Bradley Matthews writes:

Subject: About your review of anime : X

Maybe, for some people, anime like X maybe don't make any sense as they show some mythical story. But if you live in Asia, X story is can be linked to life of Asian cultural that show us respect of life. I'm an asian anime watcher, and if you think I'm a geek, how 'bout you try live in asia and see that life here is more better in morale because of old thinking like this. I was keen on many asian literature, and believe me, it can show you how you a good thinking about life.

And for the violence? if you see Beat Takeshi movies (a Japanese director) you'll say that X will be better

The Flick Filosopher responds:

If X can only be understood if one lives in Asia, then it should never have been released in America.

Ashlagrl1701@aol.com writes:

Is there any way to contact those critics. I just got done reading Mary Johanson's review for The Princess Diaries, and I was apaulled. It was a HORRIBLE review. All she did was insult the movie and it's cast members and directors. I went out and saw the Movie and I thought it was a good Movie. But I absoulutely hated her review on it. I'd rather have read about dead mutilated bugs any day. And nobody cares about that Ghost World Movie she kept babbling on about. Anyway, if I ever got a chance to talk to her I'd tell her what I thought about her review.

The Flick Filosopher responds:

You're talking to her. Who else did you think would read an email sent to her email address?

Thank you for informing me that nobody cares about that Ghost World movie. In the future, I will avoid writing about movies that nobody cares about and only write rave reviews of movies that illiterates enjoy.

And may I suggest that, in the future, you avoid my site and instead go check out www.deadmutilatedbugs.com?

Ashlagrl1701@aol.com replies:

Oh you are MaryAnn Johanson aren't you. Well I hated your review.

The Flick Filosopher responds:

Yeah, I got that.

Ashlagrl1701@aol.com again:

Why are you so sarcastic and mean. I do believe that everyone is entitled to their own opinoins yes, but some of those things you said about the movie were a bit harsh you do have to admit.

The Flick Filosopher responds:

Oh, so I'm entitled to my own opinion except when you disagree with it?

Thomas Falater writes:

[My replies interspersed in boldface--MAJ]

Subject: here you go again

Sounds as if Mary, the critique of Princess Diarys is having a problem with being a 'girl'.

If you're going to address me by name, at least get it right: It's "MaryAnn."

Perhaps she would feel better if she had a sex change operation rather than venting her anger at a very enjoyable film.

Oooo, that hurts. How long did it take you to think that one up?

As a male, I see films such as Rambo or Gladiator as stereotyping men but it doesn't bother me. I don't write things such as: Muscles + Stupidity + Violence = Modern Man.

That might apply to Rambo, but not Gladiator.

I simply brush it off as the inevitable by product of the mass media which must cater to such a broad audience worldwide that such stereotyping is unavoidable to some degree.

Try being a teenage girl and see how you like being told that the only thing that matters is that you look like a model in a magazine.

According to Mary, only films which fit her view of what a woman should be accepted and worthy of her approval.

Let's see... the only films that are worthy of my approval are the ones that are worthy of my approval? That sounds about right.

The Princess Diarys is just another wonderful film from Disney.

Says you. And I should take your word on this because...?

And I forgot to mention in my previous email that Mary neglected to point out that the girl's real father abandoned her as a baby. And she neglected to write four paragraphs about how men are portrayed as baby dumpers and deadbeat dads.

Please go grind your ax somewhere else. The noise is hurting my ears.

Please send me a copy of Bronx Cheer

If it's anything like your film reviews, I could use it potty train my dog with the colon infection.

Send me your address. Shall I FedEx to you? Would that be fast enough?

Thomas Falater replies:

The only viable rebuttal to my points was the remark about Stupidy and Violence about movies for men applying more to Rambo than Gladiator.

I'm surprised in you. Very pitiful response. I expected something better.

The Flick Filosopher responds:

Why should I waste my valuable time responding to someone who does little else than insult me and make unsupported claims about a movie? My review makes it clear why I hated The Princess Diaries, but you offer nothing to explain why you thought it a "very enjoyable," "wonderful" film. So instead you suggest I get a sex change operation?

