Gawker: Critics

Even Texas Journalists Now Hire Ghost Writers

Hamilton Nolan — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:25:25 EDT

Ramiro Burr, a longtime music writer and columnist at the San Antonio Express-News, has resigned from the paper in the face of "allegations that he hired a ghost writer to produce more than 100 stories and columns since 2001." Wow. Didn't it used to be that only journalism's upper crust muckety-mucks hired ghost writers for their columns, like when Mort Zuckerman got Harry "Mr. Tina Brown" Evans to work on his columns in US News & World Report? That sort of thing is expected amongst the elites. But the Latin music critic in San Antonio? Where's the amusing elitism in that? The ghost writer came forward only looking for bylines, and gave a binder full of proof of how he would crank out columns and then pass them on to Burr. And Burr's half-ass non-denial on his own blog makes him sound pretty guilty:

Burr said his departure from the Express-News was over editorial differences.

"For 18 years my syndicated music column has run in several newspapers and I have always claimed the rights to ownership of the column, all editorial decisions and the subsequent column revenues from those newspapers. The Express-News has never disputed those rights.

"I may have been a little overzealous, or overreached in trying to be the best reporter columnist I could be. For the past 20 years I have worked with university interns and always supported the philosophy of bringing others up behind me. I have no regrets for helping others, especially Latinos, with training and guidance to become journalists.

Journalists don't have ghost writers.

[MySA, Ramiro Burr via Romenesko]

How Not To Charm A Restaurant Critic

Hamilton Nolan — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:51:38 EDT

Frank Bruni is pissed! The New York Times' omnipotent restaurant critic (pictured) today reviews a new Tribeca restaurant named Ago, which is owned in part by actor Robert De Niro. And Bruni's experience there is proof for the entire restaurant business that no matter how popular, expensive, or exclusive your place is, it is still quite possible to receive a terrible review if you act like an idiot. Please: Learn some lessons from Ago's fiasco. Here is what not to do when your restaurant is being reviewed:

#1: Be late with the reviewer's reservation.

He returned at 9:02 with something less than disaster relief. Our table, he said, should be ready in 10 minutes. Never mind that we'd been told at 8:45 that we had five minutes to go. Never mind that Ago has some 110 seats, giving it more flexibility than many restaurants have.

We waited. And waited. One of the hostesses finally fetched us at 9:22. I'll do the math: that's 52 minutes after our reservation.

#2: Spill wine on the reviewer or his friends.

I'm talking about the "Poseidon Adventure" of wine spills. Shelley Winters could have done the backstroke in it. I'm not sure how the bartender set it in motion, and neither was he. He kept marveling at its fury and aftermath: my friend's wine-splashed chin, her wine-soaked skirt, her wine-sopped entirety.

#3: Put the reviewer at the worst table in the house.

She led us to a round table little bigger than a bike wheel. When our four appetizers later arrived and claimed every square millimeter of it, the waiter audibly contemplated balancing a fifth, communal appetizer that we'd ordered on top of our wine glasses.

The table was pressed so close to a column that I couldn't lower my right arm all the way, and if my wine-drenched friend leaned back in her chair, the column obstructed her view of me and mine of her.

#4: Have bad food.

This restaurant isn't in the hospitality business. It's in the attitude business, projecting an aloofness that permeated all of my meals there, nights of wine and poses for swingers on the make, cougars on the prowl and anyone else who values a sort of facile fabulousness over competent service or a breaded veal Milanese with any discernible meat.

The one I had one night was pounded so thin that the breading on top met the breading on the bottom without pausing for much of anything in between. A vegan could have made peace with it.

#5: Have waiters who are jerks.

Then came an entree that perplexed us, a pale slab of meat with one long bone.

"What is this?" asked one of my friends.

"The special veal chop," said the food deliverer.

"But I ordered rack of lamb," my friend said. I had heard him.

"Yes," said the deliverer. "That's rack of lamb."

My friend pressed: which was it?

"It's the special rack-of-lamb veal chop," the deliverer said, at which point we sought deliverance from him and searched for our frequently vanishing waiter, whom I had come to think of as the bucatini Houdini.

[NYT]

R. Kelly Sex Tape Trial Finally Gets Interesting

Hamilton Nolan — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:45:32 EDT

Music superstar R. Kelly's criminal trial for taping himself having sex with an underage girl has been so bland and subdued, we've just been waiting for a newsworthy reason to cover it. And now we have it: there's a legal issue in the case that affects a member of the media in some way! Why, this is almost as exciting as a music superstar's kinky child sex tape scandal!

