. When push comes to shove, we're just a silly little movie Web site providing a small dose of relatively insignificant information to our readers each day. We would all live without movie news and information. TheHungerSite.com gets food to needy children. It gives these kids a chance to live. One is clearly more important than the other. We at BOP might not be the best people on Earth, but we aren't dumb enough to miss one of life's simple truths.

If you can help, you do help.

In short, that link will always be on our front page. I strongly encourage all of you to click it and make it your home page so that you remember to visit every day. It costs you nothing and makes a difference for others. Without getting too 1960s flower-child about the situation, the most important type of charity is the kind you do when no one else is looking. If you don't know how to make TheHungerSite.com your home page, e-mail me at dmumpower@boxofficeprophets.com and I'll give you explicit instructions. I am never too busy to answer that question.

Where are all the pop-ups? Every other movie site has them, and I find their absence disconcerting.

The staff of BOP has been running movie Web sites in one incarnation or another for over four years now. In that time frame, we have never, never ever had ad banners. Will this remain true forever? Obviously, we can't make promises about the future of the Internet, since we have no control over what happens there. In the short term, however, the staff at BOP is perfectly content to continue swallowing the bill for maintaining a Web site of this size. After all, we use the Internet every bit as much as you do (though I can produce several doctor's notes confirming that I am not addicted and can quit any time I want) and fully appreciate how annoying those [edited by Net Nanny] pop-ups can be. Until we reach a point where our growth is stunted and there is simply no other way to continue to expand, BOP will remain proudly free of ad banners and pop-ups.

Your synopsis pages seem to include a lot of Simpsons quotes. What's the deal there?

I can assure you that I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Glavin.

Can you help me get a job in the movie industry?

Unless you want to be a fluffer, no. If you want to be a fluffer, send pics.

Who are the people behind BOP?

BOP is comprised of a secret society of freaks, social deviants and misanthropes known as Prophets. When we are not being thrown into the hole for our inability to play friendly with the other inmates or trying to escape an angry mob of villagers armed with torches and pitchforks, we are a relatively normal bunch. What separates us from a lot of Internet Web sites out there is that we identify a person as a Prophet by how well they handle themselves in the faceless Internet community.

It's quite easy to try to pretend to be someone else in order to impress people or try to boost your self-esteem. It's also easy to lose yourself in this environment, since many folks seem to be able to create their own reality and decide that they prefer this sort of scenario to the real world. Finally, it's rare to find someone who realizes that arguments are going to happen in life, and that you are going to win some and lose some. It's rarer still to find people willing and able to tip their cap to the other person and admit they got beaten. To get to be a Prophet, you can't put on airs about who you are.

People who know who they really are never worry about what someone else thinks of them. If a stranger is so threatened by you that he or she feel the need to lie about it, let them. It defines that person, not you. When the day is done, though, a Prophet turns off the computer and goes back into the real world. The Net is a nice escape, but it's much more important what we do in the light of day. People get too wrapped up in how they are perceived and forget who they are at times.

We are, on the whole, a shockingly ordinary bunch of folks who just happen to enjoy the fact that the Internet makes the world a much smaller place, where a guy from Saskatchewan and an Australian living in the UK can found a Web site with a redneck from Tennessee and a babe from Normal.

Don't believe the other hype. By which I mean that we really are not cannibals. We just got real drunk that time and wanted to play Drusilla and Spike with some locals.

Why the word Prophets?

It just happened, okay? I could create a good story for you, if need be, but it would be sooooo much more entertaining than the actuality of events.

You seem like a guy trying (too hard) to be funny here. How come the site content is mostly straightforward and dry rather than humorous?

When you have assimilated a cast of characters this personable and entertaining, it's easy to let the person become the focus rather than the story. We have dedicated ourselves to making this Web site as professional as possible. In order to maintain that goal, we have made a conscious decision to dial down the humor and lock in on the facts. At times, the target is just too hard to ignore (see: Jason X or Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course), but for the most part, we work to be a reputable source of information. This means fewer potshots about Tom Cruise's height requiring him to wear Ziggy Stardust-esque platform shoes than we might want, but it's intended to be for your benefit. If you would like to see more personality in the content, this is exactly the sort of thing we would like to know and the reason we feature the feedback e-mail address so prominently on every page. "Self-improvement has always been a passion of mine." By which I mean glavin.

Anything else I need to know?

The answer to life is 42 (natch). The Star Wars trilogy is wildly overrated. Almost Famous got screwed by the Academy. Crop circles indicate not alien intelligence but rather farmer incompetence. An armless blind man could still take that bum Pedro Astacio deep. To bookmark BOP, hit Ctrl-D. Fun BOP drinking game: every time I shill the site, drink! Play until Courtney Love looks attractive.

I am single and a Virgo. My likes are rainy-day rainbows and puffy white clouds. My dislikes are you in particular and undercover cops who are into garter belts, vinyl skirts and entrapment. Yes, I think FAQ is a stupid-sounding acronym too. My cat's name is Calvin and he is just about the snuggliest thing on Earth. That pretty much does it. You may now grab the pebble from my hand, grasshopper.

Enjoy the site, gang.