Approves, that is, of the following excerpts from “Why Writing Top Ten Best Lists Is the Worst,” a realclearlife.com article that Thelma posted about a week ago:
Excerpt #1: “Every time I see A Star is Born atop a list, I think my fellow critics must be on crack. The remake is a Bradley Cooper vanity production headed for some kind of apocalyptic end-of-aesthetics-as-we-know-them accolades come Oscar season. Cooper, from the dais, will be both humbled and honored. I can’t wait. What can be expected of a film where the signature song is ‘Shallow’? Not that it doesn’t have its value: it’s best seen with a gaggle of inebriated friends late at night like The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
Excerpt #2: “The diversity spread. In the current climate, loathe be the critic who doesn’t do a little shifting to ensure that their list isn’t simply the best films but also mixes in ample women directors, those of color and LGBQT. This is laudable — but in a studio and independent system where white males still dominate the films in the pipeline, this could lead to stretching. Hence BlacKkKlansman, a clumsy if well-cast period comedy based on a fantastic idea: a black man goes undercover in the Colorado KKK and meets Grand Wizard David Duke. But…it reflects Spike Lee’s fatal flaw: his inability to get out of his own way and tell the urgent story at the center of his movies.”
Excerpt #3: “Obvious overkill — the same thirty films get recycled in the critical equivalent of virtue signaling.”
HE to Adams: Variety‘s Kris Tapley doesn’t approve of critics who use the term “virtue signalling.” He thinks “it makes you sound like people who say ‘libtard’ and ‘cuck’ with a straight face.” Fair warning.
