A friend writes...

Frequent commenter Bill, below the post titled "The New Year," makes an impassioned plea:

I'm going to ask this here because a) I don't want to read the There Will Be Blood post, as I'm still avoiding spoilers, and b) there really isn't anywhere to ask it. So...

Glenn, I have criticized you for being too personal and, well, mean in this blog before, and I think the less anyone does of that the better. But I'm going to go ahead and be hypocritical and BEG you to say something about that goddamn Slate movie roundtable. Those [...] guys are the worst people in the history of the world. "John Ford kicks massive ass, but[...];" referring to Antonioni as "Mickey A.;" saying things like "war, war, war, how do you like it, how do you like it"...I mean, Jesus Christ. Do something, Glenn. I'm begging you.

Bill, lemme get this out of the way, right off the bat: I love you.

Updated to Jan. 7

But I can't quite honor your request. Or rather, I can't quite honor your request just yet. I'll tell you why.

I, too, feel your pain. I checked out those installments of the Slate Movie Club you refer to. It was Nathan Lee's meretriciously cutesy musings that did, in fact, cause me to have an aneurysm.* In my case it was the "wax on, wax off" invocation in his very first dispatch that caused the burst. I was out for a good three hours, and when I awoke, my head was stuck to my desk by my own dried-up sputum. A portion of my beard tore off as I rose up. And I looked at the computer screen, and "wax on, wax off" was still there, and I very nearly succumbed again. My still-muddled brain tried to conjure a staggering apercu with which to counter Lee's anti-thought-narcissism masquerading as criticism, but the only thing it found were the words to an old Loud Family song. One called "Slit My Wrists." It would have to do. I cobbled a brief post and put it up.

Then My Lovely Wife entered the study. "Hi, honey. Boy, that was some aneurysm you had, huh? Ooh, wait, let me get some Scott Towels. Oh...my...your beard's a little messed up. Might want to go over it with the trimmer. You okay? What brought this one on, hon?"

"Nathan Lee's off his sabbatical, or whatever it was. He's doing the Slate Movie Club..."

"Well, honey, you know you're never going to get invited into that if you keep mocking Slate..."

"That's not necessarily true—remember how Sasha Frere-Jones got a gig at The New Yorker after dissing Alex Ross? This sort of thing is counter-intuitive, sometimes. But no—" I paused, needing to catch a little phlegm that was falling off of my chin, "it's nothing to do with that. It's what he's WRITING. It's so snarky-twee and content-less that it's literally making me lose the will to live. It's like, I KNOW that Syndromes and A Century is a great film, but the fact that Lee likes it makes me think maybe it's not. It's maddening. Anyway, I did a post about it. Check it out, lemme know what you think. Might be a bit over the top." I got up to wash my face and, as My Lovely Wife had suggested, to give the beard a little trim.

Returning to my study refreshed, I found My Lovely Wife nearly as vexed as Joaquin Phoenix's Commodus is in Gladiator—you know, in the scene in which he declares himself to be, you know, "vexed." "You have to take this down," said My Lovely Wife.

"Yes," I sighed.

"You just put up a post where you slammed a fellow film critic. Someone you consider a friend, as it happens. Remember when that guy Bill first started commenting on your blog? One of his earliest comments was something like, 'So is this blog about how every other blog is bad?' He had a point. You can't just make your content about how everybody else sucks, even if it is a slow time, topic-wise..."

"But it's not 'everybody else sucks.' It's just 'he sucks'."

"Maybe. And it's not as if I don't think you have a point. It's just a proximity issue."

She left, and I took down the post. And then I did what any other man in my position would do. Over at Jeffrey Wells' site, I found a post wherein he quoted from Lee's Slate Movie Club entry, and I left a comment likening Lee's writing to a Mensa application by Hannah Montana. That'll show everyone.

But right now, that's where I'm gonna leave it, Bill, because as appalling as those quotes you cite are—and they are appalling; "Mickey A."???, really, man, not to go all one-note or anything, but what are you, twelve?—there's only so far you can go with a pissing contest, and it's not as if anything you and I have to say is going to make him, them, what have you, stop. What I propose is...well there are still a bunch of days left for Movie Club...let's give the fellow a chance. He's so insistent that Southland Tales is "genius"—let's see him make that case. He hasn't come even vaguely close so far, merely blathering (and self-quoting, as it happens) that the film "looks and feels more like life in 2007 than Juno, In the Valley of Elah, and Michael Clayton combined," in which case I certainly don't envy him his life...but he doesn't illuminate just how the film accomplishes that and why, really, that matters. I could give you a half-dozen reasons right now why Tales is tripe. I want him to give me a half-dozen reasons why it's "genius."

No Bill—I know that of course it's not going to happen. I was just thinking I'd try to display some of that "generosity of spirit" some critics cite when they can't conjure specifics.

In the meantime, while we've been chatting so amiably, Slate's Timothy Noah has coughed up some sputum of his own on "What's Wrong With There Will Be Blood." Apparently midway through, the film "lost its clarity, for reasons that say something about the impoverished state of political discussion in the movies generally."

