Well it's the Weekly Standard, which makes the National Review look like the Village Voice.

Now here, I would have said it was a joke, down to the Palpatine = Pinochet comparison. Because, yeah, Pinochet and "relatively benign" don't belong in the same sentence unless the phrase "rectal tumor" is also in the mix.

But I'll take your word for it.

V For Vendetta could tip the scale.

We can hope!

but Denby's always been a bit of a prig

I have to ask (and I'm not just picking on you) -- why does Denby get this response where Anthony Lane is worshipped like a god? I find them more or less equally pompous, but at least Denby's reviews talk about the films.

Watchmen came under heavy scrutiny in the wake of Paramount chief Brad Grey's surprise move to replace Donald De Line with Gail Berman as studio president in late March, the trade paper reported.

Fine. She takes away our shows and now she takes away our movies! Brat.

Whatever the case, the important thing to recognize is that the Empire is not committing random acts of terror. It is engaged in a fight for the survival of its regime against a violent group of rebels who are committed to its destruction.

I'd like to think the Star Wars essay is a joke, but the snippet quoted above reads to me like nothing more than a justification for invading Iraq.

I am not very film-oriented. I like to read Anthony Lane's reviews because he is so very funnily pissy about things. David Denby is a little blah. I like both of them fine. But then, I don't read film reviews to actually know about the films.

I have to ask (and I'm not just picking on you) -- why does Denby get this response where Anthony Lane is worshipped like a god?

Not by me he isn't. I'd much rather have Denby every week and put Lane on a plane back to England - preferably one that drops him somewhere about the spot Leo bought it in TITANIC (a film he praised to high heaven). I find him insufferably amused by himself, and if he was any more overtly bitchy he'd be Rex Reed.

I rather like Denby actually. He's articulate, and has a good sense of film history, but he's very hand-wringy about some things in a way that just makes me roll my eyes (the MR. AND MRS. SMITH review being a primo example).

I'd much rather have Denby every week and put Lane on a plane back to England - preferably one that drops him somewhere about the spot Leo bought it in TITANIC (a film he praised to high heaven). I find him insufferably amused by himself, and if he was any more overtly bitchy he'd be Rex Reed.

So it's not just me then!

According to the neocon mindset, Pinochet was a benevolent dictator because he was a murdering thug who allowed a free-market economy.

So it's not just me then!

High-fives Jess

I'd be hard-pressed to name a critic I dislike more that's still working and in publications I read on any regular basis. Peter Keough in the Boston Phoenix comes close, but I think that's more because I associate the massive decline in their film coverage with his tenure, than him personally. Armond White is stone crazy, but I find him an entertaining read BECAUSE of that. I never counted Rex as a real critic anyway, and John Simon retired (not that I was a regular reader of the National Review, but somehow I ended up reading a lot of his stuff over the years)