“Death threats, shmeath threats, Valerie Plame. You’re famous, and you got a better book deal than I’m ever likely to, goddammit.”
Original, if you’re so inclined, here.
Shorter Kyle Smith
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Er…yep, that’s all he says, all right. I guess. If you say so.
A movie reviewer who is jealous that somebody else is more famous than he is – because of something Robert Novak wrote? This is beyond belief.
“In fact, no one committed this crime, which is why the extremely vigorous special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald did not charge anyone with it.”
So, if someone is found stabbed to death, and no one is ever charged, no crime was ever committed? Really? Orwellian logic gives me a headache, and circular logic gives me brain cramps. Thankfully, they cancel each other out.
Indeed, Smith says THAT also, so yes, I guess maybe I am being a little unfair to the guy.
Other than that, I don’t think I’m gonna budge much on this one. It’ll be interesting to see how commenters with an investment in running down Plame are going to spin “Fair Game”—which is, inherently, as a fictionalized version of actual events, something of a piece of spin itself, it must be stated—and Smith’s initial volley is pretty weak tea. I’m reviewing the picture for another outlet so I can’t really say much about it here, but the picture does go to considerable pains to point out that Plame was hardly the “glorified secretary” that certain parties tried to paint her as after her outing. And reading Smith’s piece, you can tell that he’s just DYING to go there, but somehow just can’t bring himself to. There’s also the whole Armitage issue, which was the subject of about a half-dozen Big Hollywood skrees when that crew got a hold of a script for the film; the finished film DOES say that Armitage was the source of the leak, which leads Smith to complain that the film, um, doesn’t have ENOUGH Armitage. And so on.
I’m sure it would be possible to call bullshit on this film in a somewhat convincing fashion. Smith, on the other hand, merely goes for the knee-jerk two-minute hate, gets in a not-very-convincing “was SO” jab, and then allows as to just which circumstances he would tolerate if there was a million-dollar book deal at the other end of them, information that really ought to only be of interest to his agent. Fail.
It was interesting to me that Smith, who’s the only film critic I personally know of who is also an Army veteran, was also one of the very few who had anything good to say about De Palma’s Redacted.
http://kylesmithonline.com/?p=679
Outside of an Oscar-qualifying run that was aborted when its distributor went under, NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH was never released, and went straight to DVD. It never had a chance to flop. Too bad as the actresses are good.
@ The Siren: Yeah, and he’s wrong about THAT, too. It is kind of funny, though, that the guy who recently called out his personal cliché-alert police on the phrase “formal rigor” there says that Brian DePalma’s work is almost always “riveting.” To invoke one more cliché, heckuva job!
John Simon has many flaws as a critic. But Richard Grenier, Commentary’s critic from the late seventies to sometime in the mid nineties, was just a hack. He was the sort of critic who would denounce “The Official Story” (in the Washington Times, not Commentary), because it criticized Argentina’s right wing dictatorship, when Argentina was a neo-con ally. I don’t know what this blog thinks of “Empire of the Sun,” but Grenier (also in the Washington Times) denounced Spielberg as a boot-licking pro-Japanese quisling.
Simon is Simon; his innumerable peculiar prejudices and other stuff aside, he’s got real goods, and while he’s an easy man to disagree with, if you’re going to, you had better come prepared. Grenier, I think, got goofier as his career progressed; there was a point when he was reasonable enough to be able to recount his cameo in Godard’s “Pierrot Le Fou” with good humor.
Smith, as you might have inferred, I have no use for. Whenever anybody invokes him as a “good” or “funny” writer who “just happens” to be a conservative, I flash on the “all you’ve got?/WHAT I’ve got” dialogue exchange from “Rio Bravo.” Those little pirouettes you can see him doing after delivering a zingless zinger (shades of “Pardon the pun” in “The Producers”) comfort me, as they remind me there are worse things a writer can be than angry and bitter…
Yeah, Simon could be hard to take when indulging in his famous digs at unprepossessing actors, but I found him quite valuable when writing about films and filmmakers he liked. And he certainly didn’t tow the conservative line, no matter the venue.
Or “toe” the line, for that matter. Whichever.
It’s also disingenuous for Smith to claim that his piece is simply an ‘objective’ counterpoint to the movie when every detail he mentions drips with contempt for the filmmakers (this movie won’t make any money, nobody will see it, the actors are fat, etc.)
I’m all for legitimate fair and balanced discussion, but bullshit is as bullshit does.
(Also, Redacted isn’t a good movie, but it still has some redeeming facets, to use Rosenbaum’s term).
It’s not a very well-written review, but I admit to agreeing with his general disdain for the preening Wilsons. I think being portrayed on film by Sean Penn (an actor who hasn’t delivered a believable line since [i]Fast Times at Ridgemont High[/i]) is precisely the fate Joe Wilson deserves, but he’s such a d‑bag he probably thinks it’s an honor.