Thomas Falater again:

I made very pointed straightforward remarks which you have cowardly avoided responding to. And your last email to me only reinforces my point once again.

The Princess Diary is a wonderful movie simply for the fact that every child and every adult in the El Capitan theatre enjoyed it very much. I spoke with them in the lobby and watched their reactions during the film.

Your problems with the films and of the world in general if I may conject are the obvious result of your maladjustment with the modern gender roles and attitudes of women (which by the way, is created by women).

The Flick Filosopher responds:

Forgive me. I'd known that every child and every adult in the El Capitan theater had enjoyed the movie, I'd never have written what I wrote.

I'm maladjusted because I disagree with you and everyone else in the El Capitan theater? Interesting diagnosis.

Thomas Falater replies:

I thought you would be a better adversary than this. I'm disappointed and bored.

The Flick Filosopher responds:

Give me something to debate, and I'll debate. Telling me "everyone liked the movie and so should you" is kindergarten stuff -- it makes me want to resort to that other mother's retort: "If everyone jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you do that, too?" Give me a real reason why I should like the movie, one that does not involve insulting my sexuality and gender, and then we'll have something to talk about.

Thomas Falater once more:

Just another lackluster boring response ignoring the issues I brought up in the original email.

You lose.

I'd rather spend my flame energy with someone of my level.

Bye...

(click 'block')

Patrick writes:

I believe that you have utterly mastered the art of mainstream American film criticism in such a way as I have never witnessed before. Now, I'm not a film critic myself, nor a film scholar, certainly not a filmmaker--in fact, I'm almost nothing at all . . . just having graduated college, I've barely five minutes of the long day's journey into being friendly with the staff at my temp agency. So be forewarned, you don't have to listen to me if you don't want to, I'm a temp, and a male temp at that; I'm very insecure about getting paid to answer a phone. But, as I was saying, you are great.

Sometimes, you see, film critics confuse me. I can't really tell what the point of film critics is. Film scholarship, of the kind you see in mags like Film Quarterly, for example, and on up from there, will tell you all kinds of things about semiotics and cinematic intertextuality, plumb the narrative depths of John Hughes films to tell you how the whole world lined up behind Reagan in the 80's ("ideologically," I mean) , and they will survey the careers of individual filmmakers in ways that demonstrate omnipotence of the auteur. In other words, as far as I can tell, film scholarship uses analyses of individual films or filmmakers to demonstrate theoretical ideas whose intention, ultimately, is to be applied to the medium of film as a whole.

Film critics, meanwhile, in newspapers and such, talk about individual films with no intention besides to illustrate their quality, that is, their goodness and their badness. Given all the crazy factors that go into people's formulations of their opinions, I'll be honest, I don't see what the idea behind these "reviews" is supposed to be--how can you be sure that others will agree with you about, say "Pearl Harbor" (I loved reading your review, by the way) no matter how air-tight your argument? What is the point of any "quality"-based review without some kind of theoretical defense of the idea of "quality"? What does it mean to "enjoy" something? I don't get it, frankly, and I wish someone would explain it to me.

Because I don't see the point of explaining why a film is either "enjoyable" or "not," I see film critics as a very special kind of comedian. In my mind, any film critic is fun to read on exactly two occasions--that is, when they love a film and when they hate a film. When they love a film, critics' prose often reaches such vertiginous heights of excess, such insanely overblown ecstacy is invoked as to liken the critic in question to the Apostle Formerly Known as Saul when the heat done got to him that time on the road in Jordan . . . I mean, c'mon. Was "A.I." really that big a deal? A critic in my hometown, Ann Arbor, MI, wrote of that film: "I will love this wonderful film forever." Strong words, indeed; but never as strong as the critic becomes when slicing apart a turkey. That's when critics are at their best, as far as I can see, when those same wild, descriptive flights take off into combat against the likes of, say "Pearl Harbor," or any film that for any critic represents a crime against humanity.

