This shit drives me crazy: There are so many blog threads where people who’re probably perfectly nice sound like total sarcastic assholes and then are all surprised and offended when their assholery is taken at face value. Hello, this is the web: we can’t see each other, we don’t know each other, we have only what’s said to figure each other out. so if you say something assholey, don’t be shocked when it generates more of the same, and don’t be surprised when it degenerates the entire blog thread into stupidity.

i can understand the temptation, god knows i’m guilty too. blogs allow you the time to come up with the snappy comeback you can never think of on the spot — or that you’d hesitate to say to someone’s face. Take away the face and the time limit and people are free to jerk it to the max. most of the time i just let it lie, but crapping on CP people when they’ve taken a hit like this seemed a little like kicking a sick dog.

While I too mourn the loss of Joel E. Siegel every week, no one in this town knows film–Iranian to whatever–better than Jenkins. And no one has devoted more space and more words and more time to the obscure and the indie then Jenkins.

i majored in film, love to talk about it, have written about it, and enjoy many of CP’s reviews. the ones I don’t, whatever. people have different tastes. i’m not going to write an aggressive personal diatribe against the reviewer. i don’t know jenkins from adam, but i can read english well enough to know sarcastic, and superior when i read it — and i can write english well enough to point out the hypocrisy of someone criticizing elitism and wheaties-pissiness while embodying those qualities.

generally speaking, tim dude, what i’d like to see on blogs more often — not just this thread, and not just CP’s blog — is criticism that isn’t so personal and vicious. criticism that seems to get that “a Mark Jenkins review” has a human being, named mark jenkins, behind it and reads more like a measured and reasonable critique than some sort of character assassination. like dave said, you’ve got a right to not like the reviews and to say why, but you can keep it real without sounding like such a dick. CP’s blog already has its quota.

if you had read it, you would understand that i generally praised the CP film section for its potential, and its interviews, but denigrated the tired content of its world-weary, pissed-in-my-wheaties movie reviews. Maybe, for you, i should have spread those sentences out, or written in all-CAPs. but thank you for being impressed by my word choices.

And sorry if this is news to you, but yes, many many people have given up on CP for guidance on movies. “We” includes my friends in the community who relish independent films. But you obviously care enough to write in, so just keep telling yourself that the movie reviews of the CP are relevant. Just like success in Iraq being just around the corner.

and you made me laugh with your “methinking”

best,
tim

Your posts make no freaking sense, Tim. CP should expose people to non-corporate fare? “They do,” says Dave, going on to list a variety of indy/non-corporate directors they’ve covered (and acknowledging your right to not like Jenkins’ reviews).

“Exhibit A,” sez you. “You hip kids” sez you. “Standing up for pretension” sez you.

“What the fuck?” sez me.

Dave’s response to your nasty swipe was friendlier than you deserved. Methinks you sound like someone who wishes he had a movie column in which to wax pretentious once a week — and who’s a little too delighted to shit upon the guy who has the job.

I actually do still read the interviews - they are well done. But copping an attitude (oops - is that within the lexicon you hip kids use these days?) in reviews with faux-elitist ennui is so tired. Which is why people like me, who treat cinema “seriously,” don’t bother to read his reviews anymore.

But good for you for standing up for pretension. You really showed me!

Too bad you stopped reading film reviews, because you’ve missed the many, many articles on “non-corporate fare,” including interviews with directors like Todd Solondz, Danae Elon, Hans Weingartner, Shin Sang-ok, and many, many more. City Paper routinely gives pride of place in the section to the independent and foreign films and let’s the Post go ga-ga over whatever blockbuster is opening that week.

You find Jenkins’ work “elitist treacle”– that’s your prerogative. What can’t be disputed is that he takes cinema seriously and writes for others who do the same.

But thanks for reminding us to “keep it real.” Admittedly, we’ve been distracted by gettin’ jiggy with it.

Case in point, the movie reviews - this section has so much potential, given the opportunity to expose the community to non-corporate fare, but is wasted on jaded, affected poseurs. Who reads a Mark Jenkins review anymore? They reek of elitist treacle, straining for attention and relevancy (which is itself ironic, given that they alienate serious film-lovers who are the only ones who even bother to read it). We stopped reading film reviews a couple years ago. Which is a shame.

CP writers, you can keep it real without sounding like pretentious twats. D.C. has already met its quota.

No, but we (well, not me personally, but lots of others) did clamor (and continue to clamor) for Starbuck’s, Fresh Fields, Harris Teeter, Trader Joe’s, Target. These are staples of every suburban mall, is it surprising they would make an intellectual leap to anything else found in a suburban mall?

Apparently overpriced organic food stores and coffee shops are OK with gentrifiers who lament gentrification, middle-class chain restaurants are not??

As much as I despise the restaurant, Ruby Tuesday’s probably serves the mixed-income market that is CH a lot better than a Whole Foods would.