More shameless self-promotion
I didn’t exactly plan it this way — news pegs happen when they happen. But this morning, my second piece for Big Hollywood was published, about the furor at TIFF about this year’s Istanbul City-to-City program. Or rather the lack thereof. Last year, writing if the Tel Aviv furor, I fearlessly predicted the following:
I guarantee you that if there is a C-to-C program next year, there will be no furor, regardless of that city’s past. If it’s Moscow, there will be no calls for inclusion of perspectives from Budapest, Prague or Tbilisi, to name cities in countries invaded by Russia more recently than the establishment of Israel.
I guessed the wrong city, but sure enough, no calls for counter voices from Yerevan, Diyarbakir, Nicosia, or Athens.
Rightwing Film Geek 
Congrats on being published, but Big Hollywood, really? They are so fundamentally anti-art and up Breitbart’s butt that it’s like Siskel and Ebert with Sean Hannity as both Siskel and Ebert. You writing for them is really just going to taint your very good work.
Get off your lazy butt and write a book or something!
Comment by Beans | September 11, 2010 |
I have nothing to be ashamed of by being published in Big Hollywood, and my credibility will not be tarnished with anyone about whom I care because those who engage in guilt-by-association and “links and ties” method of ad hominem are people whose opinion does not matter to me.
But let us stipulate that Big Hollywood is a ridiculous site but I’m worthwhile (I obviously don’t believe this, but that seems to be the space you come from). Wouldn’t my presence there thus elevate BH and make it better? Or are you defined more by your hatreds (in this case “Breitbart is evil” is your bedrock first premise) than by your loves?
Comment by vjmorton | September 11, 2010 |
I think you’d have the same hope of elevating HuffPo. And I don’t hate Big Hollywood, I’ve just never seen any serious film criticism or, for that matter, political criticism on the site. There was one excellent Walter Benjamin-esque essay on Andy Warhol by Scott Graves. Otherwise, you have the profoundly stupid Ben Shapiro (who still calls hip-hop “rap”,” HuffPo style z-list political rants, obsessive talking points about the “Hollywood Blacklist” of conservatives (isn’t it more of a white-sniffsniffsniff-list?) married to endless starfucking – Avatar is conservative, or it’s not! Pixar is conservative, or it’s not! How many of these people could name ONE Ozu film, or have actually set foot in an arthouse since they were stoned libs themselves back in the day? I understand the emphasis on Hollywood, but even Hollywood bends-over-backward to reward the pock-marked auteur even as they try to vacuum dollars from 15 year old thanatos junkies. Big Hollywood isn’t a conservative film site; it’s a different venue for Republican Party talking points.
As for guilt-by-association, I don’t think that’s the issue. I simply think, as both a cineast and a political junkie, that Big Hollywood is like Scholastic Reader compared to MIT Press. Catholic, conservative film criticism is a rare and wonderful thing. I think it’s a shame to put it to the service of such a basely politically partisan site.
That’s all! Sorry if I offended.
Comment by Beans | September 11, 2010 |