My review of Sex and the City (**) is up at Film Threat. Anyone who has even a passing acquaintance with my particular tastes can probably guess my reaction, but I tried to give it a fair shake.
And honestly, I try to give them all of fair shake. Directed by Brett Ratner? Okay. Starring Scarlett Johannson? Sure. Written by Uwe Boll? Well, actually, I haven't seen one of his movies since a bootleg of BloodRayne, but I'd take the hit.
Not everybody agrees, of course. There's been a message board on the FT site for several years now, It's largely silent (when we're lucky), which may ultimately be a better fate than ending up like the Ain't It Cool News talkbacks, or the Rotten Tomatoes forums, or the fucking IMDB boards, which make AICN look like the Algonquin Round Table.
But recently Film Threat implemented a user comment feature, and my reaction to that was the same as when the Houston Chronicle or any other publication has done the same: awesome! After all, merely giving out the author's contact information and dedicating server space to message forums just doesn't allow enough "interactivity" for readers who can't wait to call Mayor Bill White a douchebag (on the Chron page) or call me a homophobic asshole (on my SatC review).
I welcome this new culture of feedback with open arms. In fact, I think the current situation doesn't go far enough. I say give readers edit access to the articles and reviews themselves, that way they can put their opinions right there in the article in question. No longer will they be forced to go through the extreme inconvenience of completing two fields in order to register for a comment account, because how fair is that when you want to register your immediate outrage over the fact that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull "took a shit on your childhood?"
People feel strongly about their mass-produced corporate entertainment. I'm just trying to help.
Whenever I begin to doubt that civilization is going to hell in a handbasket (and not the cool Iron Maiden version of hell but the weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth kind), all I have to do to restore my lack of faith in humanity is browse through the user comments on various websites. As for your SatC review, I think your eloquent description of “privileged hags frantically trying to give meaning to their petty, grasping existence” could very easily apply to several of those folks who seem to take it personally when your opinion of a film happens to disagree with theirs. But looking on the positive side, doesn’t make you a bit heady with power to know that your opinion matters enough to elicit such vitriolic responses?
Well, then get crackin’ on some cometary on the new season of Venture Brothers, which recently fired back up. Chop chop.