The Original Rant

I have a label for posts I've designated as "rants," and it occurred to me that the original rant (which was posted at an external site) is no longer available. I'm re-posting it here. Obviously the rant was in reference to a particular thread dedicated to rants, and Blogger doesn't separate posts by threads, so this blog contains more than just rants...but this still conveys the spirit in which those posts that are rants are made:



Are you tired of having the men in the white suits sent for you just because you see the prentitiousness and pomposity of someone else's cherished drivel?

Are you tired of ducking from rotten tomatoes just because you are brave enough to call Kevin Spacey a wooden kewpie doll who got out-acted in his biggest film--by a plastic bag!

Are you tired of people mumbling phrases like "critical consensus" and "mise-en-scene" when you gag at the newest Criterion collection re-release but who turn like jackals when you try to defend Titanic?

Do you think your opinion should count as much as anyone else's, even if you didn't go to film school at Florida State for two semesters and hear Dustin Hoffman lecture on campus about how he prepared for Death of a Salesman by using a walker before dropping out to design Angelina Jolie wallpapers for Microsoft XP?

Well, step right in, because I have a safe haven for you...the Rant Zone...a thread designed for NEGATIVE COMMENTS ONLY!

This is not the place where you defend the film (go do that in its thread); this is not the place where you engage others in persuasive arguments designed to win them to your way of thinking....

No, no, no, no, no.

This is the place for you to vent your frustration at the mass hypnosis that has thrust Renee Zellweger to prominence. (I mean any American with an accent mark in her name, puh-leeze).

Consider this a safe zone for the disaffected and disillusioned. Here you may say, if you wish, that you didn't think Monty Python and the Holy Grail was very (or even a little) funny. Here you can say that you've always found Alfred Hitchcock's films to be slow and laborious. You can even diss multiple Oscar winner Hillary Swank for her performances in Beverly Hills 90210 and The Next Karate Kid . If you think Mulholland Drive made even less sense than the last season of Felicity, well that's okay, because we're a support group and we are here to do what all support groups do...bite our tongues, nod our heads, and listen sympathetically to you explain how you laughed even less at I Heart Huckabees than you did at The Life Aquatic.

If you DON'T CARE what Bill Murray said to Scarlett Johansson at the end of Lost in Translation because you were already bored silly, come right in.
If you think Sean Connery was the worst of the five James Bonds that you've seen, pull up a chair.
If you thought Sideways could only be entertaining to someone who had just drank a bottle of Pinot Grigot, get in line for a group hug, because Uncle Ken is here to tell you everything is going to be okay.

We give compassionate listening to all who would vent and ask only two things in return.

1) Only rants, please. If you liked a movie, frankly my dear fanboy, we don't give a damn.
2) Absolutely, positively, no defending a movie someone else has trashed. We don't pass judgment on another's pain in the Rant Zone; the road to healing is through empathy.