New Yorkers Brilliant; Texans Stupid

Reading various reviews offered by Jones and Baumgarten, a foreign reader can't help but giggle at the incredible divide between East Coast reviewers and the rest of the U.S. Generally speaking, it would seem that what Texans consider pretentious and boring are precisely the films that New Yorkers consider vital and stimulating. For example, Jones' recent review of a remarkable film that is highly praised in both New York and Paris, Fellini: I'm a Born Liar, seems written by someone tremendously proud of her ignorance, as if to say, "There! I've debunked another boring foreign film." And yet, far better critical minds writing for high-level magazines such as The New Yorker described the film as a superb piece of filmmaking. The critic, David Denby, has been reviewing for more than 30 years and his judgment is finely honed and thoroughly documented. If Jones is certainly entitled to her opinion, there is still the critic's imperative to evaluate a film based on a professional knowledge of critical methods. And yet, her review reveals that she knows precious little about Fellini or the forms of innovative filmmaking in general. Still, she'll bluff her way through, writing in clichés to meet her deadline. It's a pitiful performance by any standard, whether East Coast, West Coast, or Parisian. Jones should leave critical matters to those with bona fide talent but, above all, blessed with intellectual honesty. And for some reason, I doubt this will be printed in The Austin Chronicle.

   [E-mail response sent to Will James: Will, Us hicks here in the innards of the country are always so grateful when our far more worldly and sophisticated brethren in those big Eastern cities condescend to enlighten us on our many shortfalls. Here I would have thought that to accuse a review one disagreed with of lacking intellectual honesty would be sophomoric, but turns out that I'm wrong. Citing David Denby, who's been burned out for more than a decade, as a stellar guidepost of critical thought would have never crossed my mind, but hell, I can't see the East River from where I live, so what do I know? Again, it would seem the height of pretentious arrogance to argue that Paris and New York have the "right" opinion on films, and us dumb hicks know nothing, but you set me straight. I know as a cosmopolitan über-thinker you're probably so busy, but we was wondering if we could run all our film opinions by you, so we could make sure we got them right; gosh, we wouldn't want to disagree with you. You've got to forgive us our ignorance, because some of your "East Coast" critical and film folks have gone out of their way to compliment our film coverage over the years including Pauline Kael, Elvis Mitchell, Jonathan Demme, John Pierson, and John Sayles among many others, and Film Comment, when it offers surveys of critical opinions not solely located on the two coasts, often includes us. Birthed as most of us are by married siblings, we didn't realize they were just humoring us out of pity. Unfortunately, Kim is no longer on our staff, though still reviewing, because after being accepted into the writing program at the University of Montana and the Michener program at the University of Texas, she decided to go back to school. Isn't that funny, a non-New Yorker thinking they could write? Damn, that's dumb. Now you know me, sitting here in coveralls and pulling straw out of my hair, I keep thinking that if I was going to accuse folks of not being intellectually honest and then say they weren't gonna print my letter, I might have checked the letter section just to make sure they didn't run a lot of negative, sometimes-hostile letters. Thanks for the enlightenment.]