It was when I read your review of "Pearl Harbor," which is one of the best things I have read in the last weeks, that I knew you had mastered the art of Critic-as Comedian. "This is the kind of crap that deserves to be slapped silly"--and it only gets better from there. In that review, your prose was incisive, imaginative, cruel to the point of sadistic; describing your view of Bay and Bruckheimer as human beings, you exhibited an almost clinical coldness--I could see you in the lab, whatever you actually look like in a white lab coat, squinting through your microscope at those miserable bastards as they squirmed like wounded houseflies under glass. When you described the cynicism, colossal ignorance, and mind-blowingly egotistical disregard for human life and civil decency that the film shows in its facile condescension to actual history, you flared up convincingly into a very poignant outrage. (Interesting, isn't it, that when a mass-market film like "Pearl Harbor" or, for that matter, "Schindler's List" is released, suddenly every mainstream movie critic becomes a self-proclaimed expert on whatever phase of history is the latest to have been dumbed-down and rewritten to correspond with the values of the newst "players" in Hollywood?) The point is, I loved reading your review, I thought it was entertaining and really smart.

So, keep up the good work, Flick Filosopher! Although I persist in the belief that film criticism, when "quality"-based, is entirely pointless, your work justifies the continuation of film criticism as a genre of comedy, to be read for the flavor of its prose alone.

In case I run the risk of seeming insincere, let me say that I would definitely subscribe to Cinematic Musings if you posted "Bronx Cheer." Your mastery of the conventions, the ins-and-outs, the generic highways and byways of film criticism is so complete, I would love to see what you could do with those of screenwriting. I would read it a couple of times and make whatever comments I could to be helpful, although, of course, I expect 99% of what I get from your script to be disregarded as a result of my own ignorance and poor taste. Sorry to be so obsequious, but if 1% of what I think could be of any help to a writer like you, I'd go schizo and start eating bowls of shit like the guy from Paul Auster's "Timbuktu."

Jonathan Deon writes:

Just wanted to say, I think your film reviews are some of the best analysis and criticism I've ever seen, ANYWHERE - even if I don't always agree with them. Your site has become the first place I visit for reviews. (I'm a review junkie, you know? I gotta read at least fifty reviews before I watch a flick or even a video, and then detailed essays and scene by scene analyses afterwards to make sure I didn't miss any subtext or metaphors!) It's a travesty that some newspaper or magazine hasn't hired you to do it professionally - or maybe you could get a TV show like Roger Ebert. I'd watch it. Maybe you're not "photogenic" as they say, but if they'd hire someone as hideous-looking as ol' chunky, white-haired Ebert, it seems the visual standards are low enough for everyone. Or may you could become Ebert's sidekick and give him hell every time he gives a movie a thumbs up because it's got Angelina Jolie in it.

I actually found your site through a link from www.plastic.com linking to your review of Tomb Raider. I think your review of that "film" (if the piece of crap movie even deserves such a title) was the best candidate I've ever read for deserving the colorful acronym: ROTFLMFAO!!! I still chuckle when I think about it.

I guess all this ass-kicking is leading to my request for your site: I think you should get a message board - so your readers can communicate with each other in something closer to real time. I enjoy browsing through the comments on your reviews but often I have the urge to comment on the comments. Don't know if a message board is practical at all - or preferable - but judging by your feedback, some - hell MOST - of the people who read your reviews are a lot more intelligent that I am (and that's quite intelligent even though I ain't no MENSA geek :) and your opinions always seem to generate involved and interesting discussions that go beyond the bounds of their subjects (the best kinds of discussions). On the other hand, I know that message boards often attract some complete morons as well. Still, I think it's something to consider. It would be interesting to see what would happen if reader feedback became a group discussion rather than a dialog between you and the commenter.

