This week has been characterized by a slew of reviews, most of which have been extremeley positive but a few of which have been quite negative. And of course, being human, the negative ones are the ones that I end up obsessing about. Because even though I knew the film would piss a lot of people off, it still hurts when people say mean things about it (or about me).
It's especially upsetting when what a critic says is either patently absurd or patently untrue. For example, AM New York critic Jay Carr, who in a review of an earlier film of mine ("I Don't Hate Las Vegas Anymore") once called me a "twerp," writes:
"His narcissism is equaled only by his shallowness, triviality and humorlessness.
It might work if he had enough distance from himself to appear to truly be making fun of his compulsive chase after commercially available oral sex. But he doesn't appear to be goofing on his narcissism so much as indulging it...."
Well, anyone not mentally challenged can see right away that the film is neither humorless nor lacking in aesthetic distance. I can understand someone not liking the film, but for a film critic not to even get the film at its most basic level is unnerving.
More predictible but equally distressing is the indignant moralistic posturing of some critics, for whom the film seems to hit a little too close to home. These critics seem to feel an almost hysterical need to distance themselves from the film's content. For example, in the right-wing Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post, V.A. Musetto writes:
"How many times can you listen to this obnoxious man's neurotic ramblings? And, you must wonder, what in hell did all those beautiful, intelligent women ever see in this scrawny, neurotic, sicko nerd?"
To call me a "sicko" in the context of a film review (I should mention that the film deliberately blurs the lines between character and filmmaker) is so vituperative an attack as to be almost comic. One senses the reviewer straining to assure the reader that he, unlike the filmmaker, is not a "sicko," and one can't help but notice that Mr. Musetto "doth protest too much."
Negative reviews are an inevitable part of being a filmmaker, and personal attacks are an inevitable by-product of making personal films that question the status quo. I wish I could say I don't mind at all, and that I just think it's kind of funny, but the truth is that it does get to you sometimes, and today was one of those days.
posted by Caveh Zahedi at
9:45 AM
