So I spent a few years reviewing DVDs (in addition to a stint as Editor-in-Chief at dvdinmypants.com). Finally stepped down to pursue other things — insert a plug for A Year of Hitchcock here — but before I left I turned in some good reviews, some bad reviews, and some insane reviews.
This blog post is about the insane reviews. Warning: Copious amounts of adult language follows.
Keep in mind, most of the time I wrote serious reviews. I wanted to do a good job and be a Film Critic. (Note the important capital letters.) Hell, I co-wrote an entire 450-page book of serious film commentary and criticism! But as the site’s name will tell you, dvdinmypants.com was not a serious place. It encouraged wild and zany reviews, and so sometimes that’s what I provided.
For instance, I wrote my review of Gilmore Girls – The Complete Seventh Season while in the middle of a stretch when all my reviews were complete and total meltdowns. Here’s an excerpt:
“See, Pitchfork waxed poetic about how, oh yay, the new Jesus, this music, blah blah blah and whatever. You know how Pitchfork gets. So Arcade Fire was dubbed hip and the hipsters were ready to make with the following-the-leader. And then they get namedropped on the hipper-than-thou Gilmore Girls and, well, I make the argument that that sure as hell didn’t hurt, right? The thing is, that guy from Arcade Fire? Ol’ Mr. I’m So Earnest And Real or whatever, he of Big, Noble Ideals who doesn’t understand how fucking ironic it is that he of all people calls out U2 for being U2ish? Yeah, fuck that dude.”
I don’t even know what I was going on about. But even that wasn’t nearly as incoherent as my review of Our Very Own, a cute little indie film that I used as a platform to … I dunno. Go ballistic about a load of nonsense, including a strange anti-war white Hungarian rapper named “Speak”:
“None of the kids in Our Very Own eat roadkill, which is kind of screwed up because if you’re telling me they don’t eat roadkill in Shelbyville, Tennessee, where DO they eat roadkill? Seems to me that would be roadkill-eating central, no? I mean, roadkill. Understand?”
The director probably hates me for that review.
But my greatest triumph and one of my proudest moments is my review of Red Dawn. Remember Red Dawn? The Russians invade and some school kids take up arms and fight back. It had Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen and it was AWESOME. Also awesome is the review. Here is a bit from it:
“Patrick Swayze is a man, a man who knows you can piss in the radiator if you need to, and that if you drink the blood of the boar you get its power. He don’t play no games, son. He will dance with your ass like it ain’t no thang, and then he will beat up a bar full of people and fight Russians and make clay pots even though he’s dead. Check it. Can you top that? No, you can’t. He is Swayze. Fear him.”
Hey, look, I’m not saying these are good reviews. Hell, as film criticism they suck. Plus they ramble and rant and rave like nobody’s business. They’re borderline incoherent.
But they were fun to write, I guess, and totally appropriate for that site. Maybe I’ll post more another time.
And no, my Alfred Hitchcock book is nothing like this!