Chicago Sun-Times music critic Jim DeRogatis, who first received the infamous R. Kelly kinky child sex tape in the mail, was ordered to testify at the trial. But he refused to show! He's claiming some sort of journalistic privilege to protect his sources, which may or may not actually exist in the eyes of the law. Now the judge is deciding whether to issue a warrant for the reporter's arrest. He could be the Judy Miller of the sex tape circuit!

The whole reason DeRogatis was called in the first place is that the defense team is "interested in what DeRogatis may have done with the tape between the time he received it in early 2002 and when he gave it to police."

As long as he didn't spend that time digitally inserting images of R. Kelly having sex with a minor into it, I don't see how it really matters.

[Tribune]

Baby Mama Will Tell Us What To Think About Women

Richard — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 11:47:00 EDT

So Tina Fey's new movie Baby Mama comes out today! It's a very important movie because it will once and for all decide if she is the funniest woman in America or absolutely no one. Yes indeed. And in doing so, Tina Fey will finally determine for all of us if, in fact, women are funny. You see this isn't just a comedy with a woman in it. It's a comedy starring a woman! A woman with her own TV show! And her costar is a woman too! Not since Gloria Steinem wrote and directed the Cameron Diaz vehicle The Sweetest Thing has there been such an important comedy film for and about womyn (that was written and directed by a man). This is the most important 96 minutes of Ms. Fey's career, but also in the history of our gender war. It's important that we go into the theater informed, so we may properly participate in this historic debate. After the jump find a small digest of the film's reviews.

The New York Times' Manohla Dargis would like to remind you that this film is about women: "Basically she's Rhoda with thinner thighs, which I guess means that she's Mary Richards. But this being 2008 and not the women's-liberated 1970s, it isn't enough for Kate to be a swinging single: she wants a baby and she wants it now. Enter Angie Ostrowiski (Ms. Poehler). At 36 Ms. Poehler is at least 10 years too old for the role, as the softly focused close-ups suggest, but she's a pip." A pip is what my mom calls old ladies who dance or say dirty words or know what the internet is. Also, Ms. Fey, your time is running out: "Real funny women — Mae West, Elaine May — come along every few decades, so the timing seems right. But the clock is ticking."

Wesley Morris of ye olde colonial pape the Boston Globe finds a spirit of hope and change in an otherwise flat movie: "Baby Mama is less than a perfect movie - it's shoddily assembled, and McCullers's coincidence-driven script, smart as it sometimes is, rushes us out the door. But in this era of Apatow and Ferrell and Rogen and Wilson, of men monopolizing movie comedy, Baby Mama feels absurdly momentous, and even political. Fey and Poehler aren't just taking back control of their bodies. They're taking back control of their profession." Absurdly momentous!

The Village Voice's Robert Wilonsky manages to avoid the whole lady topic, and instead meanders off in a criticism of Lorne Michaels' producing abilities: "Baby Mama extends the joke, then softens it, then smothers it in its crib—an unpleasant picture perhaps, but not any more disagreeable than the phrase 'Produced by Lorne Michaels.' Ultimately, that's all this shrugging disappointment is: a Saturday Night Live sketch stretched a good hour past its breaking point of no return." Maybe it's because he's a sexist and has to talk about the powerful man behind the ladies instead of talking about the ladies. That must be it.

The New York Post's Lou Lumenick caps off an otherwise reasonable review with a complete piece of shit line: "Men who are coerced into seeing this chick flick may feel like they've been attached to an estrogen drip." I mean, not piece of shit. It's very insightful. About women. And men. And inverted versus dangling genitalia. And babies and other stuff.

Fat Food Critic Has Death Wish

Hamilton Nolan — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 09:51:29 EDT

Did you know that people who write about food for a living tend to be fatties? It's true! Except for the Times' dreamy James Bond of gastronomy, Frank Bruni. The point is that some food critics have realized that scarfing down daily heapings of pork bellies and passing it off as a professional expense is no guarantee they won't keel over from a heart attack, and is a guarantee they will have a hard time seeing their own genitals. Even pork-loving wild man Mario Batali is threatening to start exercising! By chasing a greased sow in his Crocs, perhaps. But even while some of the wiser gluttons are easing back, says the Times, their stupider brethren—embodied by one man—just can't stop with the sausage:

"I think enjoyment of food has never proven to be harmful to anyone's health," said Mr. [Steven] Shaw, who turned from practicing law to writing about food in the late 1990s with an article for salon.com defending fat guys. He still cultivates a persona in print and online as The Fat Guy, and at 5-foot-10 weighs about 270 pounds.
Mr. Shaw said he believes the genetic component of weight and health matter more than moderation and exercise. Although his father died from heart disease, he thinks that the state of medical knowledge on the relationship of diet to health changes so frequently that it can't be trusted.

