Thoughts: Charlie Rose, 2 February 2010

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I'm sitting here, watching Charlie Rose discuss the Oscar nominations (announced this morning) with a panel of film critics, and I'm feeling compelled to post a thought that I'm having while doing so. I'm feeling compelled to post, namely, that it's ridiculous for the guest critic from Salon.com to try to sidestep her way around the racial issues at the very core of The Blind Side while giving a plot-synopsis of the film. I mean, I know race can be a delicate issue for some people, especially when it is dealt with in such a class-linked manner as it is in The Blind Side, but come on, lady: loose yourself of your petty, over-sensitive, race-averse spoken mantras and dig into it. Excerpting the racial elements from that film is like excerpting the cooking from Julie & Julia or, more comparably, the unemployment from Up in the Air; doing so is just flat-out embarrassing for you - or it should be. Are you that culturally oppressed? Can you not even confront an obvious and plot-essential trait of a story - that, yes, may be a tad socially awkward - in an intelligent and academically dispassionate way? If you can't, why why why are you a film-critic? and, moreover, how does someone (i. e., your editor at Salon.com) give you the official 'O. K.' to keep being one? Ugh, I'm so bored with you, it's painful. Go back to your cubicle and write about how Brokeback Mountain (2005) was a beautiful Western about camping ranchers and nothing else, or - better - about how Juno (2007) was a fun flick about teen angst and nothing else, or - best of all - about how Lolita (1962) was cerebral piece about unrequited affection and - yes, you guessed it - nothing else. Gosh, step up or stop commenting on art.

That's all.