Subject: Re: *Made-Up* review
From: Lynne Adams

Thank you so much. A fantastic insightful review. I can't tell you how nice it is for me to read something that makes me feel so seen. I loved it, thank you.

I respond:

Thanks for making a great little film!

From: tswelch [tswelch@mail.ku.edu]

You've done it yet again - written a lovely, funny, perceptive review of a movie I now can't wait to see (Made-up). Of course I enjoy reading how much you love LOTR: ROTK and other movies that I also love, but it's just as fun to read a well-crafted piece for its own sake. Thanks for all the care you put into your reviews. It shows, and is appreciated.

I respond:

Thanks so much for your kind words. I hope you enjoy Made-Up as much as you enjoyed my review of it!

Subject: Three Years Late, but....
From: Dennis, Dale [djdennis@ucdavis.edu]

I'm sorry, I should have written this three years ago, but...well, there are no good excuses.

I write reviews for a site called SoundwavesCinema.com, and had written one for "The Musketeer", and as is my habit, I like to look at what other reviewers have to say. I usually look at Ebert, a few newspapers, and the like, on mrqe.com. Then, recently, I was reviewing my reviews and others' reviews, and stumbled upon your review of "The Musketeer", you know, the terrible, awful, Justin Chambers/Peter Hyams debacle of a Dumas retread, and I just had to tell you...

...I LOVED your review! You said so many things that I wish I had said as wittily! Too many critics were far too kind to that film (Ebert included), so I was ecstatic to find that there was someone who saw that film as the weighted down piece of schlock that it was.

Sorry my comments are so late. I'll try to be more up-to-date with you next time....

I respond:

Praise is never late! Thanks so much for letting me know you've enjoyed my work.

Subject: Fan Mail
From: Laurence_C_Yinger@whirlpool.com

Hi my favorite filosopher,

It may have not been an overwhelming year for film (as you say) (except LOTR) but it was an amazing year for you. You just keep getting better and more insightful. That kind of personal and professional growth is wonderful ... and you have it.

Except for maybe 'Finding Nemo' I can say that EVERYTHING you wrote was so totally full of heart as well as intelligence that it just delighted me or gave me some viewpoint that I hadn't considered before. This year I read every one of your reviews just because you have become my preferred new writer. Relishing your comments about Tolkien and his work (another writer on my 'best' list) was like having a delicous chocolate.

[My little nit-pic on your Finding Nemo ranking and review is just that I guess I don't understand how the kindness, care and friendship expressed by "depressingly human" fish is any different than similar stuff in, say, the (wonderful) Lion King. And the 4-year old kid inside me felt better about the out-of-character shark silliness in FN than the out-of-character hynea treachery in LK. Actually, (as a lawyer) I thought the idea of sharks in therapy to overcome their essential natures was disarmingly charming and 'over the top' even for my 4-year old daughter. She even was prompted to ask me "if the sharks don't eat fish -what do they eat?" Anyway, it was still a very wonderful gesture on your part to nominate the performance of Ellen Degeneres in spite of your a little bit less-than-enthusiastic review of the movie.]

I know that we Flickfilosopher readers didn't quite meet your test, but I still hope you maintain your site and your writing, at least until you hit it big on a script. And by the way, now that I've thought about how much I got out of your site I'm going to send another donation. The value of what you wrote was, on second thought, more than I've already sent.

Subject: A Modest Proposal
From: Mike_Lang@aoncons.com

I have never felt so compelled to vent my displeasure over a movie. But frankly I place much of the blame on you, yes you oh mighty Flick Filosopher, so here goes (Besides, my wife is tired of hearing about it).

In a year in which our first child was born, our normally frequent movie-going experiences were severely curtailed. What 2003 did give us, however, was an almost unprecedented impeccable viewing record - Lost in Translation, Return of the King, A Mighty Wind, Pirates of the Caribbean, American Splendor, Spellbound. Exceptional movies all, and all highly recommended by our cinematic oracle, the Flick Filosopher.

Then we decided to introduce our son to the world of film in our local second-run movie house, which has Baby Brigade night for those with young 'uns (It also has beer, pizza, and comfortable old couches - www.picturepubpizza.com for a random plug of a great little venue). Anywho, we went with the little tike to see "Love Actually" which, I think it is important for anyone who has movie-spending dollars in their pocket and isn't a monosyllabic mouthbreather to know, is shit actually.

I really don't make a habit of ruining the movie experiences of others by criticizing films they have liked. I also don't believe it is possible to change a person's initial reaction to a movie. But I ask, no, beg you to watch this movie again.

I am not going to resort to the standard criticisms of Richard Curtis, though I certainly could say that portraying a "cross section" of a London where everybody is fabulously pretty, fabulously well-off, and every man has a woman out there for him who could pass for his daughter is dishonest (And I thought you didn't like "Something's Gotta Give"...). But the movie is fantastically dishonest in so many other respects. We are asked to accept that the gunshy Laura Linney has a co-worker she is attracted to that is equally as gunshy, except for the fact that he is basically a supermodel, the kind of guy that none of us has ever seen working in an office anywhere. Oh, but he wears glasses so he must be shy and bookish. We are asked to accept that it is endearing, in a post-9/11 world, when a young boy busts through airport security and outraces them to say goodbye to his paramour. We are also asked, just minutes earlier, to find that same 11 year old paramour endearing when she belts out a sexy Christmas song and struts across the school stage like a tarted-up Jon Benet Ramsey. We are asked to accept that it's cute that a real guy's guy secretly announces to his best friend's wife that he loves her, about 2 weeks after their wedding at which he was the best man. And worst of all, we are asked to accept these four words - Hugh Grant, Prime Minister. I was perfectly willing to go along with this and perfectly willing to like the movie if they could sell me on this point. But when Hugh Grant acts like, well, Hugh Grant, and when he struts through #10 Downing like Tom Cruise in tighty whities, well sir, that product I'm not buying.