Some of his views about diet and health border on the extreme. "I think the whole diabetes thing is a major hoax," he said. "They are overdiagnosing it."

In other words: "I am an idiot." Steven Shaw is plodding towards a meat-induced coma, the timing of which will surely be directly correlated to how much he continues to spout delusional health advice. The self-imposed decline of a man's health is a sad thing to watch, I say as I light a cigarette. In any case, if Shaw does decide to turn his life around, there is only one clear strategy for success:

Toast Of White Rap Critics Hit With Bottle By Unimpressed Londoners

Hamilton Nolan — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:27:15 EDT

Lil Wayne is the tattooed, drugged-out New Orleans rapper who, for some reason, causes spasms of hero worship among white internet rap critics. The extent of the enthusiasm for him has always been a total mystery to me, but it's almost comical watching rap nerds try to outdo each other with their verbose online praise for Wayne, who would certainly rather be drinking vast quantities of Robitussin and liquor than reading their bullshit. Anyways, he got booed off the stage at his recent concert in London, and then showered with bottles on his way out, for good measure. Guess the crowd didn't read all the right blogs before they went to the show. After the jump, two recent examples of internerd Wayne worship, and the video of his ill-fated exit in London. I must admit I find this highly enjoyable.

Prototypical white internet rap guy Tom Breihan of the Village Voice, analyzing a crappy new Lil Wayne video just yesterday:

The song's video is a typically glossy and show-offy affair, but I like how its garden-variety surreal plotline meshes with its airy track. As it opens, we see Wayne and Static getting ready to go out; both of them, for whatever reason, decide to wear disheveled, tore-up tuxes. A stretch Hummer pulls up outside, and they're happily surprised that it's full of video chicks. But as the song's chorus kicks in, Wayne doesn't waste much time partying with the video chicks. Instead, he opts to change into a completely different outfit and then climb onto the Hummer's roof, where he plays a fiery butt-rock guitar solo as the truck rolls in slo-mo down the Vegas strip. As gratuitous music-video melodrama goes, this reminds me of Slash walking out of Axl's desert-church wedding to play a fiery butt-rock guitar solo, a scene that may have even been Wayne's inspiration here. And I love the way that blinking whirlwind of lights creeps past him; he looks like he's being suspended in space while the world explodes around him.

Mmm hmm. Here's former Voice white internet rap guy/ fabricator Nick Sylvester, flirting with jumping off the "Wayne train":

Julianne wrote a great piece on Lil Wayne today, worth reading because it is most likely about you, the hyperfingered blogskimming danceremixing motherfucker who hasn't listened to any one song the last six months more than six times, except maybe "Young Folks." The general buzz is that Wayne is all-pleasure anymore, one moneyshot after the next, something like a rapping Girl Talk. He writes lyrics with their repurposing in mind, ready to be quoted out of context, which they happen to be from the outset. He chases tangents because he knows we're not listening; maybe he isn't either?
Am I jumping off the Wayne train? No but I feel like Drought 3 is a dare and I don't expect many people to take Wayne up. Here's a guy who can say whatever the fuck he wants on a track, free-associative, ADHD, "lyrical" or whatever, and most times it will hit really really hard, every two-bars something to take back home, a fount of one-liners that coincides with our embarrassingly short attention spans. Maybe you write these lines down in a moleskine, in a section called "@lyrics" using GTD, or maybe you have a sweet blog that needs a headline to go with an mp3 once in a while—maybe the line ends up there, cleverness by association, etc.

And here's the London crowd that apparently forgot to bring their moleskine to record Wayne's wisdom; bottle flies about 1:30 in.

Critic Luc Sante has started a blog about ...

Emily Gould — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 12:45:42 EST

Critic Luc Sante has started a blog about pictures of things. "I won't pretend to specialize or present myself as an expert in anything," he promises. So far, so good! [Pinakothek]

'Time' Film Critic Has Never Met Any Critics

Choire — Mon, 21 May 2007 13:56:38 EDT

Richard Schickel, who's been the Time film critic since before most of us here were born, is also kind of a muttonhead! He went postal in Sunday's LA Times on the op-ed pages and denounced the (largely imagined) rise of amateur critics, and worse, the bloggers. Eek!

Criticism — and its humble cousin, reviewing — is not a democratic activity. It is, or should be, an elite enterprise, ideally undertaken by individuals who bring something to the party beyond their hasty, instinctive opinions of a book (or any other cultural object). It is work that requires disciplined taste, historical and theoretical knowledge and a fairly deep sense of the author's (or filmmaker's or painter's) entire body of work, among other qualities.

