WHY FAKE SHEMP?
When Shemp Howard died suddenly in 1955, The Three Stooges were still contracted to another four films and so they employed a stand-in - A man dressed as Shemp with his face concealed from the audience. 25 years later director Sam Raimi (A Stooges fan) coined the term "Fake Shemp" as a credit for his stand-in actors in The Evil Dead. He has used the term ever since and other Hollywood productions have also used it in their end credit rolls. Given that FAKESHEMP.NET began as a hobby site and we posed as legitimate film critics (despite being amateurs) we were very much exploiting the FakeShemp persona.
We have since graduated and earned our stripes as legitimate film critics....
When Shemp Howard died suddenly in 1955, The Three Stooges were still contracted to another four films and so they employed a stand-in - A man dressed as Shemp with his face concealed from the audience. 25 years later director Sam Raimi (A Stooges fan) coined the term "Fake Shemp" as a credit for his stand-in actors in The Evil Dead. He has used the term ever since and other Hollywood productions have also used it in their end credit rolls. Given that FAKESHEMP.NET began as a hobby site and we posed as legitimate film critics (despite being amateurs) we were very much exploiting the FakeShemp persona.
We have since graduated and earned our stripes as legitimate film critics....
Click to find Glenn's reviews
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Glenn Cochrane is the social media manager and entertainment writer for Stack Magazine, and is a former committee member of the Australian Film Critics Association. He studied filmmaking at the Vancouver Film School (Canada) and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (Australia) and worked within the video rental industry for 20 years, operating a popular independent video store. Glenn's writing has appeared in various media publications and he is currently an ongoing contributor for Screen Realm, Scream Horror Magazine in the UK and Optic Intake magazine. Glenn also hosted a series of videos for Netflix and CBS Interactive in 2016 to promote the TV series Stranger Things. His approach to viewing films and his style of criticism is somewhat alternative to the norm. While you will definitely find negative responses to various movies, you will also notice that he places a heavier emphasis on the positives.
“I prefer to focus on things I love, which make me happy and I can rarely be bothered wasting energy on negativities. No filmmaker sets out to make a shit film and so stripping away the crud to find a movie’s merits is far more interesting to me than dismissing it entirely.” - Glenn Cochrane. |
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Filmmaker Jarret Gahan has been toiling away in visual storytelling for well over a decade, producing award-winning short films, music videos, supplemental features for home entertainment releases and more recently a feature-length documentary that is currently on the international festival circuit. Outside of creative endeavours, Jarret has worked in a combination of the home entertainment, theatrical and gaming industries for the past seventeen years. His passion from infancy has been cinema, christened on VHS, his education started early with his first filmic memories being awash of exploding heads, flying spheres and fallen AT-ATs. Jarret's video production skills help shape our YouTube channel and our various other video presentations.
"I believe in order to appreciate the good you need endure the bad and embrace the ugly. There's a film out there for everybody and something you can take away from every film you watch. The trick is to watch a film a day (or at least average a film a day by the end of the week), as a day without cinema is a day wasted" - Jarret Gahan. |
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BEN HELLWIG
Ben has spent the better part of two decades working in the film distribution business and is currently the director of home entertainment at Monster Pictures. As well as being an integral part of Australia's premiere horror film festival, Monster Fest, he is also a pundit of exploitation cinema. Ben currently co-hosts FakeShemp's weekly podcast Good Movie Monday. |
CONTRIBUTORS
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ALYSSA DE LEO
Alyssa De Leo is a freelance writer who tackles film criticism, entertainment and script writing. She completed an Advanced Diploma of Professional Screenwriting and a Diploma of Screen and Media at RMIT University. In 2019 she won the TAC Split Second Film Competition, and her work was screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival and Village Cinemas that year. She is also a List Writer for Collider and has done post production work for Moody Street Kids. |
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Chris Thompson is a multi-award winning writer, director and teacher working in film, television and theatre. His plays have received five AWGIE nominations winning for Shady Characters, The Bridge and The Sadness of Mister Saisson. His feature film The Tumbler was nominated for the QLD Premier’s Literary Award and won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award and his short screenplay Cow won the VCA/Whistling Woods Mumbai Award and was produced in India. He won the Alan Marshall Award for his short story If You Sleep You Die and Prayers of the Pagans was a finalist in the Aesthetica International Creative Writing Contest. He’s been Artistic Director of St Martins Youth Arts Centre, HotHouse Theatre in Albury-Wodonga, Jigsaw Theatre in Canberra, Union House Theatre at Melbourne Uni and both the Boroondara and St Kilda Writers’ Festivals and continues to work as a Teaching Artist at Arts Centre Melbourne and as a sessional lecturer at ACU. Chris has reviewed children’s and young adult fiction for Viewpoint Youth Literature Magazine, the Age and the Australian Book Review, has reviewed theatre for Lowdown (the National Youth Arts Magazine) and was a regular reviewer for the Cinephilia Movie Review website. He currently hosts the arts and culture show Behind the Scenes on Vision Australia Radio where he and Marc Gracie present a fortnightly movie review segment.