What makes this one of the worst movies in recent memory is this very same dishonesty. At least "Judge Dredd" did not purport to be realistic in any way, and I don't remember "Roadhouse" asking for any Academy Awards. But this abomination, though a romantic comedy, does have to have some footing in reality (And it is asking for Oscar nominations, perish the thought). The movie's ridiculousness can be broken down to small moments - Billy Bob Thornton, as the American president, ogles the staff immediately after meeting the Prime Minister for the first time; a young Brit scores a bevy of hot babes in the first bar in Milwaukee he walks into, a scene meant to be funny but was so implausible I found myself hoping it was a cheesy dream sequence; the lovesick best man fools his apparently clueless buddy into thinking a clearly professional, studio-produced CD is a pack of carolers at the front door. It's ok to ask the audience to buy these preposterous scenes in a Farrelly brothers, or an action movie, or even a musical, where the audience knows that it is stepping into a world where things happen easily and happily suspend their disbelief. Not here.

And when it comes right down to it, this movie (I'm physically unable to say the name again) is just misguided and wrong at its heart. It has far too many stories and characters and not the time to develop any single one of them. Christ, it took an entire movie to sell Michael Douglas as the President, but it would take a four hour epic, if not a box set, to sell Hugh Grant as the Prime Minister. I didn't buy into any of these characters or their stories, and the movie didn't make any attempt to persuade me. It's lazy filmmaking, and lazy writing, and let's be honest here - if this was a Hollywood movie, with American actors and American accents, it would be howled off the screen. Better yet, it would have been howled off the studio lot 30 seconds into the pitch.

Is there anything to recommend about the movie? Yes. Bill Nighy as the aging rock star was the only one to pull himself out of this wreckage unscathed. Hilarious and worthy of much more screen time. The funny thing is, of all the characters in the film he is the one that means the very least to it. In fact, except for a throw-in non sequitor of a scene where he proclaims his "true love", he has nothing to do with what the film is ultimately trying to say. Normally, it would make me mad in that they added an entire storyline that should easily have been cut out of the movie (see Gump, Forrest - jogging). In this case, however, I was more than happy to have something to prevent me from slitting my wrists with a plastic knife.

I know I'm lancing windmills here, Flick Filosopher, but for god's sake watch this thing again. Please do what you can do preserve my last sliver of hope in humanity.

I respond:

Love Actually worked for me. It didn't work for you. There's probably nothing I could say to change your mind, and I would try to. But I'll just comment quickly on some of what you said.

> where everybody is fabulously pretty, fabulously well-off, and every man
> has a woman out there for him who could pass for his daughter is dishonest

Not true. The Downing Street secretary clearly is from, at best, a middle-class neighbor (and is still living with her parents!), and not all the couples had great disparities in their ages. Certainly not the triangle with Keira Knightley, nor Rickman and Thompson, nor Linney and her hunk, nor Firth and his housekeeper.

> We are asked to accept that it is endearing, in a post-9/11 world, when a
> young boy busts through airport security and outraces them to say goodbye
> to his paramour.

I think the asinine lengths to which airport "security" has gone certainly deserves some skewering.

> We are asked to accept that it's cute that a real guy's guy secretly
> announces to his best friend's wife that he loves her, about 2 weeks after
> their wedding at which he was the best man.

I don't think we're meant to find that "cute" -- I didn't. It was, at best, bittersweet.

I'm sorry you were disappointed with my review, but I don't imagine that seeing the film again will dramatically change my opinion of it. I was charmed by it. It's a fantasy, and it's silly in a lot of places, but that's part of why I liked it. Sorry.

Subject: Giving a Try
From: Adrian Van Tol [twistedkestrel@sympatico.ca]

I'm an occassional reader of your website, and first off I would like to tell you that you are my #1 source for movie reviews, my second source usually being word of mouth. Your writing stands out on its own as entertaining, but your movie reviews are informative and heartfelt. I may not agree with them all of the time, but it's easy to see where you're coming from, and more often than not your views are in line with my own.

"Aha!", you (may) think. "Another reader is buttering me up for some asanine question. Let's just run his email address by the PayPal jar, and see how's much he's contributed ... hmm, what a surprise. Absolutely nothing!" No offense if this improbable line of reasoning didn't pass through your mind, but if it did, you'd be absolutely right! You're high on the list on things that are going to get my money once I have it, trust me. I'm just working on ways to transition out of my career of successful unemployment.

Anyway, the asanine question that I had in mind, was this (I checked your FAQ to see how you react to such questions, and it wasn't there ... hopefully a good thing): What would be one movie you would recommend as an excellent love story? As far as I can tell, you take the exact same attitude as I do towards the utter crap that passes for romances in theatres these days ... but there must be a movie that you can hold up and say, "Now this, is a romance." Er, perhaps romance is the wrong word, depending on the story I suppose. You probably already have a review of such on your site, but you've amassed quite a list by now. I realize the time you have for e-mails is limited, and this won't be the most engaging email you're going to get today, so the most I can ask for is just the name.

Thanks for your time!

I respond:

Just sos you know, I *never* run anyone's email address through the donation list, cuz I don't keep a donation list. It'd be too much work. :->

Romances? How about:

The Princess Bride
Truly Madly Deeply
Say Anything
Casablanca
Roxanne
Moonstruck

For starters...

03.08.04

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