Schickel isn't really writing about the imagined rise of the blogger-critic; he's talking about the horrors of the uneducated folk writing criticism. He's also about 30 years late.

A poet named Peter Schjeldahl got his start as an art critic writing, largely about emerging artists in the East Village; now he's, unfortunately, saddled with only covering The Big Shows for the New Yorker. In 1968, the New York Times appointed an inexperienced cultural journalist named Renata Adler as a film critic. Today we have Frank Bruni, who came to the New York Times restaurant critic post by way of covering Bush and Rome, after a long-ago stint as a young film critic in (shudder) Detroit.

We could go on. A great number of the critics of our time have no experience in their fields of which to speak apart from an Ivy League degree followed by some newspapering experience and then the years that they have performed their duties as critics for pay. Which is to say; they're all enthusiasts with experience and a copy desk—and are only one step up from bloggers in that they don't have a day job. Except for the ones that actually are forced by their papers to blog. Heh.

And what does Schickel's great education and decades of learning bring to the world of criticism? At Time, he and Richard Corliss put together a list of their top ten movies of 2006. That list put "Letters from Iwo Jima" and "Borat" at the top and rounded the list off with "United 93" and "The Queen." Any domesticated animal could have put together that list, except it wouldn't have included "Cars." Or "United 93."

Anyhoo. Schickel's horror at the "new, more democratic literary landscape where anyone can comment on books" is for starters a bogeyman and is for seconders insane. For one thing, Motoko Rich's piece on the subject didn't mean that "anyone" was going to be made a book critic at a newspaper. For another, it's not the people who like and who actually read books and then blog about books who are killing newspaper book reviews. More likely, they're the only ones still reading them.

Not everybody's a critic [LAT]

What's Dark, Bald and Drives Frank Bruni Nuts?

Joshua Stein — Wed, 02 May 2007 14:28:05 EDT

Yes, it's Max Brenner, the wacky Israeli chocolate place-entity that invaded New York a while back. Only a Jewish mother or a Catholic gay could venture into a sweet chocolate wonderland and return so concerned. But sure—there is no surprise in the fact that Max Brenner is a gimmicky shitty crapshow, whose chocolate isn't even that great. Still it's a handy spot, because it gives the Times restaurant critic an excuse to bitch and make Willy Wonka references, two of his favorite things. But what's next—reviewing a McDonaldland playground in the Bronx? The search for the best Dunkin' Donuts? Defining the boundaries of high and low culture in critic-land is gonna get increasingly more difficult. —josh

You Can Almost Eat the Dishes [NYT]

Divining the Truth: Who Knocked Michiko Kakutani?

abalk2 — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 13:10:16 EST

So, surprise of surprises, this week's Time Out has a fairly interesting feature in which New York's professional critics are judged by a panel of experts. There aren't many shocks (The New Yorker's Sasha Frere-Jones and Alex Ross are great music critics, Frank Bruni is inferior to his $25-and-Under colleague Peter Meehan, something about dance, etc.) but the gloves really come off when Times book critic Michiko Kakutani gets reviewed.

"Reactionary, mean-spirited. Has a permanent grudge against experiment, playfulness, subversion, perversity and complexity. Her reviews are predictable, dull, ugly, conservative, mocking and trite."

Well, it's not an uncommon opinion. And she can be a little mean-spirited at times.

Take, for example, her review of Jonathan Franzen's recent memoir, The Discomfort Zone:

Just why anyone would be interested in pages and pages about this unhappy relationship or the self-important and self-promoting contents of Mr. Franzen's mind remains something of a mystery. In fact, by the end of this solipsistic book, the reader has begun to feel every bit as suffocated and claustrophobic as Mr. Franzen and his estranged wife apparently did in their doomed marriage.

Wow, way harsh, right? It's almost as mean as her 2002 review of Rick Moody's The Black Veil:

Mr. Moody offers not-very-interesting parallels between his life and his little-known first novel; a disembodied tirade about ''brutality, bloodthirstiness, and murder'' in American history (from the massacre of Indians to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki); and ham-handed efforts to draw parallels between Handkerchief Moody and contemporary figures like William S. Burroughs (who shot and killed his wife while playing a game of William Tell) and the high school killers Kip Kinkel, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris. All of which suggests not only that ''The Black Veil'' was written in fits and starts, as the author admits, but also that halfway through, Mr. Moody abandoned the effort to transform self-indulgent fragments into something that might properly be called a book. This volume should have been titled: ''Digressions Masquerading as a Memoir.''

