Posted this morning (9.22) on Facebook by veteran film journalist Lewis Beale. The Times staffer who didn’t approve of his War of the Worlds location piece getting prominent, above-the-fold placement sounds an awful lot like a certain someone associated with TheWrap, but I wasn’t directly involved so I wouldn’t know.

On the other hand Matt Zoller Seitz is saying that if a secular elite critic who worships James Gray…if this person is underpaid and has to constantly “chase checks” and doesn’t have health insurance, he/she can’t be a secular elitist. Trust me — Seitz knows the truth of it. He knows that the James Gray cabal (strong in New York, dominant in Paris) lives on its own aesthetic planet and has almost no sense of what it’s like to be Joe and Jane Popcorn, and no understanding or interest in what Joe or Jane care about and/or are looking for when they go to see a film.

I might despise people who laugh too loud in bars, but I’ve always understood the Joe Popcorn realm. I come from New Jersey, I ride around on a rumble-hog, and I eat hot dogs from time to time. I get it.