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Saturday, June 21, 2008

Birth of a film critic

DEMENTOPHOBIST SAID:

“You should stop commenting on films. You really don't know how to read them. I'm not a fan of your biblical hermeneutic, but it least it has some sort of foundation. Your understanding of film is weak--perhaps buolt on sand. You do not understand _28 Days_ later. The fact that you call _I am Legend_ a better film than _28 Days Later_ especially in terms of the Zombie genre shows your ignorance. It would be like saying that the Gospel of Mark is more sophistacated than the Gospel of John. I suppose you can make that argument if you like. Good luck. So stick to the things you know--reformed hermeneutics.”

Your snooty and slanderous attack on my cinematic credentials is utterly ill-founded. I’ll have you know that my patrician taste in film was formed at an early age, and the purebred pedigree of my film criticism is unimpeachable.

For your information, the combined talents of Marlon Brando, Laurence Olivier, Vanessa Redgrave, and Meryl Streep could scarcely approach, far less rival, the thespian virtuosity I saw on display when, at the age of 7, I beheld Raquel Welch, clad in a bearskin bikini, wrestle a prehistoric python in One Million Years B.C. I have standards, too, buster!

4 comments:

  1. That's nothing! I once saw Charlton Heston play a Mexican.

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  2. There's just something wrong with someone who thinks 28 Days Later is a good movie. Yeah, it was better than The Happening, and even better than 30 Days of Night...but those are some pretty low standards to compare it to.

    But since he brought up the zombie genre...if you want a real zombie movie, Shaun of the Dead pwns them all.

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  3. _Shaun of the Dead_ is FANTASTIC. Edgar Wright is a student of the genre. Every shot is just about perfect.

    And _28 Days Later_ is a great Zombie movie.

    My complaint was grounded in the fact that _28 Days Later_ and _I am Legend_ were even being compared to one another. Perhaps they could be compared on different grounds (cinematography, lighting, sound), but to compare them via genre is odd.

    I will stand by my original criticism: Steve Hays understanding of film narrative or film as text does not come anywhere close to his understanding of reformed biblical hermeneutics. His commentary on film isn't even ameteurish. He speaks simply as someone who likes movies.

    Yet I applaud him, nevertheless, for the _One Million Years B.C. (1966) reference.

    I believe the Heston as Mexican reference is _A Touch of Evil_ (directed by Orson Welles (1958). Heston plays Ramon Miguel Vargas. If you haven't seen it, it's a great film.

    Now I await Steve Hays review of _The Flintstones Viva Rock Vegas_ and his argument that it is a finer comedy than say _Airplane_.

    Cheers to all of you.

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