Why subscribe?

My name is Nathan. For the last 25 years, I’ve had the honor and pleasure of writing about pop culture full-time, first as the first head writer of The A.V. Club, then as a staff-writer for Pitchfork’s short-lived but much loved film site The Dissolve and for the past five and a half years as the proprietor and sole writer of my own website, Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place.

In that time I have had a LOT of great ideas. You know the phrase Manic Pixie Dream Girl? That was one of my ideas. Crazy, huh? That took off like I couldn’t believe. Writing a massive column/book about “Weird Al” Yankovic’s life’s work called The Weird Accordion to Al? That was another great idea I had. Doing a podcast and column where I watch, write about and discuss all of Nicolas Cage and John Travolta’s movies with my pal Clint Worthington? That was another terrific idea I had.

Despite my quarter century in the business and many good ideas, I still find myself struggling mightily and living paycheck to paycheck so I decided to start a Substack devoted to BAD IDEAS.

What kind of bad ideas? Well, for starters, I’m going to be writing up all of the Ernest P. Worrell movies in order. Is there an audience for that? Probably not! It’s probably just a dumb idea. I’m also going to have a poll to determine whether I write about all of Gary Busey’s movies or James Belushi’s complete filmography. YOU can help decide which of these very bad ideas I pursue.

I also plan to go back to reviewing new movies in a very unprofessional way by devoting Friday afternoon to going to the theaters and watching and writing up two of the movies that are opening that day.

That’s how we used to do things back in the very old days at The A.V Club. I was a pretty damn good film critic for 18 years. I think I can probably do a pretty good job at it now as well.

Oh, and I’m going to a Shrek-themed rave on January 14th and writing about if for Nathan Rabin’s Bad Ideas. Do you want to miss out on that?

At the risk of being immodest, subscribing to Nathan Rabin’s Bad Ideas is a VERY good idea.