The old reviewer-ee switcheroo

Well, well well, if it isn’t the unemployed Adam of old. The hungry Adam who started this blog and posted early, often and prolificly-which according to ms-word’s red squiggles apparently isn’t a word. Welcome back. I’m talking to myself about myself while referring to myself in the third-person. None of this can be healthy.

Any-Howser m.d., I believe that I have mentioned in my recent blogging past that I cannot stand movie snobs. Often I think movie reviewers are movie snobs. Now I realize a degree of critical judgment is necessary for a film reviewer to be respectable, yet still the fact remains that I loathe movie snobs. Thus, I have decided to write a review of a movie review. I doubt that what I’m doing is unprecedented, but at this moment it feels rather earth-shattering. I guess maybe I’ll review a review from the Onion. Those guys are probably obnoxious. No offense Onion. You know I have love for your publication and your Madison roots, but I feel like I need to do this. I am not a regular reader of the Onion a.v.club section though I hear that they are solid film critics. Let’s just see about that. I have selected reviewer Nathan Rabin’s review of Hitch to review today. How many sentences do you think you’ve read prior to that last one in which the word review or a derivation thereof was used thrice? That many, huh? I guess it’s more of a common occurrence than I suspected then. On to the proceedings.

Nathan Rabin’s review of Hitch is like an awful metaphor: Not only does it suck, it ultimately ends up making the author look dumb for trying to look smart. The premise is simple enough: skewer Will Smith and take quick and repeated stabs at the romantic comedy genre at large. The results are less than spectacular. Rabin peppers the review with unnecessarily obscure French references and his incessant bashing of Smith’s portrayal of the title character leaves little doubt that he is either a closeted fan of Smith’s music and is so shamed by that fact that he tries to cover it up by attacking the man in his other artistic endeavors, or more likely he is a racist. Maybe if Rabin didn’t project his own fear of intimacy with women onto every character in every romance-related film he sees his reviews wouldn’t so consistently inspire illiteracy-envy. Granted, I haven’t seen Hitch, but I couldn’t disagree more with Rabin’s characterization of the relationship beteweem Smith and love interest Eva Mendes as “grating.” Speaking of grading, I give his review a D-minus, if only because it made me laugh-albeit unintentionally.

I actually have a huge confession to make: Nathan Rabin gave Hitch a fairly positive review in the Onion. He found Smith to be his usual likeable and non-threateningly charming megastar self. Despite the predictably of the film, like most in its genre, he found the movie to be quite irresistibly enjoyable. Truth be told, I got carried away writing a response to an imagined scathing review of Hitch, and when my ex-post facto research revealed that such a review didn’t exist, rather than choosing another movie review and re-writing a critique of an actual review I decided, it’s nice outside and I kind of want to go for a run before watching the Cavs fight for their playoff lives on tv. Besides, I kind of liked the closet Will Smith music fan/racist angle. Forgive me Nathan Rabin. I realize you are neither.

That was pretty lame of me, huh? Maybe in the sure to be not-too-distant future when I’m struggling for material to write about, I’ll do this again, but only I’ll use an actual review rather than a made up one as the basis of my review-review. Until then, feel free to be disappointed in my lack of integrity/laziness.

If any of you happen to be in a focus group and view a pilot episode of the Greg Giraldo Show for comedy central, feel free to rave about it and insist that you and everybody you know would certainly watch the show every night for years and years if the network had the foresight to keep it on the air for an extended period.

Time to stretch out my shocking unlimber body. Hope the weekend rejuvenated the crap out of you all.