Screened is Shutting Down

I used to go there as a source for reported costs and revenue of movies (I wish there were another place to check that information easily)...

But yeah, not that surprising... ever since the split, the quality and regularity of the content was in strong decline. Some of the news were almost unreadable.

It always kind of rubbed me the wrong way that they just kept on with the "puppy" theme after Rorie left. Struck me as a little desperate to not alienate users.

I guess I am the odd man out here, in that I kept going to Screened even after the Whiskey Media break-up.

There is no denying it: Screened, out of all the Whiskey Media sites, definitely suffered the worst in the buyouts. It lost the faces of the site in Alex and Rorie, and it became pretty obvious pretty quickly that BermanBraun wasn't going to throw much, if any, money at the site for video content or the like. Understandably, if unfortunately, this lead to many people abandoning the site.

That said, the people who weathered the storm and remained at Screened did they're best to keep the site going. Of note are @finaldasa, who took over as Community Manager and Site Editor when Stacey left to return to working in film, and users like @jackanderson and @mrmazz who took review writing duties. You even had users coming together to put together and unofficial Podcast for the site. I am missing many people who created content for the site over the last few years, as well.

So say what you'd like about Screened after the buyout, but it wasn't "dead". There was a small, but dedicated user base that kept it running as best they could. It's a shame that BermanBraun didn't do anything with it.

@toastburner_b: I was also still visiting the site. Eventhough it wasn't as active as before BB took over there were still a few good people there that put out quality content. I'm not too surprised about it shutting down though.

When Screened was helmed by Matt, Alex and Joey it was by far my favorite site to visit for information and discussion of movies. It used to be that I only went to sites like JoBlo and AICN for movie stuff but I pretty quickly grew grossed out not only by the tone of the writing, but by the mass overload of bullshit "stories" and gossip (not to mention JoBlo's website being flanked by half naked women).

Screened was a great site for serious and silly discussion about movies and it always managed to thread that needle.The podcast was tremendous and the zeal and energy from Matt and Alex on camera and behind the mic was always infectious.

I was honestly devastated to hear that the site was being sold and everyone was leaving. I didn't really stay on board to see what happened after the buyout-- but to me that site was defined by what Matt, Alex and Joey did.

Now I'm gonna have a good cry and download every video from the site.

To close out, here's one the best delivered lines in any movie ever (also from the best movie of all time):

I like to think we made the best of a less than good situation.

It's about time someone put that old dog down.

Never even looked at that site after Alex and Rorie left. Not surprised in the least that it's shutting down. It's been a long road but I didn't have faith of the heart.

Sad to here the site go, obviously I haven't visited since Rorie, Alex and Joey were producing the content but still. I remember the screening room stuff where Matt and Alex watched movies with the community and other members of the whiskey media people being pretty great.

I totally forgot but some of them have some pretty great rifting of movies by Ryan Davis, definitely some content I'm going to revisit.

http://www.justin.tv/screened/videos?page=7

Bonus Fact: BermanBraun doesn't exist anymore either, they restructured into WhaleRock something or other. I just checked out anime vice again, I'm weirded out that after two years it still uses the same layout and asks you to create a Whiskey Media account. Who knows, maybe all those sites are living on borrowed time.

Alex video about Event Horizion made me want to watch Event Horizion. Now it's one of my favorite movies ever!

Is it bad that I totally forgot about Anime Vice and Screened altogether? I'm a little bit curious what's going on with AV, though.

*Goes to animevice.com*

"Heh, they are still reviewing every single chapter of Naruto, One Piece and Bleach. And the battle threads are still there too- fuck, everything is exactly like the last time I visited this site years ago.

Wait, hold on... What are these THE VICE PIT things?"

*Clicks on one of them*

"It's a video with... Oh God, Tom Pinchuk?!

I'm out. I'm out! I'M OUT!"

*Swears to never visit that fucking site ever again*

Anime Vice was truly running on fumes when the original Editor-in-Chief was gone. I remember visiting and was quite surprised Tom Pinchuk was still doing stuff for the site but truly AnimeVice is only there cause of the community it built.

I'm pretty sure that when the purchase happened, BermanBraun was mainly interested in Tested, which immediately underwent a site redesign and everything else once it became associated with the Mythbusters crew. Screened and Anime Vice may have just been part of a package deal, assuming that there weren't any other interested parties in buying them.

It's been going this way for a long while, I'm surprised it managed to make it this far. The old school content on there from Rorie and Alex was of course great, and I have respect for the people like Mr. Mazz and FinalDasa who kept that place ticking over after its glory days. Goodbye Screened.

I recently went back to visit Rorie's analysis of Mullholland Drive and Alex's retrospective on the Hellrasier series.

Really a lot of great video content centered around my favorite hobby, film. Sad to see the site go, I greatly enjoyed it for it's brief run.

@rorie I suppose there are far too many legal issues n whatnot to upload all of those videos elsewhere?

@rorie: For what it's worth, editorially and creatively speaking, I'd say Giant Bomb had nothing on Screened. I still enjoyed going back to watch all of the awesome features, especially thanks to Joey's superb editing skills. You guys done some truly fantastic work over there! <3

For some reason I just remember @rorie and Alex defending Zac Efron a lot on the podcasts.

Zacaroni and Cheese apologists Rorie and Alex.

Really wish I found out about all of these sites in their prime... Watching the whiskey media live show live must have been awesome. At least GB is still great and has both rorie and alex.

It's a shame but in the end what really made Screened an awesome site during the whiskey days was Rorie and Alex. Without them, Screened was not the same place.