You'd certainly consider remarks like this "reactionary" and "mean-spirited," particularly if you're Moody or Franzen, both of whom served on the panel that rendered judgment. So which one said it? Or was it someone else altogether? (It's a distinct possibility, because nowhere in that assessment is the pronoun "I" used.)

Judgment Day [TONY]
A Man Who Looks in the Mirror and Smiles [NYT]
Behind Each Dark Cloud Lies an Even Darker One [NYT]

Related (and image via): Assessing Michiko Kakutani [Slate]

And Then I Smell a Darkness

gdelahaye — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 11:10:45 EDT

Worker #3116 here.

I am taking the baton from TAN and covering for Jessica Coen this week while she whatever, mind your own business. I don't know anything about New York City, media, or celebrities. I'm also functionally retarded and heterosexual. I'M GOING TO BURN THIS BLOG TO THE GROUND.

Speaking of burning things to the ground, this Sunday's New York Times included the debut of Chandler Burr's new column of hard-hitting perfume criticism.

Yes, I am an asshole. And yes, I am much more inclined towards prejudging everything sight unseen because it's easier than taking the time to gauge its true merit. But I was feeling very generous this weekend. I was maybe still a little drunk from the night before and I was like "Oh, yes, okay, perfume criticism. Maybe it's time to have an open mind about something. Maybe it is time to grow up."

And so I began reading.

Darkness, when it is crystalline and somewhat luminous, may be the most difficult quality to capture in a perfume.

OH. HELL. NO.

Back to hating shit just because.

Dark Victory [NYT]

Critic Decodes Subtle Phallic Imagery in Snake Movie

abalk2 — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 16:50:16 EDT

As is the case with more and more movies these days, Snakes on a Plane declined to hold advance screenings for critics. Not one to be dissuaded, Manohla Dargis took in the flick with the commoners and issued her review a shockingly short time after. Which is probably how she slipped this one past Sifton's standards police: "Naughty by nature or perhaps more by design, these snakes don't just dart out of toilets; they also slide up bare legs and under dresses, moving in and out of more bodily orifices than the adult-film star Ron Jeremy did in his prime."

A Slithering Menace at 30,000 Feet in 'Snakes on a Plane' [NYT]

For Tony Scott So Loved The Cinema, That He Gave Two Hours To 'You, Me and Dupree,' That Whosoever Readeth Him Should Not Perish, But See 'La Moustache' Instead

abalk2 — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 12:00:39 EDT

At the end of a long essay about the value of critical judgment in an era where poorly-reviewed films can still perform well at the box office, Times critic Tony Scott offers an explanation for the persistence of those in his profession despite the daily adversity they face:

So why review them? Why not let the market do its work, let the audience have its fun and occupy ourselves with the arcana — the art — we critics ostensibly prefer? The obvious answer is that art, or at least the kind of pleasure, wonder and surprise we associate with art, often pops out of commerce, and we want to be around to celebrate when it does and to complain when it doesn't. But the deeper answer is that our love of movies is sometimes expressed as a mistrust of the people who make and sell them, and even of the people who see them. We take entertainment very seriously, which is to say that we don't go to the movies for fun. Or for money. We do it for you.

And, you know what? He's right! Tony Scott is a brilliant man. He didn't need to take a job sitting in a darkened room watching flickering images and then writing about them for the local rag at no doubt paltry wages. You think Tony Scott wants to spend his Mays on some tatty little beach in the south of France? Of course not! Tony could be doing something high profile instead, like teaching at-risk high school kids or fighting fires. But Tony Scott can't. And why not? Because you need to know if Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties packs the same amount of yuks as the first one did. Tony Scott does it for you, and I think sometimes we forget that. Let's all take a moment to give a silent prayer of thanks for Tony Scott. Also Roger Ebert's thumbs and that guy on NY1 who gave Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift three apples. You know, the heroes.

Avast, Me Critics! Ye Kill the Fun: Critics and the Masses Disagree About Film Choices [NYT]

It's Unanimous: The French Boo With Lust, Apparently

Jesse — Thu, 25 May 2006 14:08:01 EDT

"'Marie Antoinette': Best or Worst of Times? Under the Spell of Royal Rituals," by Manohla Dargis, New York Times, today:

CANNES, France, May 24 — Though no one called for the filmmaker's head, "Marie Antoinette," Sofia Coppola's sympathetic account of the life and hard-partying times of the ill-fated queen, filled the theater with lusty boos and smatterings of applause after its first press screening on Wednesday.

