It was roughly a month ago that former HE commenter Jeremy Fassler, one of the most belligerent and condemning one-note wokesters to ever leave his mark on Hollywood Elsewhere, was given his walking papers.
And yet he used to be a much different person. 18 years ago, I mean, when Fassler was in ninth or tenth grade. I came across a 2.23.15 post about Sideways, written by a 15 year-old Fassler.
“I’m 15, and I saw Sideways before it opened and loved it every bit as much as you did,” he wrote. “But I only have two friends who are around my age who liked it as much as I did.
“Everyone else I’ve talked to has not had a positive reaction to the movie. ‘I didn’t understand why [Paul Giamatti and Thomas Hayden Church] were friends,’ one said. I told another to watch it again in a few years and he said, ‘If I don’t like it now why would I ever like it?’ Even some adults, like my substitute teacher in English, thought that it was so unlikable and couldn’t muster up any sympathy for Giamatti’s character.
“I figured you’d be the best guy to ask. Why don’t more people of my age understand Sideways?” — Jeremy Fassler.
Wells to Fassler [also written in early ’05]: “I haven’t a clue as to why your English teacher found it unlikable, but he probably needs to get out more. That or Giamatti’s character reminded him of something in himself on some level, and he didn’t like thinking about that. Your friends not liking it is probably about life-experience issues. My 16 year-old son Jett says ‘several’ of his friends liked it fine.”