The Hot Blog

No Dave. Your blog and MCM is all politics all the time, now.

That is the cost.

No more neutrality. When I first started reading you I knew you were liberal but you always stressed that you did not have an axe to grind. It was a phrase you used a lot as I recall.

As a reader of yours since 2003, I stumbled across your blog during the Passion controversy. Yet even then I never thought you were biased in the true sense. I really thought you were a great barometer of the industry. But in the past 2 years culminating in the past 6 months you seem to have been willing to throw any semblance of neutrality to the dogs in the effort to cow-tow to anything having to do with the worship of Obama. That is your choice.

I have always respected that you do not ban dissenters like myself and appreciate it. I am also not going to be one of those posters that says I will never read you again. That would be silly. But I do think, as I have mentioned before, you, like many entertainment and political journalists, have allowed this election to get the better of you.

Politics always was a part of MCM. In the choice of sources you use and the ones you discard. In the stories you highlight and the ones you dismiss. In who you link to and who you do not.

After your political blogging, do you really think anyone can see your review of say W, Che or a Clint Eastwood, George Clooney or Mel Gibson film and at least not question where you are coming from? I am not saying you cannot be neutral...I am saying you no longer get the benefit of the doubt. I suspect my opinion doesn't matter much in the long run. The readership here in the past stretch has long past the point of rational discourse in many instances. But the cost is the semblance of neutrality or objectibity which used to be your stock and trade. If you can live with that...no worries. I suspect in the current film industry it doesn't much matter to you.

I realize you are passionate about this election. I get that. I know this is important to you. Nothing wrong with that. But what too many journos do not undertand is showing that passion has a price. If you are playing poker and you show your hand...you cannot act like a blank slate.

Similarly, you cannot play into political partisanship so heavily and still expect to be considered someone who does not have an axe to grind. You clearly do; especially when so many films have such blatant political texts and subtexts nowadays.

You are a smart man. I have never been one to resort to vulgarity on this blog and hope no one will in response to me. But I also hope that more entertainment journalists in the months ahead realize what bridges they burned with readership in this election. It has been a great disappointment for me to have to ween myself off of my favourite film blogs because the politics just became too thick. And while I know there will be those who post and call me a "crazy canuck" or worse, I am sure there are others who must also feel the same way.

If Obama and his fans in the film industry are going to claim they are uniters and not dividers...they are going to have to try a hell of a lot harder than what has been going on in the blogosphere for the past half a year.

As I do many people in the film industry, I actually do question how much you love movies now. Do you love movies or is that just a vehicle for your true love, politics? Nothing wrong if the latter is true...I suspect it is like that with many in the film industry. Truth is, with quality wanning, I suspect this is exactly the opening needed for the film industry to get the much needed change needed that I have written about here for years.

Best.

"As I do many people in the film industry, I actually do question how much you love movies now. Do you love movies or is that just a vehicle for your true love, politics?"

It's not possible to love and be passionate about two things in life??

Nicol, a personal blog is not a place where you should expect objectivity. DP isn't objective even when writing about movies.

My problem with you isn't your beliefs. It's that you accuse others of what you do yourself. You do not respect the liberal POV or alternative viewpoints. That is your right. But you shouldn't expect others to buy into your belief system just because you said their's is wrong. And you shouldn't dismiss those you disagree with.

A question to Nicol - do you think you would have images of burned bridges in your mind if David were championing a candidate or party more in line with your own beliefs? This isn't to be a smart-ass about your comment, since I realize that if I were in your place, this site would have been a growing annoyance for myself as well.

But I do think that one's personal perspective on this blogging issue is a bias in and of itself; and calls for neutrality like yours are rarely if ever done from what would be the home team's bleachers, for lack of a better-than-another-damned-sports analogy.

As someone who loved film too, I would hope that David can seperate it from life. I may be an athiest, but I still enjoyed Bella. I may be a lefty (I can't call myself "democrat", really, because I'm not American) but even I was insulted by trash like American Dreamz.

Ya know?

You don't have to be a liberal athiest to be repulsed by The Passion of the Christ, either, as some of my Christian friends would attest to.

loves*, not "loved" past tense.

Everyone who devotes a portion of their life to the study of film is not just an automaton that reacts solely to watch is on the screen. We cannot help but bring our biases and experiences with us to the movie theater. However, if the film is not simply a polemic, then it becomes easy to decide whether you like a film or not based on the merits of that film.

For example, I've often talked about my love for Spike Lee the filmmaker even though I dislike Spike Lee the person. If you're an intelligent enough person, you will be able to separate the art of a person from that person's personal politics. So, Nicol, if you enjoy David's musings on film, then you can continue enjoying those even if you disagree with his politics. And, of course, if you don't like his political posts, there is no mandate that you must read them.

Nicol's comment "As I do many people in the film industry, I actually do question how much you love movies now. Do you love movies or is that just a vehicle for your true love, politics?" seem to be aiming in the direction of some kind of cultural McCarthyism. In reality, I don't think a person's loves are so easily separable, and it's ultimately to DP's credit that he has wanted to entwine his politics and his day job together into one big honest, occasionally overbearing package. If everybody could do the same, the world would be a better, more honest and open place.

KCamel, I also enjoyed Bella.

Also, 'kowtow' is spelled with a k.

Oh, and also, "the election has gone from unwinnable by either Obama or Clinton..."

Really? Whoever got the Dem nomination this year was always going to be the favorite (unless it had been Edwards) thanks to Bush.

Nicol...

Doubtful you'll chime back in, as your recent M.O. seems to be to drop a rant like the above then bow out like Chucky in Jersey when people respond in kind.

But aren't you at least somewhat active on, or at least a regular reader of, some "conservative" film blog? Why wouldn't you ask the same questions of Libertas (if that still exists) or Dirty Harry or whatever rightward-thinking film commentor you enjoy? Those sites go beyond mere stumping for the pres they want and into a form of blacklisting to which jeff alludes -- entry after entry "outing" stars and filmmakers for their oh-so-secret "liberal agenda."

And the "Do you guys really like movies????" question is a lot more pertinent in that situation. Other than the nice writeups of Classic Hollywood movies (usually by and starring people further left than those CONTROVERSIAL MODERN FIREBRANDS Damon and Clooney, gasp!!!!!!), talk about a group that doesn't seem to like or even CARE ABOUT MOVIES. They just wanna bash Hollywood. Doubtful many commenters on the late, not-great Libertas saw more than three movies a year, and the "critics" and guests alike seem to rate things strictly according to adherence to their political views.

Basically anything south of "The Green Berets" in terms of God, troops and country worship is demonized by the crowd you would no doubt favor. It's not like your intentions are pure or you're even remotely objective. Like many right wingers, you've forgotten that difference of opinion is one of the thinks that makes this country--

Oh, wait, never mind. YOU DON'T EVEN LIVE HERE!!!

I have never, ever subscribed to the theory that movie reviewers should be "objective."

When someone tells me they never agree with my reviews, I say "Great -- then just do the opposite of what I recommend and you'll be fine."

A reviewer should be transparent about his or her biases, especially when writing about a political movie. I want to know where the reviewer is coming from, whether I come from that place as well or not.

Stating one's political preferences is part of that.

Ironically, I was a more enthusiastic supporter of the directing work of both Gibson and Eastwood from their earliest work (Eastwood, really starting with Bird, as I was not looking in depth at the early films or taking the monkey movies seriously at all).

I don't consider many of either man's movies particularly political. As I have stated before, I supported We Were Soldiers... and got shit for it. I didn't pan The Passion of The Christ, though I do consider it a bit anti-Semitic. And I wish all the excellent work that Gibson did in Apocalypto led to more... but I recognize the quality of his work.

Are my raves of Letters From Iwo Jima and Million Dollar Baby suspect... or just the movies I don’t like? If I end up loving Gran Torino, will I be faking it to seem balanced?

You know, give me a John Milius script and 9 out of 10 times, you’ll get me. Give me some lefty polemic and you are likely to lose me. I like movies. I like drama. I like skill in writing and acting and directing. I don’t mind stupid if it’s well done stupid. People who think I am weak for musicals are wrong… I’m pretty sure I have panned more of them than I have praised in recent years.

Bottom line for me is, I am not shy about saying what I really think. If the politics bother me, I will write it. If I am offended by something, I will write it. And if you want to believe that I am hiding something - and people who disagree passionately often do - go to town. You are likley to be dead wrong, but what's it to me?

People like putting other people in boxes. And the truth is, Kami, I don’t really read what you write waiting for some right wing diatribe. I don’t even read J-Mc expecting something irritating, even if I expect him to offer an “I don’t get it” in every other thread, which I don’t get after all the time he spends in here.

And… as for MCN - not MCM – being political… bullshit.

If you want to point out the politics shown in the stories we link to or the positions we take, feel free to let me know. You want to claim we select who we link to based on politics, you better be ready for a fight, because it is a lie. We link to the left, the right, and the center... if they have something interesting to say about film. We also link to outlets that absolutely refuse to link to us. That's how we roll. So if you want to tell me how my politics are seeping into MCN, put up or shut up.

Hey, Dave! You know Eastwood didn't direct those monkey movies! You just said that because he's a Republican! What a cheap shot! Next, you'll blame him for The Rookie... Oh, wait, he did direct The Rookie. Never mind.

I think that the moving image is too innately subtle - and, because of that, linked to our subconscious - to ever leave out our true passions.

If Nicol D had seen the first High School Musical, he would have learned that it's ok to be a movie geek AND a political junkie.

"People who think I am weak for musicals are wrong… I’m pretty sure I have panned more of them than I have praised in recent years."

Yeah, except for the fact that...oh, who cares.

I agree in principle to that, historylover... but the mistake would he, at least for me, to connect my beliefs to an arena as blurred as party politics.

The are all kinds of emotional ideas that hit me more intensely than others because of my sense of the world. That's why the drama of a piece as broadly conceived as Red Dawn gets me and a drama more based in reality, like Redemption, can leave me stone cold.

I may not care for what I see as political in a movie like The Passion, but it does not blind me to the work of filmmaking. I have never agreed with Dirty Harry on principle... I am anti-death penalty and certainly against deatg-by-vigilante... but I adore the movies.

David, do you mean "Rendition" in the post above, or am I just ignorant of such a movie called "Redemption"?

Pssst, Nicol! Check out the Canadian references:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwqGPMf5aAI

Is there even such a thing as objective film criticism? Sounds like an oxymoron to me.

An "objective" film review would just be a plot synopsis and maybe a b.o. prediction, right?

Politics has seeped into entertainment, blogs and so forth, and MCN has not been immune, nevertheless, compared to Wells who banned anyone who wasn't a liberal on his boards, I think Poland was pretty open minded and willing to listen to different viewpoints.

Out of all the political posts the only one that really made much of an impact - personally speaking - was the one featuring the anti-Obama, racist nuts - that one was a highlight for the wrong reasons.

Still as an old timer here, I do miss the old days...Waterbucket touting BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN as the second coming, the anti-CRASH vitriol, Poland pushing for MUNICH and DREAMGIRLS, Poland defecating (rightfully so) on SUPERMAN RETURNS, and all the other good stuff.

I miss it.

Next week gets very interesting here with Poland and all the other reviews pouring in here on the new Bond flick - the CASINO ROYALE vs QUANTUM OF SOLACE thread should be very entertaining.

Here's to a great year ahead.

To be fair, JW has also banned plenty of liberals from HE if they happened to piss him off. The term he used, without irony, was 'Stalinist purge'.

Sorry... yes... Rendition.

And again... The Hot Blog is a blog, like HE...

MCN is something else altogether. And it is edited with that in mind.

I adore movies as well, but does my general belief system subconsciously drive me towards and away from others? Yes. So does my pop nature when I'll wait forever to not pay at all to see the Duchess or Atonement, but will pay for a midnight show of Transformers or POTC III.

Incidentally, found the article intensely disparaging Bond which MCN linked to incredibly interesting. The ideas weren't new, just always good to remind myself that pop mythology should never be accepted at face value. Appreciated that link.

Still, looking forward to Quantum of Solace. Title is good, if for no other reason than being a Bond film titling will make some attempt to contemplate what it means.

The "o" word will get you banned from HE instantly.

I think JW has attached on of those big red "easy buttons" to his computer, with the word "ban" etched on it. He banned me once just for posting in a thread where someone else called him fat. I didn't even comment on his weight, he just "purged" everyone in the thread.

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