Posted 9:54 AM by Gene

Moronna is quickly establishing herself as one of the BIG THREE of GODAWFUL MOVIE AD-BLURBISTS:

"BATMAN BEGINS," "The Beat That My Heart Skipped," "Capote," "Darwin's Nightmare," "Duma," "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," "Funny Ha Ha," "George A. Romero's Land of the Dead," "Good Night, and Good Luck," "Grizzly Man," "Head-On," "The Holy Girl," "Howl's Moving Castle," "In Her Shoes," "Keane," "Match Point," "Millions," "Mondovino," "Mysterious Skin," "No Direction Home: Bob Dylan," "Police Beat," "Pulse," "Red Eye," "Rize," "The Squid and the Whale," "The Sun," "Syriana," "The Talent Given Us," "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada," "Three Times," "Tony Takitani," "Tropical Malady," "Waiting for the Clouds," "Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit," "Who's Camus Anyway?" and "The World."

Was this a good year for the movies or what?

We'd guess it was a good year for the movies if you lived in the arthouse circuit and had an endless taste for navel staring. We note too the few commerical films on the list (excepting the Wallace and Gromit flick) were either politically or culturally PC. So this random assemblage of words proves what?

The brutality of this market also means that today's film lovers, especially those living outside the major movie markets, often have to work harder and wait longer than they might like to see the good stuff, but the good stuff is out there - if not necessarily at the local multiplex, then in film festivals, video stores, mail-order rental outfits and those online companies that sell movies from around the world.

Why should anyone have to WORK to see a movie? Once people could just enter a theater and see a reasonably decent flick. When the audiences for some of these masterworks number in the thousands -- in the HUNDREDS -- doesn't that mean chances are they're NOT decent flicks? And since we mention "video stores, mail-order rental outfits and those online companies that sell movies from around the world", doesn't that mean we're not watching movies, and with them the special aura ad-blurbists always yelp you can get only in a theater, but glorified TV shows, most likely shot with video equipment? And if these are glorified TV shows what's so special about them?

Moronna, the Lord God Pinch should put YOU in TimesReject. Maybe someday He will.

P. S. A writer who used to by-line himself Steven X. Rea pulls the same stunt in our local rag, saying movies are better than ever -- and citing for his top-10 all arthouse flicks. This KLUMPH! KLUMPH! of the hacks is increasingly infuriating.