The Flick Filosopher responds:

Thanks for your nice comments. I'd love to be getting paid by someone for my written reviews, but I can't imagine wanting to "review" movies on TV like Ebert does, and not because I'm hideous looking or anything. But giving a two-sentence synopsis and a thumbs up or down just isn't film criticism. Nothing substantial can be said about three or four movies in 22 minutes.

If you want to talk film with me and other critics and film lovers, check out the Cinemarati Roundtable. So far, it hasn't attracted any morons, or they just know they aren't welcome there.

Hollie Butler writes:

I am troubled by the letters I see you responding to on your website. Everyone is swearing and calling you names! I am appalled at their behavior! Why oh why do you put up with it? You're such a great reviewer, and you shouldn't have to respond to people whose arguments don't rise above "you suck" in their level of complexity.

I'm bothered by how upset people get when you don't like a movie that they did. Why is that such a big deal? To touch on an infamous review, you didn't like Pitch Black. Meanwhile, I went out and bought the DVD so I could watch it on my laptop while I was doing the dishes. So what? It's not like I can only watch the movies that you like, which is the way these people act.

I agree with your take on the vast majority of movies that you review, yet often I get more out of the movies we don't agree on. Reading a review of a movie I loved and you hated is fascinating; what were you seeing that was different than what I saw? Why did you hate these parts while I thought they were pure heaven? It helps me clarify why I liked the movie, and it makes me a better critic for myself. What a benefit!

That's why I subscribe to your newsletters and support your site. Your reviews are dynamic, I don't go to your site thinking, "I bet I know what she'll think of this" like I can do (accurately) with so many other reviewer sites. Your site is a treasure of original thinking and I hope you never go offline!

Anne-Kari writes:

MaryAnn, what ever... happened to the filmgeek.com? It was MIA a few months ago, and now there is this very different looking website there, and no mention of your website on it. Yet you still have links to filmgeek.com.... any comment?

Regardless, I wanted to tell you how UTTERLY HILARIOUS your review of Tomb Raider was. Sadly, my pubescent coworkers had no idea what to make of it, having no frame of reference for computer games or other items that existed pre-Tomb Raider. Sad, isn't it...

The Flick Filosopher responds:

I don't know what happened to Rick Ferguson -- but whoever is running the site at FilmGeek.com now has no connection to him whatsoever, as I'm sure you can see from the quality of the writing there. I have no way of getting in touch with Rick, and I haven't heard from him, so I can only assume that he doesn't want to get in touch with me and let me know what the hell happened to him. It's a little disconcerting to have someone disappear from your life like that so suddenly and without explanation, but there we are. I'm trying not to take it personally.

[I'll get around to taking down those FilmGeek links eventually, but they're everywhere, and taking them down takes time.]

madeline writes:

I was very dissopointed with your review of Charlie's Angels especially the part about Drew Barrymore being a "spoiled brat." I also read your review of Ever After and you semed to like that movie so I will quote from it, "Do you have any idea what that girl went through to get here?" Well, do you? Drew Barrymore was raised in a dissfuctional family, her teachers called her stupid at school and she didn't seem to fit in anywhere. Anywhere except at the night clubs her mom took her to (talk about bad parenting) so she picked up smoking and drinking to fit in even further and eventually used an drug she could get to numb out her depression, terrible relationship with her mother, and her father's abusive behavior. You really can't blame the girl she had no religious background or role models to look to. Anyway by the time she was thirteen she was dragged off to rehab and finally relized what she was doing was wrong. It took some time but she got over her drug problem and became the youngest person ever to write an autobiography. In that autobiography there was not a trace of self pitty. But after rehab no on wanted her as an actress, to much bad publicity. She moved out when she was only fourteen she waitressed for money and walked to auditions (there was no one to drive her). Finally she starred in some cheap movies and got her career back on track. She worked her butt off to get where she is today and if she can get whatever she wants then it is thanks to herself, her talent and her ambition.

