Psst, Wanna Be a Film Critic?

Book alert: Chris Null, editor and proprietor of filmcritic.com and author of the excellent teen-murder novella Half Mast, has now published the much-anticipated Five Stars: How to Become a Film Critic, the World's Greatest Job.

I zipped through an early edition from Sutro Press, and it's a truly marvelous guide to making your dreams a reality, without all the snobby film school bunk. It surveys the stuff you need to know to write credibly about movies, coaches you through the writing process, and even provides excellent tips on how to get your words published.

Plus, it quotes the lead to my review of the godawful The Alamo, for which I received the following fan emails:

Dude....that's fricking history that happened here in the U.S. and you should show some pride instead of complete ignorance. Do you have children? Do you want them thinking as narrow minded as their idiotic father. How did you even become a movie critic???????? How long do you expect to last before really pissing some one off and them doing a personal critique on you. Keep writing but you have lost one reader here for your complete incompetance on how or what to say while discussing a movie.
Derek...SC

SUCKS! COME TO TEXAS AND GET YOUR ASS KICKED!

VICKIE KLINE

You have no idea what you are talking about, the Alamo was a really good and honest movie, you have no business being a film critic

Mark M

Well, let me guess. Your one of those guys that will carry a sign, but you figure the guys that fight for your freedom to  pat yourself on the back for carrying that sign, & the piece of dirt you build your nice house on, are just dirt bags.   Guess you better thank God for those dirt bags , because without them you would lose your freedom.

What set these people off was how I mentioned director John Lee Hancock (his actual name), in an attempt to humanize the "heroes" who were slaughtered by the Mexican army at the Alamo, "sadly reduces men of historical significance to dirtbags fighting over dirt." The reading-challenged audience members who kindly wrote to me skipped the first part of the sentence and just thought, Hey, this pinko is calling these slave-owning, venereal-diseased, alcoholic, massacre-victim movie characters "dirtbags." But they're heroes! I wonder if they also wrote venomous letters to John Lee Hancock for portraying their precious historical Texans as slave-owning, venereal-diseased, alcoholic victims of a Mexican massacre.

But don't let this story discourage you from becoming a film critic. It's really a great job, even as a part-time hobby. Go get yourself Five Stars and read for yourself.

Comments

[mlo]

You so famous!

[sc8rboi]

nice!