Eugene David<br>...The One-Minute Pundit

Posted 6:26 PM by Gene

Through an encounter with The Mogul's Friend we discovered this astonishing writing from Effete Edelstein:

Not to get all Lee Siegel on you, but the Internet has a mob mentality that can overwhelm serious criticism. There is superb film writing in blogs and discussion groups — as good as anything I do. But there are also thousands of semi-literate tirades that actually reinforce the Hollywood status quo, that say: “If you do not like The Dark Knight (or The Phantom Menace), you should be fired because you do not speak for the people.”

Well, the people don’t need to be spoken for. And a critic’s job is not only to steer you to movies you might not have heard of or that died at the box office. It’s also to bring a different, much-needed perspectives on blockbusters like The Dark Knight.

Alas this quote points to the two different kinds of bad in movie ad-blurbing: the traditional bad, where anointed writers hold the torch of truth while oozing euphoric over masterworks that conform to their narrow-mindedness (and let us not forget, one reason dark is big is because the AD-BLURBISTS LIKED IT); and (as Edelstein notes) the AIN'T-IT-COOL-NEWS bad, which justifies sci-fi-horror dreck as THE PEOPLE'S DRECK. Where both sides are united, however, is in rigidly sticking to their own different perspectives, and more to the point, overrating movies, and that's why movie ad-blurbing, whatever its form, can only get worse.