I doubt anyone from BermanBraun would care; they'd just get so many copyright strikes on YT that they wouldn't last too long, alas.

I...actually didn't realize it was still around. Well, it's a bummer for the people who worked on it past and present.

That is a bummer. I visited I once in awhile but ya it's not surprising considering the two main compentant of the site left. When Alex and Rorie were there it was an awesome movie site.

Went back to check out my lists. Was fun making those along with the quests and the wiki relationships like tropes and what not. Too bad the site never found its legs again.

http://www.screened.com/profile/wrecks/lists/

Ah, their Facebook said some news was coming and I feared the worst. I jumped back in their from time to time, and all respect to FinalDasa and Mr. Mazz but there was no way to recapture the heyday of Alex/Rorie/Joey with the lack of any support.

Screened used to be a daily destination for me. The videos were some of the best to ever come out of Whiskey, and Behind the Screened Door forced me to stay on top of movies so I could listen to the damn thing.

At least I'll always have these stickers!

Didn't realize it was still going. Guess that says alot huh

Everyone should watch this video of Joey making videos!!! And this video of presenting videos!

@alexandersheen: I visitied Anime Vice on and off a while ago, and to be fair Tom is actually a good guy. I think he first appeared on the BLLSL and made a bad first impression, but he does decent work with what he has over on AnimeVice. He puts out regular articles and videos and interacts with the community.

http://www.screened.com/half-good-stars-wars-episode-i-the-phantom-menace/128-841/

Someone should archive the podcast somewhere.

Everybody should watch the Besties episode featuring Midnight Run. It's like, the greatest buddy movie ever.

Also, it actually does have the best score of any film in the 80s, in my opinion.

Still 4th on the site in wiki points. Whoop whoop.

Loved Screened. It's a shame things had to go down like they did.

Its a shame, but that site hasn't been the same since the buyout. Rorie and Alex made that site; when they were there it was my most visited site next to Giantbomb. I wish I could say it closing is sad to me, but that site died for me 2 years ago.

Wow, I haven't thought about Screened in two years. Seems like ages ago that it was a daily ritual to drop in and see what was going on in the world of TV and film. I had a lot of great conversations in the forums and I miss the red carpet fashion reports a member of the community did. Still, I've been to AV a few times over the last couple of years, but not so for Screened. Somethings are better memories.

It was on life support the moment it was sold off, can't say I didn't see this coming.

Just dug around on Screened and found a couple of user reviews I wrote.

This review of Sliders will go down with the website as my Screened magnum opus. Oh god why did I watch all five seasons of that show. I am a sick human being.

And here's a review of Ring 0 I wrote that @rorie actually put in the community showcase once. Thanks again for that! That site was fun while it lasted under your watch.

Screened never had a chance after the buyout. BermanBraun never really gave it a chance, but at least the Tested side of the deal proved to be pretty good for all parties.

Oh God I really liked Sliders back then. And oh God yes Sliders was terrible.

I spent an hour reminiscing about stuff like Here's What You Missed: The Twilight Saga.

But now I'm starting to remember how weird that buyout was. Rorie alone in the office while everyone went to Dave's. People freaking out because Will and Norm didn't have Twitter icons on new Tested. Jeff telling the whole Gamespot story on Gamespot.

Holy shit, you guys. Glad we're past that and we're in a position for Puppy Chat to happen.

I really miss the way Screened was before the buyout. The features like "Defending Your Movie," "Remake Rematch," and "Besties" were some of my favorites. Plus, I credit Alex and Rorie's contributions on Screened for turning me into an even bigger film nerd.

Remember the good times and all that. Here's hoping Rorie and Alex can contribute more pieces and opinions about film on Giant Bomb outside of a premium podcast. "On a website about video games," you say? I mean, the main podcast is pretty much about woodworking now. I think it can happen.

Agree with FinalDasa, MrMazz, and Toastburner_B

We did our best. Both Anime Vice and Screened were community driven. It was everyone's hard work that drive the sites. It's not just Tom Pinchuk driving Anime Vice. It's the users and the mods in Anime Vice and Screened who were pushing content.

Edit:

The Screened's Choice: Vote For Your Top Movies and TV Shows of 2013 was my most fun project. Acura and I worked hard on it. It was cool to see the results even though we had a small community. Our community is more tight knit than any other community. Even though I was not active like Mike20 and reviewers like SnowyMountain and etragedy, I did my share for the community.

"Individually these people are all distinctly dislikeable. All of them together is like making a Voltron of pain and hatred that would fit smoothly into the Book of Revelations"

Damn @rorie. I had forgotten how much you hated Grown Ups.

In the name of preserving them for the future, I ran a script to grab a screenshot of all of the reviews by @rorie and @alex. You can find them here:

• https://www.dropbox.com/s/hevtqyvtv9rzufc/reviews-rorie.zip
• https://www.dropbox.com/s/v62pchx7qcgc08l/reviews-navarro.zip

Those guys reviewed a ton of freaking movies.

I still miss that video player. It worked quite well for what it was.

I'll miss the site. I read it every day back way back when.

I am a member of Screened, and I'm really upset about it. I'll miss the friends I made there.

But hey, at least I'm also part of Dark Horizons, so I can get my movie updates there.

The only reason I visited Screened was because of Rorie and Alex and once they left I no longer had any interest. Still waiting for a new movie podcast!

@chaser324: Awesome!

Screened took a nose dive in quality once the buyout happened, and I didn't really visit it much after that. Still, it's kind of sad to see it go away.

You need to keep your twilight video, for science. Also Joey's mouth breathing super cut.