Bubbawheat back again with another edition of Interview with a LAMBpyre. I wanted to showcase some of the Lamb members and what better way than to ask them a few questions about themselves and their sites? I’m starting out by going through some of this year’s Lammy winners and hope to bring back some less active Lambs in the future. Also, if you’re a Lammy winner from this year and would like to participate, E-Mail me and I’ll get back to you. This week I’m talking with John LaRue of The Droid You’re Looking For or TDLYF who won this year’s Lammy for funniest writer.
Bubbawheat: First off, can you tell me a little bit about yourself, your site, and how you started blogging?
John LaRue: I make a living as a graphic designer/editor at Washington University in St. Louis. Besides my movie geekery, I’m also a huge baseball (Cardinals), college football, and college basketball fan (Mizzou). Also, I love dogs. Dogs are the best people you’ll ever meet. And… I’m a movie nerd. After a lot of conversations with friends about movies and TV, usually in bars, more and more of them recommended that I start a blog. I wasn’t sure what it would be when I started it. All I knew was that I wanted to include a lot of stick figure drawings of my favorite movie scenes and maybe some obscure lists. Somewhere along the line, it morphed into whatever it is today.
BW: My sister and her family actually live near St. Louis and are Cardinals season ticket holders. One feature that I’ve enjoyed the most so far is your flowcharts, do you plan on making more of them?
JLR: The flowcharts are a bit of a double-edged sword. They attract a lot of readers, and I’m as happy with the way they turned out as I am with just about anything else on my site. But they can be time-consuming. I think I’m at a pace now of a flowchart every 3 or 4 months, and I think that’s a good pace. It keeps me from getting bogged down with making them without completely ignoring them. Although answering this question just gave me another idea for one.
BW: You won this year’s Lammy for Funniest Writer, what movies do you think most closely match your personal humor, and where do you think your humor came from?
JLR: In person, the best match is someone like Groucho Marx in Duck Soup, Horse Feathers, The Cocoanuts… stuff like that. If the conversation is ripe and my brain is working right, I love firing off one-liners and goofy puns as much as possible. A lot of my humor comes from my dad and two older brothers. They’re so great at making people laugh and it shaped my sense of humor. And I’ve always loved comedy movies. I was raised on Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, John Belushi… all of the old SNL guys. When I was a kid, I wanted to spend my life making people laugh like that. The best part about humor is that you can find it just about anywhere you look, if you want to.
BW: About your site, what percentage would you guess between your strictly humor posts and actual movie reviews?
JLR: I’d say the ratio is probably 45% humor-related, 45% serious content, 10% other (TV is in there), and 20% bad math.
BW: What is your favorite post on your site?
JLR: The Edgar Wright infographics that I created last year are my favorite, because Edgar Wright actually offered his feedback to me via Twitter. That blew me away. It still blows me away because he’s one of my very favorite directors working today. Then he tweeted my article, which of course gave me a huge spike in traffic and the ability to say “Hey! Edgar Wright liked my article!”
BW: What’s the worst movie you’ve watched recently?
JLR: It has to be Christmas Evil. I love evil Santa Claus movies as much as the next guy, but Christmas Evil wasn’t even laughably bad. It was dreadful.
BW: Thanks for talking with me, and I hope fans of my own site got something new out of this one. I’ll be back again next week with another interview.