Open Hate Mail #3: Grading the Critic

The Point of Babette isn't about hate. You should know that. We are three times more likely to post open love letters--or open letters of ambivalance.

Owen Gleiberman, Lisa Schwarzbaum, and assorted critics for Entertainment Weekly--you should also know a couple of other things:

1) I am a subscriber. I pay to bring EW into my home. I don't get annoyed when those reminders to renew clog my mailbox. Sometimes, after all, I do need a reminder.

2) I am not amused.

This isn't only about the review of "Little Miss Sunshine," but we can talk about that in a moment. Three years ago, some EW music critic gave Beyonce's "Dangerously in Love" an A. I liked "Crazy in Love" (and how!), so I bought that CD on the strength of that song and that review.

Yeah. That CD? Weak.

And that was fine--I was only a college student. I didn't need that $18 for food or anything. Now, however, I'm starting to get impatient with the EW reviewers. It's not that I expect you to agree with me all the time. We are all different people with different tastes. Nonetheless, a reviewer for a major publication needs to have the proper motivation for their tastes.

And let's talk about you and your tastes, Gleiberman and Schwarzbaum.

Owen: Stop talking about how great "Idlewild" is. It's not. I get the feeling you want to be the person who championed the black "Moulin Rouge!" So, you pretended like it was okay for that movie to play on the same racial stereotypes that make some of the "classics" so difficult to watch. You've been to film class. You should know tragic mulattas and Step-n-fetchits when you see them, and you should know they belong in a minstrel show. And you know where minstrel shows belong. You claim to have such a problem with "stock" characters in "Little Miss Sunshine," but you embrace them in "Idlewild."

Isn't that interesting?

And the ending of "Little Miss Sunshine" isn't hypocritical. Get thee to the dictionary and look up "irony." That should keep you busy for a while.

Lisa, Lisa: We used to be friends--a long time ago. And then there was "Pirates of the Caribbean." You hated it. I loved it. I loved it for all the wrong reasons: Johnny Depp is smokin' hot.

Don't snicker, Lisa. You hated it for all the wrong reasons. EW claims to grade movies on their own terms. That is, a movie like "Aquamarine" is not going to get the exact same treatment as a film like "Cinderella Man." Yet you go on at length about how "POTC" is a prime example of the American blockbuster.

Except it revels in its blockbusteriness, and it was successful. And you can't pretend you hold everything to the indie classic standard just because you're a movie critic. You can't have it both ways.

Also, you can't fail to notice how smokin' hot Johnny Depp is.

Why can't it be enough for me to just disagree with you? Frankly, I feel as if you're violating my trust--manipulating me--and other subscribers--to make your magazine seem more interesting.

This is not what I want from my critics. So, please, stop dishing it out.

No Love,
Sam

P.S., Send a memo to everyone in the office: Terrence Howard is not hot. Not hot. Copy.