"Code Unknown," by J. Hoberman, Village Voice, Wednesday:

CANNES, FRANCE — ... Received with a lusty round of boos and a smattering of applause, Southland Tales provoked the festival's most negative press screening and hostile press conference since The Da Vinci Code.

The Unbearable Lightness of Near-Unanimous Movie Reviews

Jesse — Mon, 22 May 2006 12:05:42 EDT

And, once again, all pop-culture critics everywhere are reminded of their utter irrelevance. Sigh.

Da Vinci Code Is 2nd Biggest Opening Weekend of All Time... [Deadline Hollywood]
Related:
A 'Da Vinci Code' That Takes Longer to Watch Than to Read [NYT]
Oh, Jesus [NYM]
Heaven Can Wait [TNY]
It Didn't Work for Me [NYDN]

'Voice' in the Wilderness: Chuck Eddy Says Farewell

Jesse — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 12:58:18 EDT

This just arrived:

From: Eddy, Chuck
Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2006 11:38 AM
Subject: Chuck Eddy is out of here

Dear Friends, Publicists, and Record Label Folks:

As many of you have probably heard through the grapevine, I am leaving the Village Voice tomorrow, after seven often wonderful years here as the music editor. To make it brief, I have been "terminated for reasons of taste"; if you're wondering what that cryptic phrase means, my advice would be to look at just about any random music section in one of the many other New Times alternative weekly papers around the country, compare it to any random music section I've put together here at the Voice, subtract the difference, and draw your own conclusions. To also be brief, I need a new job now, so if you have any leads, don't hesitate to say so.

My replacement, who begins Monday, is Rob Harvilla, formerly at the East Bay Express. (His email now is 'xxxx@eastbayexpress.com'; I assume that, starting next week, he'll be reachable at xxxx@villagevoice.com.)

As for me, I definitely plan to keep writing about music in some capacity or other — especially now that I'll finally have time to actually write. So it would of course be great to keep getting unfathomable piles of promo CDs to listen to every day. Problem is, I can't tell you yet where to send them; in my neighborhood in Queens, turns out there's a 10-day waiting list for PO Boxes. As soon as I have one, I'll be sending you another email, letting you know where to send the music you want me to hear. Meanwhile, if you have ideas about where I should go from here, or if you just want to drop me a note, I'll be reachable at xxxx@yahoo.com, an account I just set up two days ago.

Whatever I do, it's hard to imagine I'll ever find another job half as fun and rewarding as this one was. I hope I did the job justice. Talk to you soon, good luck, and be good. — Chuck Eddy

'Voice' Staff Shifts: Christgau Hangs On? Plus Other News.

Jesse — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 15:15:52 EDT

First thing's first: Word we're hearing is that Chuck Eddy's replacement as the Voice music editor will be Rob Harvilla, currently of the VVM-owned East Bay Express.

Next, it seems we might have been premature in announcing Robert Christgau's departure. No confirmation yet that he was axed, and, in fact, a source at the paper is under the impression that Xgau is still kicking — tho the source also acknowledges that no one quite knows what's going on there anymore. Judging from the general tone of all of the many emails we received on the topic, if in fact Eddy's outtie and Christgau hung on, the consensus — both inside and outside the Voice — is that HQ canned the wrong rock fogie.

Finally, Gabe Sherman's Observer piece today also has news that two top web folks quit the paper in recent weeks. We're told that, too, was over "disagreements with the new owners of the company."

More coming soon, we're sure...

Earlier: Gawker's coverage of the 'Village Voice.'

'Village Voice': Chuck Eddy Has Left the Building

Jesse — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 19:29:33 EDT

As we predicted earlier this afternoon, we've now received multiple tips that Chucky Eddy is gone from the Village Voice. And we've learned that Robert Christgau apparently ended a recent podcast — yes, we know someone who listens to them, ashamed though we are about it — certain that he, too, was about to fired. That's it, folks. Two more Voice legends down. At the rate they're going, that leaves, what, only Musto and Hentoff to go? Hope Mike Lacey has enough napkins.

Earlier: 'Voice' to Can Classic Rockers

'Voice' to Can Classic Rockers?

Jesse — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 17:40:09 EDT

With the caveat that we have absolutely no idea that this is really true, a source claiming to be familiar with the goings-on at Village Voice Media HQ in Phoenix passes along this prognostication:

Thought you'd like a little crystal ball into the impending shitstorm at the Voice: Christgau and Eddy are getting the boot (apparently today) and it looks like they'll be replaced by one of the guys from the Phoenix establishment. But, look on the bright side, at least Sylvester shot himself in the foot before he could get the job.