Once again, the call goes up—"To the refrigerator, varlet; therein to fetch thyself a container of Shut The Fucke Up!"

Man. I think right about now we could all use a visit from Eagle Woman.

You can't beat these!

*I didn't even get to Wesley Morris' "war war war" business until you cited it. Morris doesn't usually write like that. Maybe Lee's style is contagious.

UPDATE: After taking the weekend off, the Slate Movie Club is back (really, they shouldn't have), and I have to admit, it has yielded a very astute reading of the film's ending. That is, the Slate comments section, called The Fray, has yielded a very astute reading of the film's ending (and I if you've seen the film you should check it out; it's here); the reader is responding to Dana Stevens' befuddling beffudlement. I must say I'm rather disappointed in Stevens; among other things, I was hoping she would point out that if H.W.'s birth mother had had access to safe and legal abortion...oh, OK, I'll stop...

FURTHER UPDATE: I don't know what turned the trick, but almost all the post-weekend Movie CLub posts read, for the most part, as if they were written by adults, and contain some worthwhile insight; if you're inclined to check it out, you may do so without fear of dying of embarassment. But—nobody proves the case for the "genius" of Southland Tales...of course...

Comments

[bill]

Eagle Woman...eases the pain...

A little, anyway. I knew that what I was asking was really out of line, considering our long tumultuous history. It's just that, earlier today, I happened across that comment you made on Wells's site, and, despite your warnings and against my better judgment, I followed the link to Slate. I did it largely because I'd read the roundtable before, back when David Edelstein hosted it, and while I had my problems with it then, I still enjoyed it. But this...this shrieking abysmal horror with which I was confronted caused me to deny God and attempt to pluck out my eyes (no easy feat, fortunately for me).

It's just that they're so self-satisfied about it, as though they were somehow proud of themselves for writing like that. If I detected a note of shame, then I might have been able to move on with my life. But detected it I did not, and I was moved to send you my plea.

But I've now read your response, and clearly you have more self-restraint than I do. I shall tip my hat in admiration and respect, and consider the possibility of starting my own blog, the purpose of which will be to...no, I've said too much already.

In any event, Glenn, I'm glad to see that you and I have bonded on this particular issue, and I consider any previous difficulties you and I may have had to be naught but ashes.

Good day to you.

[Matt Miller]

Like Bill, I used to look forward to the Edelstein-run Movie Club. I tried to read it today, though, and...my god...so many parentheticals.

[Chuck]

Damn Glenn, remind me never to piss you off. Actually, I'm on board with basically everything you just wrote.
Two sorta critical trends toward the 2007 movie year that I'm assuming you share with me:

The contrarian urge to find fault with There Will Be Blood.

The contrarian urge to excuse the faults of Southland Tales.

I would also like to third the comments about Edelstein, I largely stopped reading Slate when he left, and instead followed him to New York Magazine. He's one of my favorites.

[demimonde]

Oh, my God. That's worse, smugger, more-hotcha! writing than Stephen King's in "Entertainment Weekly" -- I didn't think such thing was possible. I would LOVE to have read your deleted but no-doubt worthy post on it. And I thought "Southland Tales" was genius.

[bemo]

Me too. It was pure genious. Critics, as a species, are so far removed from us that they cannot see how much of our lives are in 'Southahahaha.

[Glenn Kenny]

Hey, Bemo, are you okay? It looks as if you might have had an aneurysm yourself at the end of writing your post. Assuming you are okay, your "critics, as a species, are so far rremoved from us" argument won't wash. We don't live in Xanadu. I myself walk the same streets and surf the same websites as everybody else, and I know at least one thing: Sarah Michelle Gellar as a porn actress just doesn't make it. But seriously...reasonable people can disagree about the merits of any given movie. Demimonde, whose appraisal of "Tales" is almost the complete opposite of mine, is a friend, for instance. I'm open to pursuasion, but I haven't been pursuaded yet, and nobody's even given me a satisfying refutation of the points I brought up in my own review of it, which can be found here:
http://www.premiere.com/moviereviews/4242/southland-tales.html
...if anybody wants to have a go.

[Matt Miller]

On a happier Slate note, this year's inaugural Gamimg Club was largely an interesting, substantive and funny read.

http://www.slate.com/id/2179398/entry/2179399/

[Matt Miller]

Whoops. "GamiNg Club," obviously.

[Claire K.]

I also thought that this week's "Dear Prudence" question about the woman whose mother-in-law wants to laser off all her body hair was pretty awesome. Go Slate!

[bemo]

Riffing on the 'Southland..' "is like 2007 life [/paraphrase]", and not you or the other critics who are not members of the 'Southland..' fanclub.

[bill]

Well, that clears things up.

[don lewis]

Bring on the THERE WILL BE BLOOD spoiler conversation thread!! I saw it tonight and am ready to dig in!

[Glenn Kenny]

Workin' on something, Don. Hopefully it'll be up before Monday.

[don lewis]

Sweeeeeet! I knew you'd step up and not be just a b in a b...