18 Aug 06
Stephen Metcalf and Dana Stevens are two of the worst writers on the face of the planet. They are dull, incompetent, lifeless, and narcissistic. Nathan Lee and Michael Agger are scarcely less so, although Agger manages a self-effacing blandness that in the context of Slate emits the fumes of a virtue. Neither individually nor in aggregate do these canned soup hacks do anything to dispel the post-Edelstein doldrums of your film “coverage.”
Metcalf, the most brazenly untalented and unsubtle in this quartet of sixteenth-wits, writes like an ape that has just discovered a bone will suffice as a murder weapon. Yet no jump cut could ever propel that lackey into the cosmos.
The dyspeptic hipster Lee (who doesn’t write so much as he postures) and the doddering Dana Stevens aren’t far behind.
May I quote my all-time favorite Dana-ism? Terrence Malick “hasn’t given a real press interview in more than 30 years.”
That was brilliant. Since David Edelstein left Slate, the only interesting writer has been David Plotz with his “Blogging the Bible” column.
August 18th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
http://www.moviesintofilm.com/
This guy has the worst website I’ve ever seen. I’ve yet to find away to get to his content without resorting to google.
August 18th, 2006 at 9:14 pm
I thought a 16-year-old would have a more accessible Web site. Huh.
August 19th, 2006 at 5:01 pm
Skimming the full text of the guy’s email to Slate reminded me of bulletin board flame wars. Then, after I somehow found my way through his site’s front pages and banner ads on his site I looked at a few of his reviews and concluded that bile is this guy’s only ink. Aside from his prose just being hard to read, I didn’t find any firmly positive reviews. Trashing things is easy, and trashing things all the time is lazy and unappealing.
My patience for gratuitous snark has diminished significantly of late. I’m chalking it up as one of the minuses of the rise of the web.
August 22nd, 2006 at 3:29 pm
Whenever I come across the website of someone who writes about 90% pans (I don’t mean just negative reviews, I mean full-on pans), it often makes me wonder why they bother to see so many films in the first place. After all, they’re almost certain to hate what they see, and who wants to keep living such a life of unpleasantness? I don’t think Thompson is entirely wrong when he says Stephen Metcalf sucks, or that the quality of Slate’s writing has declined in recent years, but it’s hard to take his argument seriously when he seems to trash anything and everything.
August 22nd, 2006 at 8:24 pm
This showed up on Movies Into Film in the last few months. I was never quite sure what to make of it.
Say what you will about Thompson’s criticism, it certainly reflects a certain amount of passion about films.
August 25th, 2006 at 9:01 am