The Flick Filosopher responds:

Well, boo fucking hoo for Barrymore's sob story, and bully for her for getting some clout in Hollywood. But that means I have to automatically like what she does with that clout? Bullshit.

madeline replies:

I was just dissappointed that you called someone you don't even know a spoiled brat. I never said you have to like Charlie's Angels or what she does either but it was rude of you to say what you did. And that's all there is to it.

The Flick Filosopher responds:

She used her debateable clout to dictate that the Angels not use guns for no reason other than she could. If that's not being a spoiled brat, I don't know what is. And please note that my use of the term "spoiled brat" was limited to this specific instance. I wasn't talking about her personal life -- I was talking about her behavior as one of the producers of the movie. That's fair game, as far as I'm concerned.

madeline again:

She did have reasons for not letting the angels have guns and they were good ones too. It was a good move because it made the movie more challenging, interesting, and the angels seem stronger. It wasn't that they could pull a trigger and someone would die, anyone could do that, they had to actually fight the person, which not everyone could do. I'm sick of arguing with you though so who even cares what you think of Drew position in Hollywood, not I.

The Flick Filosopher responds:

In my review I wrote:

The gunless angels show no remorse in depressurizing a plane full of people at 35,000 feet, beating the shit out of anyone who gets in their way, or driving so recklessly that innocent civilians are put in mortal danger, like the poor schmoe in the car that flips half a dozen times during a high-speed chase that Natalie instigates.

Is that kind of behavior supposed to be some kind of feminist, anti-violence statement?

If you didn't care what I thought about Drew's position in Hollywood, then why did you write to me in the first place?

madeline replies:

Okay now, I never said the movie was anti-voilent and what I meant was that NOW I don't care what you think about Drew's postion becasue I have had enough with arguing with you. Now if you'll ecused me my sister's cat is dying and by the way there was no one in the car that flipped over, it was parked, and they never beat up anyone who didn't come after them first. Besides it's just a movie about superhero type of action, like Batman or Superman or anything like that, the whole feminist thing is about that the superheroes are girls instead of guys.

Oh yah, and they jumped out of the plane to save all those people.

Oh yah and where did the subject come up of feminist and anti-voiolence anyway? I wasn't even writing about that, I know the movie doesn't enforce moral issues, it's just a bright, funny, joyride.

The Flick Filosopher responds:

If you say so.

[Warning: A.I. spoilers]

McNeill L Michael Capt SMC/XRII writes:

I've been reading your reader mail - so far I've read most all of it. Just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents on your Robot theory of A.I.'s "Aliens". Watching the movie, I first believed for a few minutes that they were, yes, advanced robots. And I think the movie actually wants you to wonder which they might be for a little while. But I was soon convinced they were aliens. Why? Their statement when they found David, "This robot seems to be functioning" - or something like that. They didn't say "Hey guys, this an an older model T-800" or "I'll be darned, one of us". And just because they said he was "So important to them" has nothing to do with their being robots from earth. As intrepid space explorers, he holds a key to former earth civilization and culture. Especially since he can be "alive" for more than one day, unlike dead humans that they clone - and they can study him for quite some time - and download his mind and memories, unlike humans. Just because they had their own culture and searched for the meaning of life or whatever on their own planet doesn't mean they can't trek across the stars to search for it elsewhere.

Don't we earthbound types do this already? Especially scientists, science affecianados and those who don't believe in some sort of divine creation (like yourself). We are constantly looking through huge telescopes and radar-scopes (our own little time machines) and launching probes and peering into the past looking for what made us, or where and how it all began. I think it is more important and key to the film that they are aliens.

Here's my take. They are aliens. They are made of energy, electricity, dark matter, or something well, alien. They have discovered earth 2000 years from 300 or so years from now. This is an archealogical dig - seemed pretty evident in the imagery from the film. They have found another species - perhaps the only one in all their travels. Human clones only last for a day. This robot and robot toy are the first intact human or near human they have found and can revive. David is "so important" to them because he is an extremely close replica of humans - the last reminant of our culture and species other than bone dust, broken robot parts and ruins of cities. Why no other robots of various stages of technological advance buried in the ice you ask? perhaps humans destroyed them. I'm making the assumption that no other "davids" were completed or sold after William Hurt saw his failure with his flagship David who decapitated his twin and lept to what seemed his own death. Perhaps there was a nuclear war, which brought about this ice age, and that's why David is practically the last thing left - he was underwater and survived the heat and the blasts. Scarce resources, more than almost any other reason bring about wars. Perhaps perhaps etc..., but all of the supporting evidence seems to point to me that they are very alien. Just because they say he is important to them doesn't warrant enough evidence for me to believe they are advanced robots. And if they WERE earthly robots, where did they come from? Logically they must have left or been banished from earth for quite some time and then returned right? So why would they care about david then? They would have older model robots in their "homeworld" with plenty of memory of the human species and probably trillions of scraps of DNA from humans in the form of clothes, shedded skin cells, etc, with them. They could probably give 2 squirts of motor oil about digging up the nasty bastards that banished them so long ago. Add to all of this that it is a kubrick film with a very 2001-ish ending, and the Alien case is cemented for me - and for plenty others i'm sure. What's your take?

The Flick Filosopher responds:

I've made my theory on the subject pretty clear, so I won't reiterate it. But to touch on two points:

If the beings were alien and a search for a meaning of life was important to them, they'd have their own ways of looking for one. But the feeling I got from the film is that the robots have only what culture the humans left them with, and not one of their own.

Where did the robots come from? They're from Earth -- they didn't have to leave and come back. When the ice age hit and humans died out, the robots they created (and at some point the robots would start making more of their own kind, and advancing their own kind in an evolutionary sense, too) lived on, since they didn't need to eat. (Food production would be hard hit by advancing glaciers.)

McNeill L Michael Capt SMC/XRII replies:

Hmm, I still just don't see it. It seems we agree that "they" are searching for a meaning of life, or seeking out new life, and new civilizations (or old ones) - and and it would make sense that robots would evolve - dramatically faster than organic humans could given the advance of computing power available today. But none of this makes sense as to why they would wait so long to dig up human or robot remains. As machines, they should already have oodles of info stored in databases about their older models - so they wouldn't care about david. If they were never banished from earth, one would think they would have kept the remains of the last remaining humans who huddled together at the equator or somewhere when robotkind and humankind fled the advancing glaciers.

The Flick Filosopher responds:

Perhaps the robots went through a cultural dark age like we did after the fall of the Roman Empire. A lot of human knowledge was lost then. Maybe the robots suffered some sort of disaster (a giant computer crash??) in which they lost information. Or maybe they didn't evolve to a point at which a "meaning of life" was important to them until long after the humans had disappeared.

Right now, we've got oodles of information stored on disks that we can't read anymore, because the drives to read them no longer exist. (Got any 5 1/4 inch floppies hanging around? That's what I'm talking about.)

I don't see the problems you're seeing, but I suspect that even I did, I'd be able to excuse them because the robots make such an important point to me. I can understand why you can't accept them, though.

McNeill L Michael Capt SMC/XRII again:

We seem to be purty smart folks who could come up with multiple reasons which logically support either of our wishes, which brings me back to my original hypothesis that the movie deliberately leaves gaps in which you could go either way. I would place money on that being what the scriptwriter had in mind. Although the ending seemed unnecessary and tacked-on, at least it leaves tons of room for debate, which makes a great film I believe - much like the different ways to interpret 2001 or Unbreakable.

So what does "natch" mean? I'm guessing "of course", "by the way", or something like that. But seriously, you use it a lot. Did you make it up?

The Flick Filosopher responds:

I agree that there's lots of room for interpretation in A.I., which is one of the things that makes it a good film, I think.

"Natch" is short for "naturally." I didn't make it up. Merriam-Webster says it's slang that dates from the 1940s. I think I probably picked it up when I was writing fashion, beauty and food copy for McCall's magazine a decade ago.

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