SKIP THE TAYLOR, SEE THE MOVIE

Okay, here's the deal. I just read Ella Taylor's "mixed review" of Michael Moore's "Sicko." When I got through the following bit of text, I decided to stop reading so I could start this blog in a vain attempt to rid the world of every last anointed, pseudo-intellectual, self-indulgent, disgruntled screenwriter who fancies him or herself worthy of a job that used to be more than simply a platform to air one's personal issues and/or show off their talent for puns and other wordplay. Sorry about the long-winded run-on. I just thought it would be ironic to go L.A. Weekly on you.

(Excerpt from Ella Taylor's Film Review of "Sicko") 6-27-07:

"Conversely, Moore has nothing but contempt for American HMOs, including those that get as close to socialized medicine as most Americans will allow. While it’s true, for example, that the Kaiser Foundation has had its share of recent scandals (patients dumped on Skid Row, treatments denied to the seriously ill), I’ve had consistently good care there, and a Kaiser surgeon did an outstanding job of uncrossing my 2-year-old daughter’s eyes, for which I was charged $2."

Now, I love the British as much as the next guy. In fact, I myself am a descendant of Ethelred The Unready (which makes me less French than any living Royal)... but Good God!!! Apparently, in her world, patients crawling around the streets of downtown in feces-stained Kaiser gowns and those in their final stages of life should be acknowledged, but only begrudgingly, and only between parentheses. I hate to sound as insensitive as Miss E.T., but maybe her 2-year-old daughter shouldn't have been reading her reviews in the first place. An ounce of prevention, as they say...

Anyway, now you know why I've been wanting to take her down ever since she closed her critique of "Adaptation" with a marriage proposal to Charlie Kaufman. We can only be grateful that he didn't take her up on the offer. Had he, I'm sure we would never have seen the likes of "Eternal Sunshine," because our greatest living screenwriter would either have offed himself shortly after the honeymoon (over feeling left out) or he would have succumbed to her adjective abuse. Uh-oh, guess I overstepped there. Speaking of overstepping, read this next excerpt.

(From Ella Taylor's Film Review of "Match Point") 12-15-05:

"(Woody) Allen turned 70 two weeks ago and seems to have made a happier life for himself in recent years, though God only knows at what cost to others. But it’s sad to contemplate that we’ll likely never see another Annie Hall, a Purple Rose of Cairo, a Manhattan or even a Radio Days in his lifetime."

Wow! What a way to close a review and simultaneously put one of America's greatest filmmakers in his place. What the hell? Why not just put the nail in the coffin and read him his last rites from THE GREAT BOOK OF PROPHECIES?!?! Jesus, I guess you really are only as good as your last film. If that's so, Billy Wilder's legacy is FUCKED!

Despite Miss Taylor's obvious issues with The Woodman himself, "Match Point," even though it cribbed much more than a little from "A Place In The Sun," was one of the better films of 2005, a year in which one of the most laughably awful films ever to have disgraced the silver screen received not only an Oscar for Best Screenplay, but for Best Picture - "Crash." Yes, I know, a lot of critics sipped the Kool-Aid and totally got swept up by its inexplicable popularity, but for Miss Taylor to dub this heavy-handed, spoon-feeding, cynical, two-dimensional-character-driven tripe as "One of the best Hollywood movies about race," is unforgivable and cannot be ignored. History will show that "Crash" is no "Do The Right Thing," no "To Kill A Mockingbird," no "In The Heat Of The Night." In fact, according to THE GREAT BOOK OF PROPHECIES, it will go down as the longest P.S.A. ever unleashed on the unsuspecting public. A very good one, but a P.S.A. nonetheless. Don't get me wrong. I believe anybody who doesn't know what racism is, as well as those who do but don't care (incarcerated skinheads, Jesse Helms' corpse, etc.), should be forced to watch this movie over and over and over again. I'm not totally against cruel and unusual punishment, I just vote like I am.

But, I digress. Ella Taylor is probably the best critic the free L.A. Weekly has to offer (the rest who are currently there aren't even worth mentioning). She can be slightly amusing sometimes, in a droll, cartoonishly English sort of way, but it almost feels as though she doesn't really exist at all - as if she were conjured up by several gay white men who maybe once wrote for "Sex In The City." Now, I'm assuming she probably spends a great deal of time Googling herself. That's what I've heard, anyhow. My hope is that maybe she'll come across this blog, learn something about herself, and make some adjustments in her review-writing that might serve the Weekly's readership.

Dear Ella Taylor:

Look-at-me writing is not what the public wants when reading a movie review, it's just what the public expects. Unfortunately, the quality of each year's best films has been sinking ever since you've been "in office," and people's expectations have followed suit. I suppose it's only natural for film critics to trudge down the hill with them, but I'd like to think it's a critic's job to set the bar high. You must be tougher on lousy movies. And, you must not bring your home to work with you. Personal issues should stay personal. Nobody wants to hear about your family except your family. Nobody wants to be your shrink except your shrink. In this age when Reality TV has taken hold and Time Magazine's "Person Of The Year" is everybody on the planet, it's more important than ever for the critics of this once great nation to lead us not into the abyss of mental-masturbatory movie reviewing, but to deliver us from mediocrity. Do your job, Ella. Or quit and start a blog nobody's going to read.

Respectfully,
Salty Milkduds