Is the tipster right or wrong? Are big-deal rock writers Robert Christgau and Chuck Eddy about to be kicked out onto Cooper Square? If you've got any info, let us know. And we'll update when we know more.

Earlier: Gawker's coverage of the 'Village Voice.'

Ed Koch Is -- Shockingly -- Immune to Sharon Stone's Sexy Wiles

Jesse — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 16:08:11 EDT

Former mayor (and, arguably, former Democrat) Ed Koch has long had a little sideline as a movie critic. These days he's emailing his reviews to anyone who has made it onto his distribution list — including, apparently, the random journo type who forwarded last week's installment to us. The big news? Koch hated Basic Instinct 2. "It is the absolute worst," he declares.

No doubt this has sent marketing executives at Sony Pictures into crisis mode. Because octogenarian closeted homos are clearly the target audience for big-budget softcore skin flicks.

Koch's complete — and sort of adorable — review roundup is after the jump.

From: Koch, Edward I.
Sent: Monday, April 3, 2006 4:40 PM
To: Smith, Joanne M.
Subject: Ed Koch Movie Reviews

Movie Review: "Basic Instinct 2" (-)

April 3, 2006

I was warned to stay away from this film by every reviewer I read, and after seeing it, I came to the conclusion that those other critics were too kind in their reviews. It is the absolute worst. The London scenes reminded me of the Masterpiece Theatre series "Prime Suspect" starring Helen Mirren which was wonderful in every way. Other than the interesting locations, however, everything else about "Basic Instinct 2" is over the top and ridiculous.

Novelist Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone) is suspected of killing a passenger in her car due to excessive speed and the use of drugs. Dr. Michael Glass (David Morrissey) is a court appointed psychiatrist who becomes her lover, and Detective Roy Washburn (David Thewlis) is a London detective bent on finding a serial murderer. Charlotte Rampling is surprisingly thrown in as Dr. Milena Gardosh, a psychiatrist friend of Dr. Glass. The script includes several murders, a house of prostitution Amsterdam style, a lesbian relationship, homosexual shagging, and an opening scene generally described by reviewers as Sharon Stone pleasuring herself. Because of the bad script and delivery, the film becomes a bad and unintended comedy.

All in all, after you have read this review, let me have been the last person to see this film which was number ten last week in terms of box office attendance.

Movie Review: "Thank You for Smoking" (+)

April 3, 2006

I was put off by the title of this film and had no interest in seeing it until several friends recommended it. This underrated movie doesn't give you any belly laughs but does provide a continuous tide of uninterrupted chuckles, and I am glad that I saw it. The screenplay is based on a book of the same title written by Christopher Buckley, son of William F. Buckley, Jr. Like his father, Christopher is a brilliant writer.

Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart) is a cigarette lobbyist who regularly appears on television shows alleging there is a lack of scientific evidence that cigarette smoking causes cancer. His backstabbing boss, (Robert Duvall), and Hollywood super agent, Jeff Megall (Rob Lowe), continuously discuss ways to increase cigarette consumption. Nick regularly lunches with Polly Bailey (Maria Bello), lobbyist for the alcohol industry, and Bobby Jay Bliss (David Koechhner), lobbyist for the firearms industry, and their conversations about their opponents are very funny. Nubile reporter Heather Holloway (Katie Holmes), is eager to provide sex for a good story. Her pillow talk with Nick is very amusing. Nick's intelligent son, Joey (Cameron Bright), who lives with his mother and stepfather, admires his father's ability to debate and win an argument.

The question is asked, why do people engage in activities of which they do not approve? The answer, stated several times in the movie, is "the mortgage," a reference, of course, to financial obligations. When Nick tells a friend that he is going to D.C. to testify before a congressional committee and that he feels like Jimmy Stewart in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," his friend replies that a better comparison would be to Oliver North and his appearance before the congressional committee investigating the Iran-Contra deal.>

"Thank You for Smoking" is one of the most playful and stimulating films that I have seen in years. It is not being shown in all theaters, so I suggest you catch it while you can.

Everybody Loves Alessandra. Or, At Least, Someone Must.

Jesse — Thu, 22 Sep 2005 12:52:55 EDT

A Times correction, referring, natch, to a Alessandra Stanley TV review:

A television review yesterday about "How I Met Your Mother" and "Out of Practice," on CBS, misstated the name of the popular show, ended last season, that the network is trying to replace with another hit. It is "Everybody Loves Raymond," not "All About Raymond."

Because why would you expect a TV critic to know the correct title of last season's top-rated sitcom?