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Working in many areas of media, communication, and design, Sam has had the privilege to work in the art department of television and film (Glitch, House Husbands, Jack Irish & Holding the Man) which moved her towards her dream of becoming a Production Designer. While studying cinema and screen theory, Sam created a blog 'Happy and Tragic' where she found her love for reviewing and writing about films. She has now been pursuing her new dream of writing and has been a guest writer for other blogs, in lifestyle and events (The G Word & DVOWR) and in the process of completing a Master of Arts (Research) degree. Other than film, Sam enjoys illustrating and playing video games. She has accepted that she may never finish Bloodborne...and that is ok. You can visit Sam's archives here.
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FORMER TEAM MEMBERS
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KEITH SCHULZ is a cinefile and self-confessed Scorsese and Coppola junkie. With a penchant for classic cinema he brings a breadth of knowledge to our nerdy cinematic ramblings. Having hosted various online video content of his own his contribution to FakeShemp.Net was invaluable as the former co-host of Good Movie Monday. |
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NADINE WHITNEY
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A graduate of the prestigious Victorian College of The Arts (VCA) Film And Television school, Shaun Crawford has been directing and producing shorts, commercials, online content and music clips for almost a decade. As a film reviewer he has worked for a number of publications, both online and hard-copy. An avid street photographer and writer, his adventures have taken him around the globe, from South Africa to America, Europe to Australia where he continually finds inspiration for his artistic endeavours.
"Film is a tough racket. It's easy to get bold and forget the love, heart and passion that goes into getting them on to the screen. It's easy to write a film off for all it's mistakes, it's much harder to find the bits of it you love. I try to remember that." 'Never offer a criticism you wouldn't give the film-maker to their face' - Shaun Crawford |
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Justine Ryan was a member of the FakeShemp.Net team for over year, and she contributed reviews, opinions and assistance to events. Her stamp on the website remains to this day and her involvement was invaluable. Justine is currently an active member of Melbourne's CINEMANIACS and you can catch her around town are various screenings and events. |
THERE IS NO STAR RATING SYSTEM HERE!
Each movie should be judged on its own merits (i.e. genre, intention, demographic etc) and awarding stars is conflicting... for example it doesn't it seem right that ANIMAL HOUSE gets the same star rating as CITIZEN KANE. They are both 5 star films yet there is no comparison whatsoever! You will not find any star rating system on this website.
SACRIFICE IS INEVITABLE.
Glenn also contributes reviews to various outside publications. Many of these require star ratings, and although this goes against his own personal creed (and overall approach to film criticism) it is a necessary concession. Just as every film must be viewed within context, the same individual adjustments must be made to ensure that star ratings are fairly awarded and consistent. Context is the key and Glenn insists that justification for each rating is valid.
Please don't be shy. We encourage interaction. Come and stir the pot, engage in banter and let us have it! Don't hold back... We won't!
NO SPOILERS --- DERR!
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