Bringing the Hammer Down

Brandon, I was going to respond to you yesterday, but Jeff pretty much covered most of what I had to say. But now I think/hope I have some things to add.

I don't think the word "fight" ever accurately describes what we do on here. It always comes across as debate to me, especially your thoughts on Blow-Up. And unless you write personal criticisms of me on your blog, I'll never feel attacked by you. Trust me, I want you to feel free to attack the movies I like. And in the case of Blow-Up, overall I like the film, but not as much as Jeff does...hence his staunch defense of it. I do award the film points, but I'll also take some off, too. I stand by the statements I made in my last post about it. Hopefully they all come across clearly; if not, I'd be happy to elaborate.

Jeff is spot-on about John Wayne. I've always been more familiar with his politics than his films. Again, that's beginning to change and I do like John Wayne the actor. I wrote what I wrote about The Searchers because it gave me something to talk about...instead of me just saying how much I loved the film.

I admit, sometimes it's easy for me to get caught-up in the politics or personal lives of actors, directors, producers, etc. But now I'm trying to keep it on the screen, so to speak. That's why I'm still critical of D.W. Griffth (though I probably will watch Birth of a Nation someday). But with a guy like Woody Allen, it annoys me that so many people don't even give his films a chance because of decisions he made off of the screen.

I want to be critical of films on here, and less critical of the people who create them. If that's true about Bunuel, it's very unfortunate and it was douchey of him, but I still enjoy his films. Same with Woody; it's unfortunate that he married his adopted daughter, but I'm gonna keep spending money on his movies. It's pretty f'ed up about Roman Polanski, but Rosemary's Baby is still good. Phil Spector murdered someone, but Death of a Ladies' Man is still one of my favorite albums to listen to. Speaking of which...

I can't wait to buy the next Summer People album; I don't care how much frog blood is on the hands that provide the groovy bass lines on it.

And since we have a mini-thread going about films with great endings, I watched Kiss Me Deadly last night. I loved it and I'll probably write something up on it in the near future.