All Rude Revue

When I was younger, we got some video player. Could it have really been a VCR? Maybe it was actually a television. Anyway, what matters is the little throw-in that came with it. It was a book of Roger Ebert's reviews. It seems to me that it covered nothing more recent than Waterworld, and I read it until the cover came to pieces, at which time I repaired the cover with tape to ensure it lasted for more readings.

Something I found was that the bad review were a lot of fun to read. This was years before I heard such an expression as "schadenfreude", which is supposed to be a German word for the joy one takes in the bad things that happen to others. It's not a word I like, and enjoying negative film reviews is not something that I like tremendously much about myself, but there it is. It's a truth that I must come to terms with.

The review that came up often in Ebert's obituaries as his worst was "North", and I remembered it well. It was indeed a real lambasting, and fun to read in spite of never having seen the film. It's relatively rare that a movie comes along to challenge that one for the sheer depth of material that a slam-minded critic could delve into, but when one does I eagerly seek out every reputable newspaper and magazine's take. It's like comparing the insults lobbed by comics at a roast.

I appreciate that I'm in the same business, and someday could find my work likewise attacked to the delight of people like me. Should that come to pass, I could hardly complain. I'm terribly sensitive to criticism, so you'd think I would be slow to issue it or to delight in its' issue, but I'm one who can give it much better than I can take it. I guess that if I ever get reviewed in the same fashion as "North", I'll just have to learn to take it.