Some Show About Some Guy Named Raymond [Regret the Error]
Earlier:
Critical Errors
Geraldo Threatens to Sue 'Times'

Critical Errors

Jesse — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 16:20:40 EDT

Among the many charms of Reference Tone proprietor John Cook — and they are legion — are his smug certitude and his obsessive devotion to a good bit. This, together with his previous job as a Chicago Tribune TV reporter, makes him the perfect investigator to examine, as he did today, just how wrong Times television critic Alessandra Stanley can be. While we prefer to ridicule Stanley's critical colleague Virginia Heffernan, we must give due credit to Reference Tone's exhaustive study, which unearths more than one correction a month since 2001 - and 11 percent inaccuracy rate in that period, Cook says, and a 14 percent inaccuracy rate this year — and lists them all.

They're not huge, but they're not nothing. And there's a lot of them. Some of our favorites:

March 4, 2005
The TV Weekend column yesterday, about "The Starlet," referred to the WB network incorrectly. It is a broadcast network, not cable.

May 1, 2005
The television report on the Week Ahead page last Sunday, about the return of "Family Guy" to the Fox network, misspelled the surname of its creator and misidentified a cable channel that carried reruns after Fox canceled the show in 2002. He is Seth MacFarlane, not McFarlane; the channel was the Cartoon Network, not Comedy Central.

January 30, 2004
The TV Weekend column yesterday about the political comedian Dennis Miller and his new talk show referred incorrectly in some copies to the background of Adm. James Stockdale, whose performance as a vice-presidential candidate was a discussion topic. The admiral ran as an independent in 1992 with Ross Perot, not as a Republican in 1996 with John McCain, who was not a nominee.

We've got a few more picks after the jump, John's got them all over at Reference Tone, and we know we're going to be taking the Times's TV recommendations a bit less seriously in the future.

April 24, 2005
An article last Sunday about Pope Benedict XVI's record of disciplinary actions against theologians while he was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith misstated the timing of the Protestant Reformation, set off by Martin Luther. It began in 1517; it was not "more than 500" years ago.

An article on April 24 about Pope Benedict XVI's record of disciplinary actions against theologians while was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith incorrectly described the population of Poland when Pope John Paul II was born in 1920. According to the 1921 census, an estimated 14 percent of the population was Jewish or Protestant. The country was not almost 100 percent Catholic.

September 14, 2004
A television review on Tuesday about "R-Rated: Republicans in Hollywood," an AMC documentary about politics and the movie industry, referred incorrectly to the box office performance of "The Day After Tomorrow," a feature film with a global warming theme. Its domestic receipts totaled $186.4 million, and its worldwide sales $540.4 million, according to Variety.com; it was not a flop.

October 20, 2004
The TV Watch column on Wednesday, about a televised dispute between broadcast personalities — Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show" versus Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson of "Crossfire" — referred erroneously to a past example from an era when famous people clashed bitterly and at length on the air. Mary McCarthy indeed criticized Lillian Hellman on "The Dick Cavett Show" in 1980, but Hellman was not present.

October 1, 2004
The TV Watch column in some copies yesterday, about the presidential candidates' body language in their first debate, misidentified a political commentator who said on Fox News that the polls would tighten a bit after the event. It was Ceci Connolly of The Washington Post, not Fred Barnes of The Weekly Standard.

July 23, 2004
The TV Watch column in Weekend yesterday gave an incorrect cable channel in some copies for "John Kerry: Bringing the War Home," on Sunday night. It will be on MSNBC, as shown in the program listing, not on ESPN.

May 6, 2004
A TV Watch article on May 6 about the end of the NBC series "Friends" and "Frasier" misstated the political backdrop of the economic recession that preceded the good times that were the setting of "Friends." It occurred during George H.W. Bush's presidency, not also during Ronald Reagan's.

January 12, 2003
An article last Sunday about reality television shows misstated the given name of the author of "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men," who confided his reluctance to publicly embarrass the impoverished farmers he was assigned to study. He was James Agee, not William.

July 25, 2002
An article on Thursday about NBC's fall schedule referred incorrectly to the phrase "gay mafia," which arose in a discussion of the absence of new gay characters in the networks' lineup. The term came to prominence recently when the Hollywood agent Michael S. Ovitz, in an interview in Vanity Fair, blamed a "gay mafia" for his own professional downfall; he did not say such a group ran the entertainment industry.

October 12, 2001
An article yesterday about President Bush's manner during his news conference on Thursday night misstated the surname of the CNN commentator who drew a Shakespearean analogy to the president's growth. The speaker was Jeff Greenfield, not Greenberg.

The Wrongest Critic [Reference Tone]