Michael Medved shouldn’t be a film critic

The job of a film critic is not easy. You have to sit through some awful movies but on the other hand you might get to see a great film.

One code of the critic is to write about a film and give your view of it in such a way that you don’t spoil the plot for those who haven’t seen it yet. Of course it is hard to do that when a film has a surprise twist but most of the decent critics do a good job of not giving away the whole plot.

Michael Medved use to be a film critic. He also use to have a film critic show on PBS called “Sneak Previews”. The interesting bit about the show was it took over the spot after Siskel and Ebert’s “At The Movies” left PBS to be syndicated nationally on commercial television.

Something happened to Medved. It is the same thing that happened to ABC TV’s John Stossel. Medved became a cranky conservative. He now is referred to in the press as “conservative commentator and cultural critic”. He still feels he must review movies from his conservative perspective.

Medved gives good reviews to family and religious themed films and hates anything not in those two categories.

To be fair Roger Ebert, a noted critic, seems to love any foreign film and has a hard time seeing anything good that comes from the major studio.

Medved, like some other conservative media types, decided to spoil the plot twist for Clint Eastwood’s recent film “Million Dollar Baby”.

The marketing comes across as a female “Rocky” type movie but the twist, from what I’ve read, is totally shocking to an audience use to the “Rocky” kind of formula movies. I respect films and the work that goes into them so I won’t say what the twist is but Medved and other conservatives spoiled the plot to their audience because the twist offended their political and religious beliefs.

Don’t get me wrong. If Medved or any other conservative critic hates a movie because it offends their political or religious beliefs, they have a right and a duty to tell their audience. I’m fine with that. But what Medved did crossed the line. Giving away the twist was a deliberate attempt to damage the potential box office receipts.

He tried to justify his action:

“there are competing moral demands that come into the job of a movie critic. We have a moral and fairness obligation to not spoil movies. On the other hand, our primary moral obligation is to tell the truth.”

Spoken like someone who is full of their own importance. He could have told the truth without giving away the twist in the detail he did. Real critics, who still have some objectivity, did that.

He pointed out he didn’t say which character is involved in the twist but that doesn’t matter. He gave away the twist.

He also said:

“It is dishonest in its marketing. They didn’t want to tell people what it is because no one would come.”

He makes the classic conservative mistake – believing that everyone thinks just as they do. It isn’t his job to decide what people will see.

A critic gives a review to help people decide if they wish to see a film. People should make up their own mind about any so-called moral issues presented in the movie. The critic isn’t a moral arbiter.

As Clint Eastwood said in response:

“The picture doesn’t really sum up any policies one way or another. It just happens to be the ultimate drama for one particular person. How people feel about that is up to them.”

I agree.

Medved needs to give up being a film a critic.

For the a full article on the issue see:

‘Million Dollar’ mystery

“Rathergate” still doesn’t change the facts

Okay, let me get this straight.

An “independent” investigation of the 60 Minutes September 2004 report on discrepancies in President Bush’s National Guard service record cost the jobs of 4 CBS staffers. Senior vice president Betsy West, 60 Minutes executive producer Josh Howard and senior broadcast producer Mary Murphy have all been asked to resign. Producer Mary Mapes was dismissed for what was called a “Myopic zeal” in reporting the story based on documents that may have been forged.

Yet the investigation could not state conclusively whether the documents were forgeries or not. The report also found no evidence that political bias was a factor in the network’s journalism.

http://www.fair.org/press-releases/cbs-memogate.html

The secretary for the General who’s signature appeared on the documents said the documents weren’t real BUT the information contained in them was correct.

http://www.fair.org/activism/cbs-memos-knox.html

Also the same discrepancies were reported by different news organizations during the same period of time (September 2004) using different sources.

http://www.fair.org/press-releases/cbs-bush-documents.html

Meanwhile, the stories reported in the New York Times prior to the invasion of Iraq that said there were Weapons of Mass Destruction caused not even a whimper of outrage. Even after the Times admitted the reporting was “insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged,” the reporter who wrote the stories still works of the paper and reports on Iraq.

So as FAIR comments: it does matter who you piss off rather than what the truth is.

http://www.fair.org/press-releases/cbs-memogate.html

Ironically, the information in the “fake” memos has been reported as not true – which is not the case. Once again the President gets a pass.

Sad.

Bush has edge in final NY Times poll even though it shows he has done a bad job overall

Today is the last day of the long 2004 Election season. Living in a “battleground” state has been interesting and tiring. Each of the Presidential candidates kept coming around about once a week for months. Each seems that neither want to let the other have the last visit as if that will matter.

I really feel that most who plan on voting have decided and are ready to draw the curtain in their booth.

I really doubt that a winner will be declared on Tuesday evening. We will have an idea who has the advantage but after the crap we went through in 2000, there will be probably a few weeks as each party tries to manage the problem votes toward their candidate through the court system.

The New York Times published their final poll Monday. If you read the detailed results (available as a PDF file on their website) it is strange. Of likely voters on November 2nd, a slim majority would vote for George Bush. (49 % for Bush and 46% for Kerry). Yet when reading the other questions Bush gets bad marks on handling the war in Iraq, the economy, job creation, and most feel the country is on the wrong track. Yet Bush would get their vote. Why? Because of the campaign against terrorism. Bush actually got good marks on that and people feel he would continue to do a good job although in another question people said the administration mucked things up and didn’t plan the Iraq invasion it well enough. Most thought that was a major part of the campaign against terrorism.

The only bad mark Kerry got was that people felt he said what people wanted to hear rather than what he truly believes. Other than that the respondents had good feelings about Kerry but they won’t vote for him.

The demographics of the sample was they were mostly white, republican, between 45 and 64, and had some college.

I’m not an expert but even though the sample would vote for Bush over Kerry because of one issue, I think the results show Kerry has the advantage. If voters balance their fears with the reason they are voting in the first place, Kerry could come out on top. You vote to pass judgement on how the current occupant of the White House is doing his/her job overall.

The poll results show that the sample would fail Bush on that overall evaluation. And THAT is how we should vote on November 2nd.

Stewart zings Blitzer – film at 11

I was watching The Daily Show tonight and Jon Stewart had on Wolf Blitzer from CNN. Stewart just hammered Blitzer about the 9/11 Senate Report released today.

The following exchange is from memory so the exact wording is iffy:

Stewart: So do you think that this Senate report should be the biggest political scandal ever?
Blitzer: You never made a mistake?

Stewart: So did the media go over what went wrong?
Blitzer: Yes we had meetings.
Stewart: I’m not talking about deciding what to put on the crawl (at the bottom of CNN’s picture) but did you look at what you could have done differently?
[funny bit about the crawl here]
Stewart: What could have the media done differently?
Blitzer: We should have been more skeptical.
[Stewart has a large facial reaction as if he was going to say “Isn’t that your job.”]
Stewart: So is it that the Republicans and Bush intimidated you guys not to ask the questions?
Blitzer: No. It wasn’t that. I’m not sure what happened. Look i went to Kuwait I got all the briefings the CIA, Defense Department, FBI, Congress, and everybody said he had huge stock piles of biological, chemical weapons and it was only a short time before he had a nuclear bomb….
Stewart: Right….
Blitzer: Condoleeza Rice said on my show ‘Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer’ [audience laughs at obvious plug] before the war, that she didn’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud….
Stewart: Right but we have since learned that Pakistan sold ‘mushroom’ material to every country in the area BUT Iraq. This is a crazy world…. whoooo….hoooooo. [then Stewart twirlls in his chair and waves his arms crazily]

COMEDY CENTRAL TV Shows: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart