Andrew O'Hehir of Salon is a critic I admire, but he has nevertheless written a review of "Secretariat" so bizarre I cannot allow it to pass unnoticed. I don't find anywhere in "Secretariat" the ideology he discovers there. In its reasoning, his review resembles a fevered conspiracy theory.
In this example , we do not find proof that Obama is a Muslim Communist born in Kenya. No, the news is worse than that. It involves Secretariat, a horse who up until now we innocently thought of as merely very fast. We learn the horse is a carrier not merely of Ron Turcotte's 130 pounds, but of Nazism, racism, Tea Party ideology and the dark side of Christianity.
Oh, and I forgot the Ku Klux Klan: "The movie itself is ablaze with its own crazy sense of purpose," O'Hehir writes, "...as if someone just off-screen were burning a cross on the lawn."
Say what? We saw the same movie. I am a liberal who has found more than his share of the Dark Side in seemingly innocent films. But in my naïveté I attended "Secretariat" and saw a straightforward, lovingly crafted film about a great horse and the determined woman who backed him against a posse of men who thought she should get her pretty little ass off the horse farm and get back to raisin' those kids and darnin' those socks.
O'Hehir's review is a cri de coeur against evil in the shape of a film. While showing how this woman "lucks into owning a genetic freak," he says the film papers over all of the historic wrongs in American history, including those of its own period: "The year Secretariat won the Triple Crown was the year the Vietnam War ended and the Watergate hearings began." It is "creepy, half-hilarious master-race propaganda almost worthy of Leni Riefenstahl," he writes, about how "all right-thinking Americans are united in their adoration of a Nietzschean Überhorse." In fact, "Big Red himself is a big, handsome MacGuffin, symbolic window dressing for a quasi-inspirational fantasia of American whiteness and power."I'm not making this up. How did a lifelong liberal like myself manage to leave peacefully at the end, instead of organizing the audience and leading a demonstration right then and there?
O'Hehir's reading is wildly eccentric, and commits a logical error best outlined as: A is evil because it does not acknowledge B. Or perhaps: Although A and B are represented as separate circles, they should overlap.
True, "Secretariat" makes no overt mention of Vietnam or Watergate. The same is true of certain other films set in the 1970s, such as "Apollo 13," "Breaking the Waves," "Field of Dream," "Rudy," "When Harry Met Sally" "Zodiac," and"Frost/Nixon". Those films are all guilty, in that they are not about Vietnam and Watergate.To be sure, one of Penny's daughters stages an anti-war play at high school, and this is a primary domestic incident the film details. O'Hehir did notice this: "Penny's eldest daughter is depicted as a teen antiwar activist, in scenes that resemble lost episodes of 'The Brady Bunch'." Later, the teenager calls Penny and tells her she is dedicating her life to the anti-war movement, and Penny, the O'Hehirian Riefenstahlian TeaPartyite, tells her only, "We all have to do what we feel is right." Apparently Penny didn't get her talking points that day.
As an admirer of Darwin, I question O'Hehir's description of Secretariat as a "genetic freak." Secretariat was not a lucky roll of the dice by the blind watchmaker, but the outcome of many carefully recorded generations of selective breeding. The horse can be read as one more demonstration of the survival of the fittest -- a phrase that could apply to the winner of every race.Nor did Penny Chenery, Secretariat's owner, "luck into" the horse. As the film spells out, she won the horse by losing a coin toss, which she wanted to lose, because her understanding of horse breeding led her to hope the millionaire betting against her would "win" the wrong mare. Her reasoning was correct.
I question if a single American, right-thinking or left-thinking, thought even once of Secretariat as a Nietzschean Überhorse. Nor did many consider the Triple Crown victories as a demonstration of white superiority, because race horses (which seem to enjoy winning for reasons of their own) are happily unaware of race. Does a horse think of a human as belonging to another race? I speculate that a horse considers a human as a differently-abled horse. A cat, now, may belong to another race.
Penny Chenery arouses O'Hehir's ire by being wealthy and living with her family in Colorado "in a resplendent collection of period knitwear and steel-magnolia 'tude." In other words, period clothing. But she cannot be held guilty of having money honestly earned. That money was secondary in her mind is demonstrated when she prevents both sides of her family from selling the farm, and refuses $7 million for Secretariat. O'Hehir admits that he loves the film's "wonderfully varied and dazzling approaches to Secretariat's four big races." Chenery obviously loved those races too, and literally bet the farm in order to see them.Wait. There is yet another sinister subtext to be exposed in the film. O'Hehir mentions that Randall Wallace, who directed the film, "is one of mainstream Hollywood's few prominent Christians, and has spoken openly about his faith and his desire to make movies that appeal to 'people with middle-American values'." To which I respond: I am a person with middle-American values, and the film appealed to me. This news just in: There are probably more liberals with middle-American values than conservatives, especially if your idea of middle-American values overlaps with the Beatitudes, as mine does.
When O'Hehir says Wallace is "one of mainstream Hollywood's few prominent Christians," what exactly does he mean by that? That one is too many? Surely the Hollywood mainstream has room for several prominent Christians? Surely it is permitted for Wallace to speak openly about his faith? Although O'Hehir finds "Secretariat" a repository of Christianity (of the wrong sort, presumably), I found it rather secular. He finds it "Tea Party friendly;" I refuse to allow him to define this film in such a way. Sarah Palin and the Tea Party are squatting rent-free in the tent of Middle American Values and pretend we don't belong there. But we do, and O'Hehir should not advance the TeePee agenda.I hardly have the heart to discuss the ways he finds racism in the film. He writes of:
...Eddie (Nelsan Ellis), an African-American groom who belongs to a far more insidious tradition of movie stereotypes. Eddie dances and sings. He loves Jesus and that big ol' horse. He is loyal and deferential to Miz Penny, and injects soul and spirit into her troubled life. I am so totally not kidding.
Andrew, Andrew, Andrew. There are any number of African-Americans, grooms and otherwise, who sing, dance, love Jesus and that big ol' horse. Also many American of other races. Being the groom of the greatest race horse in history was the crowning glory of Eddie Sweat's life -- his claim to fame. Must you demean him for it? There are many grooms of all races who are loyal and deferential to their employers. Also a great many white-collar workers at places like Salon and large corporations who are loyal and deferential. The only place I can think of where no one is deferential to the boss is the Chicago Tribune.Is it even possible for Eddie to defer to Penny's judgment, when he in fact formed and guided it, and they agreed? And how much singing and dancing would you say Eddie actually does in the movie, and under what circumstances? The film sadly lacks a scene of Eddie grooming Secretariat for the Belmont while soothing him with De Camptown racetrack's five mile long! Oh, de doo-da day!
I quote again:
...the villainous, swarthy and vaguely terrorist-flavored Pancho Martin (Nestor Serrano), trainer of Sham, Secretariat's archrival. (Even the horse's name is evil!)
I am so totally not kidding if I ask, must a man who does indeed look like Pancho Martin therefore be "villainous, swarthy and vaguely terrorist-flavored?" And as for the hapless Sham, the horse with the evil name, for Christ's sake, O'Hehir, that was the horse's damn name.
Having exhausted my reading of this inexplicable review, I choose not to continue by drawing any lessons from it. I have no theories about why it was written. No cautionary warnings to issue. My faith in Andrew O'Hehir remains -- generally speaking. I am sure he will strive to do better. I myself have written insane reviews. It happens.
[Andrew O'Hehir's review on Salon.com. ]
[ Both Andrew O'Hehir and Bill Nack, author of the biography of Secretariat, have posted comments on this entry, and I have boldfaced them below to make them easier to find. ]
What would you consider some of your "insane" reviews?
Ebert: Ah, that's for you to decide.
Wow. This, to me, just looks like a well-made film about a superb race horse and nothing more. That someone, anyone, could find such hidden meanings in it befuddles me. And Roger, I agree completely with this statement you made:
"Sarah Palin and the Tea Party are squatting rent-free in the tent of Middle American Values and pretend we don't belong there."
Damn right I say. This nation was built by the oddballs, the thinkers, the freaks and the workers. It's our nation, damn it, and I'm tired of the Tea Party people and their ilk trying to steal it from us.
I am so grateful for this blog as it provides an oasis of sanity, pleasure and knowledge in the middle of a very large desert.
Diane Lane said on Jimmy Fallon's show on Wednesday night that Secretariat had a 22 lb heart when most horses have 10 lb hearts which would mean the horse was a freak of nature but no one back then knew it.
Also the Triple Crown races with Secretariat united people for a short time from those other events like Vietnam and Watergate. Millions of people followed Secretariat's adventures.
Maybe he was symbolically taking pop shots at mel gibson and mr ed.
Mr. Ebert, please link to said insane reviews!
I love this!
I can't wait to see the movie. I loved Secretariat. I was a 2nd grade girl who watched the races whenever they were on tv and went to Hollywood Park with my dad, when he would take me, and dreamed of being a jockey. Watergate was just a word on the news. I didn't understand why mommy like Nixon and daddy didn't. I didn't understand the war. But I understood Secretariat and cried when he won. In my memory I can still see the entry in the World Book Encyclopedia Yearbook that told of his historic victory. I read it again and again, as if he were my very own horse.
Weird
I've heard about looking for subtext in a movie, but this goes overboard. Thanks for brightening my evening, Rog! (This from me, who took 25 years to realize the Who song "Squeezebox" might be about more than a concertina.
I was 10 years old at the time and I recall my family enjoying Secretariat's bid for the Triple Crown, even though we were acutely aware of the debilitating effects of Watergate and the ignominious end of the Vietnam War.
It's called "finding something positive in an otherwise depressing year."
O'Hehir might want to try it out, since 2010 isn't shaping up to be that great itself.
I also find it a shame that the Far Right has poisoned the well to such an extant that such terms as "Christian" and "middle-class" immediately have negative connotations for so many.
I read Mr. O'Hehir's review late last night, and thought it was weird. Then I saw Mr. Ebert gave the movie four stars, so I was hoping he'd address the Salon review interpretation of the movie. Thank you!
Spoiler alert: This comment contains sarcasm.
Roger, like I totally dig the shot selections used for this article. While I have not seen this film, your choice of pictures compliments your words.
End of sarcasm.
On a real note, I do have a question Roger: Do you help pick the pictures listed above the reviews on your Web site? Please don't read too much into that question. I'm not trying to imply your picture selection is bad, but instead am complimenting your incorporation of visuals within your written text. I love the added emphasis of critique without actually critiquing. And to boot, you didn't have to point your were doing so (sorry Emerson). Besides that, your using images from the film to do all the dirty work that words often are not able to do. More reason for kids to understand why learning to write is still important in the digital age, and why cameraman should stop letting special effects artists completely control the films' images.
Perfection!
Ebert: I choose all the art on my blog and most of the photos with reviews.
Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties --- Would be your insane review haha.
Ebert: So many would agree.
Whatever beef Andrew O'Hehir has between himself and that Godless Secretariat should be their own business, but Mr. O'Hehir thought it important enough to bring to a public forum, so I, speaking for myself and all great Christian American's will comment about where we true-American's stand compared to the pagans on the Left.
First of all, let's get just ONE thing straight. We the Tea-Party Movement and NEW GOP have been GROSSLY misidentified as crazy racists when all we want is small goverment and we we want the goverment to stop all this wasteful spending. We are about ONE thing, reigning in government spending. When the Tea-Party takes you can expect lots of changes better for America. First thing: All Mexican signs, flags and even Mexican restraunts-- GONE! Back "south of the border" as they say. Only American language, no Mexican. Next gone will be Social Security-- that's us reigning in Gov spending. Accept those recieving SOC Security now and a few people like me who will be getting social Security in two years. Us will be Grand Fathered in and get to keep their monthlies, this will be in the Consitution. Same with Medicare. Nobody but us will be able to get it. After that it is gone. Next gone will be programs for the poor and for the minorities. That's wasteful goverment spending text book style. Our tea-party has not once did anything that is really all that racist, those lies will end to. Next will be public school. Everthing will be modeled after Texas education. No lies about global warming, no junk science (any science) and only American will be teached in are new schools. Every children will chant the ten commandmants to before the start of there daily bible studies. This will be the Tea-Party way. Secretariat had his chance, and chose to not go with God. You on the left, still have a chance. Don't blow it on Nov. 2.
What I wanna know is: Is "Nietzschean Überhorse" in the next Transformers movie, and if so, is he an Autobot or a Decepticon? To most he appears a simple thoroughbred racehorse, but add one addled argument and he becomes an embodiment of the 21st century politics of demonization!
Michael Mirasol: What would you consider some of your "insane" reviews?
Ebert: Ah, that's for you to decide.
I have some ideas about that.....
I love Roger's reviews (even when I disagree), but in terms of "insane" - I'd say his original Blue Velvet and Fight Club critiques immediately come to mind.
Wow, Mr. O'Hehir's take on "Secretariat" is a review worthy of Armond White. But I don't think even he would get that conspiratorial.
I just finished reading Andrew's review. It reads like a dissertation as to the need for more religion in Hollywood. As an atheist filmmaker, I say nay on the grounds that it'll give credence to all of us going to hell. Heaven would be such a boring place without any snarky storytellers.
I am left scratching my head over that one too! People are strange. Perhaps hallucinogens are to blame...
I think the reviewer actually raises some salient points worth considering. Yes it is certainly an inspirational film for some, but for others it can be anything but.
As he notes, this is a film about a white woman of privilege who does not build, but essentially inherits an existing operation. She is ignorant of how to run it, but is in the enviable position of being able to afford to surround herself with more experienced people. She could afford expensive horses which, when bred, yielded several fine horses, and through the mysterious combination of recessive and dominant alleles yielded one all time great: Secretariat. She could afford to play the game, and through the roll of the dice hit lucky seven, so-to-speak. Sure she bore the brunt of doubters, naysayers, people who mock her because of her gender, but does she really have much at risk? Worst case scenario, her pride is bruised. Maybe she has to auction off the place and sell the horses for a few hundred thou a pop. For those who have lost their homes and their jobs, such a prospect that faces this one woman is hardly relatable.
In this time where millions (myself included) struggle to come up with each month's rent, have lousy health insurance, who pray to God their car doesn't break down, or they have an accident, it is hard to say what is inspiring about this tale, of a rich white woman who gets lucky and winds up even richer. Why do I care about this person? Why does this film exist when there are many other, far more relevant stories out there that remain untold?
I think the reviewer raises an interesting point about this film's calculation and conceit. It has an undercurrent of cyncicism, like a Kinkade painting. It is designed to appeal to the baser instincts of a certain group of people, to ultimately profit from the endeavor. It whispers sweet nothings for ten dollars plus concessions. It salves the privileged who feel for the first time threatened, by a black man in office, by the prospect of becoming a minority in a world overrun by the browner peoples who have conspired to seek retribution for the sins of the past (FYI my tongue is firmly planted in cheek)? Isn't it a bit of perfect calculation to produce a film then that taps into that fear by painting a reassuring portrait of a world that doesn't exist: where the wealthy Caucasians prevail, where all th' rest know their place, and those who don't are quickly put down for getting uppity?
All this isn't to say the movie is bad. It is quite good. But what I think the Salon reviewer is trying to do is get people to think about this film, and what ulterior motives it has, and look at it with a knowing eye, rather than buying into the idea it sells of th' good ole days. Y'know, like how the fifties were...
Ebert: I don't believe the filmmakers had ulterior motives. I think they wanted to make a good movie about a race horse.
To be honest, I wasn't terribly interested in watching this movie until I saw your review. I loved the fact that you included the Gene Siskel reference, one that mentioned he liked to watch films that showed what people do everyday. My taste in movies is pretty much the same. In fact, your review actually piqued my interest. (John Malkovich's presence in the movie didn't hurt either.) I remember when Gene got so excited over one of my favorite films, BROADCAST NEWS, and he said "these people would be interesting if they were working in a meat market." He really saw how interesting people's everyday lives could be (whether in a newsroom or in a meat market), and I dug that very much.
Even from watching some of your old "At the Movies" reviews, and knowing Gene could be a pretty cerebral, critical guy, I never got the sense he'd react the way Andrew O'Hehir did to this movie. I went back and checked this guy's review and it's really over the top.
Because I haven't seen the movie, I can't really speculate that he's 100% wrong, but I agree with most of your points above. Tons of films that take place in the 1970s don't mention Watergate or Vietnam. Many of them have something resembling a central theme, even if it isn't Watergate or Religion or Corruption or whatever. Remember the Titans, for instance, touches on some racial divides. While it still avoids more "serious" issues (even those concerning race), and it isn't the greatest movie ever made, for the most part, it's genuine and exciting. Secretariat looked to be in the same vein, and from what I read in your review, this movie's quite a bit more interesting. O'Hehir bemoans the fact that "religion" is barely mentioned in the pic, but I can't understand why this would be all that important.
Moreover, the review's not particularly well-written. I always thought the point of a movie review was to let people know if they'd enjoy the picture. Even if you, Roger, gave a negative review to a movie, I could always tell whether I'd enjoy it or not based on things you said about it. I got the same sense from your reviews while watching "At the Movies" for years with my dad. Even if you or Gene reacted strongly to a film, it never crossed into this kind of pseudo-intellectual dribble. Even the snobbiest of my college professor's would be bored by this Salon review.
Mr. O'Hehir seems to sidestep criticism completely in order to go on a tirade about the Tea Party and "middle America." All I can ask is, WHY? I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but this review misses the point entirely. I'm not completely familiar with his work, and I suppose I'll have to take a look at some of his previous criticism. Yet, this review doesn't even let me know if I'd be interested in the movie or not. It's dull and meandering and really should never have been published. I can't help but be reminded of Truman Capote's quote about Kerouac's ON THE ROAD: "It isn't writing at all--it's typing." The only question is, why did Rotten Tomatoes mark his review as "positive"?
Oh, well, goody! I get to repeat my story about how I was there this one time. I was living in a roach-friendly old apartment building on Caroline Street in Saratoga Springs, NY, over the Western Union Office, and working long nights at a 24/7 greasy spoon called the Spa City Diner -- which still stands, complete with the big brown plastic horse on the roof.
Wellsir? I didn't pay much attention to the races, except to notice threadbare gamblers ordering the cheap breakfast at The Spoon at sunrise, gnawing over the day's racing forms intently like hungry dogs worrying a bone. And the time Eddie Arcaro came in and left Cheryl a fifty-dollar tip for three bucks' worth of eggs and toast.
Anyway. One morning I'm downstairs flirting with a pretty girl behind the counter at the Western Union office, when in walks Secretariat's groom. Thanks to Roger's review, I now know his name was Eddie Sweat. He was a nice fella. Quiet, shy, friendly. He'd come in to wire some money to his family. Secretariat had a big race coming up later that day. You couldn't help but hear about Secretariat in 'toga back then.
Well, is Secretariat gonna win today, I asked. Eddie Sweat smiled and shook his head with a judicious "naw." No, no, he's not in the mood to run today, Eddie said. Sure enough, he lost that afternoon. What I don't understand is why I'm not in the movie. That was a very important piece of history and could have given some teutonic blonde teenager a big break. I wouldn't have asked for much for my little story to be in there, either. Just a few thousand.
But now that I've learned this movie is really about the KKK and superior white Christians, Roger, I just don't know. I just don't know. I guess it's lucky that I turned out to be a loser, too, or the ACLU might be tapping my phones this very day.
Or maybe Andrew O'Hehir is just trying to horn in on Armond White's act. If so, he should quit that. There's only one Armond White.
Perhaps Mr. O'Hehir wrote similar 'reviews' about the hidden Jewish ideology in all the BENJI films, or the gay agenda in FREE WILLY?
I agree with Roger. It's a Disney movie, for heaven's sake. Take it for what it is and not what you wish it were, and what it is is a family entertainment meant to make you sniffle, laugh, and cheer. Period.
Oh man! This is worse than everything my friends have said about Avatar. I want to see this movie it takes me back to my childhood and my father who worked at Belmont as a teenager. He always wanted to be a jockey he was too tall and too heavy for it. He was so happy when Secretariat won. I was 6 and yes I remember it even though I did not understand why until much later.
The tea party people which my friends are believe that you need to tear a movie apart like this and find connections that do not even exist. Avatar to my friends was big government (President Obama) going after the military just doing their jobs and going after the evil doers who would attack us at any moment. I said to them that they read too much into it. In my opinion if this is your only reason for seeing a movie then don't go.
I have a picture of my kitty watching President Obama speaking on TV so what does that make him?
I haven't seen the movie yet so I'll pass on anything that might or might now be in it, but I did want to bring up O'Hehir's skepticism of Randal Wallace's desire "to make movies that appeal to 'people with middle-American values," which you claim to believe is simply an honest, straightforward comment to be taken solely at face-value. Come on, Roger - you are wrong, O'Hehir is right, and you should well know that because you've been covering politics almost as thoroughly as you've covered movies for the last several years. "Middle-American values" has been part of the standard conservative lexicon for so long it's silly, being a standard code phrase for values that appeal to people who don't much appreciate Blacks, Latinos, Muslims, gays 'uppity' women, atheists, and all the rest of the riff-raff who've been destroying this perfect little utopia of theirs for the last half-century with their crazy notions of respect and demands for equal rights.
Ebert: Then it's time to take the phrase back.
Would 'A Clockwork Orange' count as one of your insane reviews? Not that you were entirely wrong, but flawed movies can be great too.
As an admirer of Darwin, I question O'Hehir's description of Secretariat as a "genetic freak." Secretariat was not a lucky roll of the dice by the blind watchmaker, but the outcome of many carefully recorded generations of selective breeding.
But Secretariat, like all world-class athletes, was a genetic freak, in that he was born with traits at the far, far end of the bell curve. The fact that he was effectively engineered rather than more or less random doesn't change that.
(Unrelated trivia: When Maury Wills' son Bump was on the cover of Sports Illustrated, someone wrote in to ask if they were the first father-son pair to appear on the cover at different times. No, SI replied, it was Bold Ruler and Secretariat.)
"I myself have written insane reviews. It happens."
Wouldn't that be an interesting book? "Mea Culpa: Your Movie Doesn't Suck (No Matter What I Said At First).
As for O'Hehir's review, I had hoped that the current knee-jerk, "everything in the country is either with me or against me" political climate hadn't yet filtered down (up?) to film criticism. Nowhere is safe.
Reading this review of a review has once more reminded me that I am on the losing side if I don't read more widely. I had no idea of O'Hehir's review in Salon, which I have not read in a while, one might say. Thank you for your extensive parsing of the insanity; I understand your motivation to correct not just pure silliness, but overwhelming misunderstanding of a pure and simple movie about a HORSE. It was such inane chatter that used to amuse us workingfolk when we watched the nightly dissection of our culture on either of the three networks back in the day. We were some of us blue-collar, some struggling to succeed (as over-40 adults) in the academic world (not an elitist among us I hasten to add), and some of us just getting along a day at a time. And we were always amused by the salon liberals (intentional) who were telling us nightly on TV and in print just how we were to perceive our real status. We were all of us leftists, and those among us more conservative than we were acknowledged to be our liberals, and we were proud to claim them as friends, family and lovers. This mistaken hypersensitivity to alleged infractions against our social and racial unity we laughingly called "political correctness," a nomenclature eagerly taken up by troglodyte conservatives. We had only ourselves to blame by putting up with party-line ranting for too long. I appreciate your work in reviewing, and have long admired if not always agreed with your conclusions about film. I am happy to read your comments today and always. A (still) blue-collar worker.
If I read Mr. O'Hehir's review correctly, he was using hyperbole to illustrate the problems he had with the film. I think you are taking too much or what he says literally.
Also, I don't think he was taking issue with the fact that the movie doesn't depict some of the less savory elements of it's time period so much as that it purposefully glosses over them.
And the singing dancing African American stereotype is simply offensive. It relegates them to a particular role in society. Saying that there really are those kind of people out there is like saying it's justifiable to have an African American criminal stereotype out there because there really are African American criminals out there.
O'Hehir does realize this is a Disney movie, right? It might be "bland," but it's not meant to be a social commentary piece. I mean, was Remember the Titans supposed to be as deep of a movie about racism as In the Heat of the Night? No. It's Disney. If you want to hate them for that, fine, but take the movie for what it is. If one's prejudices are going to cloud one's view of a film, they should be stated at the outset, not disguised as a "message" that the filmmakers hid within the movie.
Sometimes a horse is just a horse.
Oh, and unless Secretariat tried to educate himself by reading the classics and learning how to paint, Nietzsche should be nowhere near this discussion. Self-cultivation led to his idea of a "superman;" the Nazis were the ones who thought that "superior beings" could be created through genetics. And since Secretariat was made great through breeding, not through self-improvement, I don't think Nietzsche would approve of his name being linked to him.
Then again, for all I know, Nietzsche may have been a huge horse-racing fan. :-)
Reviews like the one described are just another example of the poisonous state of acrimony between those of different politics, race relations and secularism, that finds everything offensive that doesn't support one's own entrenched beliefs. In O'Hehir's worldview, rich people are automatically corrupt or incompetent; rich white people are corrupt, incompetent and racist; Christians care about nothing more that forcing their faith on those who are "smart" enough to see through all that religious mumbo-jumbo; sometimes, Andrew, a horse is just a horse. Of course, of course.
Dear Mr. Ebert,
I agree with you that Secretariat didn't have any dark motives as a film. I just can't agree about how successful it was about what it did attempt. I thought this movie pulled out more lame, tired, cheesy cliches than any other "Inspirational" movie I can think of. And the one character was SUCH a Magical Negro, it was disgusting. Also, without giving too much away, what cured Secretariat the night before the final race? Was it the inspirational music that cured his illness? Was it the determined look that didn't leave Penny's eye once during the movie? It doesn't make sense.
A lot of it is like this. Why did John M. speak french occasionally? Why was Penny so determined that the horse could win, despite ALL of Horse Racing saying otherwise? I mean, I know he eventually did win, but because she had no real reason to think so, the portrayal comes off more "psychotic" than "determined." I think it was a weak performance, just trying to build off real quality Inspirational Woman facing adversity roles, like The Contender.
I think you're confusing a film having good values for it being a good film. Go back, look at any of the formal elements. They're all junk. Almost every line of dialogue is a cliche ripped straight off some motivational poster.
A fan,
Ben Forrester.
A movie being made about Secretariat made front page news here in Boulder. Now I'm interested to see it.
With movie reviews, sometimes a movie can just rub you the wrong way. You've dismissed many films I've admired, but those reviews did help me see the movies from different perspectives. Sometimes when you really enjoy a film, reading a negative review teaches you more than a positive one.
At our film school we're encouraged, in part, to make assumptions. So, I'll take my guess that this critic, when he wrote this review, really needed to vent, blow off some steam on what he thought was ill in the world. Sometimes we need to get angry. Human nature? Sure. Is it good film criticism? Perhaps not. At least that's what this appears to be.
I know it's non-sequitur, but I've just thought of a pretty good oxymoron: "a growing lack".
While many writers, including critics, have often introduced unique and interesting perspectives on plays and films, such as Johnson's opinions about "Hamlet," Mr. O'Hehr's commentary sounds as if it was written under the influence of too much Nyquil. Moreover, someone who thinks of everything in terms of racially-based and/or class-based struggle is going to impose those terms on everything he or she sees. It may never have been the author's or the filmmaker's intent to convey the story in those terms, but that audience member is going to see it in those terms, nonetheless.
Roger--Your puzzlement at Andrew O'Hehir's review brings to mind your recent discourse on Joaquin Phoenix and Casey Affleck's film. Though at first taken in by the serious public nature of Phoenix's "meltdown", you and we were clued-in by Casey about the "truth" a few weeks ago. Perhaps it's all just a lark for attention by the man, or a tongue-in cheek experiment to see if anyone's actually reading his reviews. Maybe it's an attempt to draw out someone who has been stalking him. Perhaps, as happened to a college professor I had, he has developed a chemical imbalance in his brain. Once hospitalized and placed on medication, he righted himself and returned to teaching within a few weeks.
Maybe it's...I don't know, is it important that we dissect it and tear the man a new asshole? Sometimes it's best just to let things go. They're just words on paper. Have you contacted the man, whom I will assume is a friend/colleague, to discuss the matter with him? That might be the best way to get to the bottom of this. We often imagine far worse scenarios for something that happened which bear no relation to the truth of the matter.
I saw the movie and enjoyed it - I failed to see the dark undercurrent that O'Hehir found. I suspect that when I watch it again, I'll again see an entertaining story about a classy woman and a spectacular athlete.
I've long been a horse racing fan and the Secretariat story was made for the movies - it did get a little bit of a Hollywood boost, though....
They more or less created the underdog role for Secretariat when in reality, Chenery, Turcotte and Laurin had won the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes the year before with another all-time great, Riva Ridge.
What?! It's not just about a horse? There's "subtext" too..?
Note to self: watch movie in Miss Marple mode. :)
I'm not sure I can recall one of Mr. Ebert's reviews that I would consider insane. I can recall several that I would disagree with. I remember leaving an advance screening of Team America: World Police, at Indiana University where the entire audience, my liberal self included, had been in stitches. Ebert was merciless in his single-star review of that movie, asserting that he "knew" what comedy was. I think maybe we can at least agree that comedy is subjective. Something about unsettlingly lifelike puppets re-enacting a Michael Bay movie just struck me as funny.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar...
And Roger, I love you, but I wish you would have answered the insane review question. Of course that popped into my head first too. Are there any where you saw the movie again and reconsidered, or wondered what the heck you were thinking at the time? I'm sure there must be, you've reviewed so many films.
Well, gee. Thanks, Roger. (I think.)
I'm not eager to get into a public dispute with you over a Disney movie that you found "straightforward" and "lovingly crafted" and I found weird, fake and inexplicably disturbing, which may be all this boils down to. The world isn't likely to care much, and will render its verdict without our help.
I appreciate that you opened and closed this piece with some kind words, and I have great respect for you as a man and a critic. That said, I think the only place where we agree here is when you say, "O'Hehir's reading [of 'Secretariat'] is wildly eccentric." I'll cop to that happily -- my review of the film was willfully hyperbolic, even outrageous, in hopes of getting people to look at a formulaic Disney sports movie through fresh eyes. I know I don't have to explain the function or uses of hyperbole to you, since it's a technique you often employ (here and elsewhere). My hyperbole in the "Secretariat" review was supposed to be funny, and also to provoke a response. I appear to have succeeded brilliantly with the second part! The results on "funny" are more mixed.
Now, clearly I could have written a more "normal" review, in which I said something like: "Secretariat" was kind of fun to watch, but it bugged me. It presents a prettied-up, phony-baloney vision of America in the early '70s, in a transparent effort to appeal to the "family-values" crowd who ate up "The Blind Side" -- people who want a comforting and unchallenging movie without any sex or swearing. There's nothing wrong with that as a way to make a buck, but this example is ultra-tame, scrubbed clean of any genuine conflict or drama, and I pretty much think it's crap.
Now, I gather you would have disagreed with that, and pretty sharply, but I very much doubt you'd have bothered writing several thousand words ripping me apart. Now perhaps you see the genius of my plan!
Seriously, that is what I think -- and pretty much what I said, albeit in somewhat stronger language. In your haste to take me down, I think you frequently read my gag lines as being deadly serious, mix or conflate different aspects of my argument (e.g., I don't say or think anything about the horse being evil, or representing evil), and confuse events in real life with what we see in the film.
Now then: I do indeed compare "Secretariat" to "master-race propaganda almost worthy of Leni Riefenstahl," a deliberately outrageous claim that, I suspect, pissed you off right at the outset. Let me elaborate a little. In my view, the most effective propaganda movies are not the ones about dudes with guns that espouse militarism, or the Soviet boy-meets-tractor films, or the Nazi cartoons about Jews. Those are too obvious. The most effective kind of propaganda depicts normal life, or rather an idealized vision of normal life, one that (as one of my readers put it) "makes a particular worldview seem natural, right and appealing." Viewed that way, of course, a very large proportion of Hollywood movies could be considered propaganda, which is a subject for another time. (The shoe may fit.)
Of course it's offensive to compare a contemporary filmmaker to Riefenstahl -- although she was unquestionably a great director -- but I never said or suggested that Randall Wallace had consciously or deliberately created a film whose primary purpose was ideological. It's more like the ideology of reassurance and comfort and gorgeous images -- what I refer to as the "fantasia of American whiteness and power," which is, yes, going kind of far -- is so built into this kind of movie you can't get it out. I do, however, see Wallace's desire to appeal to Christian audiences and a never-enumerated set of "middle-American values" as politically coded, at least to some degree. (It's like they're coded if you want them to be; of course he's happy with secular left-wing types watching the movie too.)
You believe, or suggest, that I damn the film for not noticing Vietnam or Watergate, but that isn't quite right. As I think I make clear, I was struck by the oddness of the film's idealized, "Ozzie and Harriet" portrait of American life, which feels more like the '50s, being set in one of the most tumultuous periods of American history. That's a suggestive fact, an element of the overall picture, not an indictment. You indulge in some hyperbole of your own in suggesting that I accuse Penny Chenery (the movie character? The real person? I am not sure) of being an evil right-winger, when I never say, and do not know, anything about her politics. Watch out for the "O'Hehirian Riefenstahlian TeaPartyite" clique, though --we're on the rise!
I could go on, and I guess I will just a little: I never say or suggest that anyone considered the Triple Crown victories "as a demonstration of white superiority." (I honestly don't believe you don't get the "Überhorse" joke. Secretariat was a product of eugenics if any living creature ever was.) You suggest that I attack Randall Wallace for his religious faith, but I do not, and you cite nothing to support this. You say that I see "a repository of Christianity (of the wrong sort, presumably)" in the film, when I say clearly that religion plays almost no role in the story. On the other hand, it's simply a fact that Disney is marketing the film to Christian conservatives, and neither of us is required to have an opinion about it. And I'm not sure what you mean when you say you refuse to allow me to define the film as "Tea Party-friendly." Is Sarah Palin not allowed to like it?
On the film's racial issues: You suggest that I am demeaning the real-life Eddie Sweat, Secretariat's groom. I say nothing about Eddie Sweat. I am discussing a fictional character, the only black person ever seen in the film, who is presented as subordinate, unreflective, constantly cheerful and uniquely well equipped to communicate with an animal. Could there be such a person? Of course. But in the context of my perception of the film's total universe, this feels like an unwholesome and old-fashioned stereotype (for which there is a borderline-offensive name I will not use).
Similarly, I have a tough time believing you don't get what I'm trying to say about the Pancho Martin character. Those who reported on the Triple Crown at the time have said that the real Pancho Martin was neither talkative nor boastful, and had no particular adversarial relationship with Penny Chenery. That stuff we saw in the movie did not happen. But the filmmakers have taken the one faintly "ethnic" or non-American character in the movie, and made him thoroughly despicable. What was that? An accident? An aesthetic choice? Or a lazy and coded shortcut?
For me, all in all, "Secretariat" adds up to something that looks pretty but tastes pretty bad, and apparently I expressed that view with a degree of force you found "insane." Frankly, I wish you had avoided those kinds of epithets, and focused more on areas where we may have real differences of philosophical or political or aesthetic opinion and interpretation to discuss. I'm inclined to believe that you understood my argument well enough -- better than you claim to, at least -- but that it pissed you off so much you just didn't want to deal with it. But that's only a theory, and I assure you that my faith in Roger Ebert remains. Generally speaking.
Ebert: Thanks for responding. I understand your points, and have had similar thoughts of my own about some films. But you're correct: I didn't read it as satire, maybe because I've been softened up by so many similar Armond White reviews that he (apparently) writes seriously.
We can agree perhaps on one thing: Your review help us define what Rotten Tomatoes considers "positive."
It's always difficult to comment on a work one has not yet seen, so my remarks are based solely on available information and speculation on my part. Secretariat enjoys his legacy today in large part because his story was a much-needed diversion from the exacerbating events that O'Hehir balks at being overlooked here. Might it not be said that this film is likewise intended purely as an escape from the 24 hour news cycle that dominates our daily lives?
I'm reminded of how some conservatives tried to boycott "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" because they were adamant that the rise of the Empire was a thinly veiled allegory for the Bush administration. There may have been parallels, but that part of the story was written into the "Star Wars" lore back in the 70s...as the allegorical context for the Nixon administration, from whose dark shadow the original "Star Wars" film was intended to give audiences a reprieve.
I'm also reminded of a remark that Rosanne Cash has made concerning her recently published memoir, that at least one review slammed her not for the book she wrote, but for the one she *didn't* write. We may come to a work of art with our own hopes or expectations, and certainly we appraise that work in the context of our own experiences, etc., but to attack a work of art for what it doesn't address is often an indication that one is only interested in seeing their own thoughts reflected--and not those of the artist(s) who crafted the work in question.
Ebert: I don't believe the filmmakers had ulterior motives.
----------
The filmmakers don't have to have motives, ulterior or otherwise, for conformist and right-wing messages to find their way into the film. Bourgeois ideology, the ideology of the dominant class, is so ingrained in our culture that it permeates every film, most especially those films which are claimed by their makers to be "non-political".
I think O'Hehir may be going a bit over the top in his review, but I think it's very important to ask questions about how and why certain stories are told by Hollywood. Let's not forget that Hollywood is in the business of not just making movies but of selling ideas, naratives and ways of thinking to the public.
I think you have a bit of a blind spot in this area. Considering you're a critic, you are sometimes remarkably uncritical about the socio-political context in which a film is made and sent out to the audience. The fact that you gave a glowing four star review to The Hurt Locker still amazes me. That film was, in its own fashion, pro-war and pro-imperialist. The idea that you can make an artistically successful film about the psychological and moral state of US troops in Iraq without addressing the neo-colonial character of the Iraq War itself is laughable. To make and release such a film while the brutal occupation of Iraq is still ongoing is suspicious to say the least.
Also, you're far to easy on Tarantino. He's a guy who probably wouldn't overtly call himself a man of the right, but there is something very socially unhealthy, backwards, and even reactionary, in his films. The idea that we should be entertained by scenes of degradation, violence and bloody-minded revenge is dispiriting enough, but when you consider that these films are being put out there at a time when torture is official US policy and the more ravenous sections of the corporate media are selling the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as "revenge" for 9/11, you start to wonder what Tarantino's agenda is. He probably doesn't have one, and that's the real problem. He's just unconsciously reflecting moods and thoughts that are present in society without subjecting them to any analysis.
I can't work out if the comments by Joe Tailor are genuinely the product of eye-swiveling lunacy, or just brilliant satire. I changed my mind no less than four times whilst reading it.
Reply to: Ebert: I don't believe the filmmakers had ulterior motives. I think they wanted to make a good movie about a race horse.
Disney has made a lot of unprofitable films.
"Secretariat" represents one (or more) of three genres of film the studio is pursuing:
(1) family-friendly comedies with heart ("Big" "Elf"),
(2) epics that create worlds ("Pirates of the Caribbean" and the upcoming "Tron: Legacy"), and
(3) inspirational true stories ("The Blind Side," "Erin Brockovich").
Director Randall Wallace... used the gospel song "Oh Happy Day" and a verse from Job to emphasize the film's spiritual themes of rebirth and transcendence.
"It's not a sports movie. It's from the guy who created 'Braveheart.' And it's much more akin to 'Chariots of Fire,'" Wallace said. "I never did want the movie to be about a given dogma. But I wanted a sense with each character that they were looking for some experience of the sacred."
"I have an approach to historical stories which makes people really uneasy - and that is you don't let the facts get in the way of the truth," Wallace said. "A movie is not a documentary, it is an impressionistic portrayal that, in those two hours you have, you have to capture what are the deeper truths."
(2) The island full of dinosaurs in "Jurassic Park" doesn't actually exist. Neither does the moon of "Pandora," or the virtual reality of "Tron."
There are many Americans who want to spend two hours in a fantasy realm... and in parts of America, in the South, life was different than it is now. Less problems. Is there anything wrong with creating a fantasy realm in a movie?
Andrew O'Hehir seems quite indignant or even angry that "Secretariat" creates a specific world, aimed at a specific group of Americans. He claims, "Such a world never existed." Actually, it did.
I think he picked up on something you missed. "Secretariat" is the name of a movie as well as a horse. The movie is a Christian fantasy. The horse was not. Ulterior motives? Yes.
Ebert: Why is it a Christian fantasy?
Roger, I think you're being a little unfair to O'Hehir's review. There are certainly things to criticize about it (it's an awfully superficial review to be drawing such sweeping conclusions), but
1. He doesn't criticize A for not discussing B, but for dismissing it so blithely. If I'm reading him right he's more annoyed by the facile way the film tries to include "relevant" context in an unserious way. Keith Phipps of the AV Club made a similar criticism - "it feels like an afterthought" - without giving it an explicitly political reading.
2. Furthermore, O'Hehir is arguing that the choice of making this into an "underdog" story while downplaying the historical events it nonetheless name-drops is problematic in a way he sees relevant to our current political climate. There's room for disagreement there, but I don't think it's completely out of line for him to suggest it.
3. While I generally love the way you craft your take-downs, I think it's problematic that you suggest to your readers that O'Hehir is dismissing Christian filmmakers outright ("That one [Christian] is too many?") while leaving out his comments defending Christian filmmaking ("it's about time.") Yeesh... that's borderline misrepresentation there.
Thank you, Brian! This movie is weirdly retro, and the Marcia Brady view of 1973 is even stranger than the way this movie tries to hide some seriously big money. Better to stay home and rewatch Seabiscuit.
I guess the problem that some have with this film is not its ulterior motives (whatever they may be) but its corn ball sentimentality.
Manhola Dargis writes:
“it sticks to the Disney gospel that life means following your dreams”
Some of us have an almost emotionally violent reaction that kind of sugar coated fairy dust when it shows up and this is what I think Andrew ‘s response is born out of.
@Kevin Johnson: you wrote
"Damn right I say. This nation was built by the oddballs, the thinkers, the freaks and the workers. It's our nation, damn it, and I'm tired of the Tea Party people and their ilk trying to steal it from us."
On what basis do you disqualify the Tea Partiers from being oddballs, thinkers, freaks, and workers?
Since I haven't seen the film yet, one question. Is it ever mentioned in the film that Penny Chenery won the previous year's, 1972, Kentucky Derby and Belmont with Secretariat's stablemate Riva Ridge?
>Ebert: I don't believe the filmmakers had ulterior motives. I think they wanted to make a good movie about a race horse.
But this isn't an auteurist work, it's a studio product painstakingly constructed and market tested to hit "a really broad, four-quadrant audience," as a Disney rep told the LA Times. Wallace's Christianity isn't incidental to the film, it's being used to market it to faith-based groups: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i677c428c4dc16c2c2e8113ca4187ec2a
None of these things speak to the quality of the movie, but it's unfair to pretend that every step of "Secretariat"'s development wasn't carefully calculated with audience reaction in mind.
Having read Mr. O'Hehir's Secretariat review and finding it rather bizarre I am surprised to find you writing about it but applaud you for doing so. About a year ago Mr. O'Hehir wrote a column comparing Ashton Kutcher to Clark Gable and I was flabbergasted by it. Since then I've read his reviews sporadically and I don't think much of his opinions. In fact sometimes I'm not even sure where he even gets off reviewing films when in fact I don't think he knows anything about them. Ok, I know film reviewers don't have to attend film school to write a review but at least have some knowledge of cinematic history. Mr. O'Hehir's reviews leave me cold.
And I thought my theory was farfetched.
It involves Singin' in the Rain being an offensive piece of trash. The message gleaned from watching this film was that only white Christians helped invent Hollywood. Could have fooled me. Compare it to the Jazz Singer, a film that may have some stereotypes, but seems like a more honest production.
What would the film about Jazz have been?
I'm sure a lot of people here will want to point to things like "The Godfather Part II" or "Raising Arizona" as examples from Roger's "insane" review pool, but that would be to overlook the most glaring example, which is, clearly, "UHF."
But to be absolutely serious -- Roger, I know that you're probably at an age where the re-watching of a Weird Al vehicle wouldn't be prioritized as a constructive expenditure of time, but I have to recommend UHF's DVD commentary as, non-sarcastically, one of the best I've ever listened to, both informationally and for the entertainment value. (This is coming from somebody who fiercely cherishes your tracks for "Kane" and "Dark City.") Bonus: Portions of your review are read in it.
In Andy's defense, he wrotes for Salon. Most of the writers on that site have to be more controversial, more lieberal, more holier than thou, more everything, just to be heard.
I suspect Andy wrote his review to be contrarian. Look what its done for him so far; multiple pages of comments on Salon, and an article from Ebert. Cha-ching! for Andy.
"Secretariat was not a lucky roll of the dice by the blind watchmaker, but the outcome of many carefully recorded generations of selective breeding. The horse can be read as one more demonstration of the survival of the fittest"
I have to disagree with your point here. As a result of generations of selective breeding, Secretariat was a product of a sort of eugenics, most definitely, as are other race horses, all the different breeds of dogs, domestic animals in general, and even common garden vegetables. The difference between this sort of breeding and what we usually think of as eugenics is that we believe it's wrong to do that to people. I think it's reasonable to call Secretariat the outcome of eugenics, but that's okay with horses.
The rest of your post is spot-on.
Your description of O'Hehir's review reminds me of the really bad film theory and criticism I was taught in college, which seemed to be more about projecting one's insecurities and obsessions into a film, rather than reading what was actually in the text, which encourages the kind of thinking that assumes anything that even acknowledges an idea is inherently endorsing it. However, I did find this article about the "Christian" message of the movie that some are talking about, which seems to be generating a mild buzz, which is maybe where O'Hehir got his idea of what he though the movie was about.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68S2W920100929?pageNumber=1
I'm not familiar with Andrew O'Hehir's film reviews specifically, but Salon's articles are dependably insane, bitter rantings from the fringe left, so this review doesn't surprise me. As a conservative, even I was offput by this films look and subject matter. For the most part, I agree with Brian Rose's assessment, but I doubt the makers of the film set out to do this on purpose. Secratariat is the ultimate Cobra Kai sports movie heel, but the owner's story shows that even the overwhelming favorite got there because of years of hard work, risk taking, and a little luck.
Rather than using her privileged position to move forward, leveraging her wealth and social position to take a risk and achieve even greater accomplishments, perhaps Diane Lane's character should've used that to escape punishment after drowning a woman by driving off of a Massachusetts bridge?
I also have admired O'Hehir for years, but his review seethes with tribalistic loathing. It is ugly and vile. It reads like a man who is so apoplectic at Glenn Beck and Fox News that not only can he not stop thinking about it long enough to watch a movie about a nice lady with a fast horse, and is outraged at the thought that anyone else might, either.
Thanks, Roger, for perhaps helping the more outrageous idiots out there to take their conspiracy theories down a notch. The Salon review is basically liberal white guilt run amok. Nothing against liberals or whites, but that review reminds me of people who see the face of the Virgin Mary in cloud formations or mountains on Mars. Their agenda permeates everything they see and do, and it's sooo tiresome.
I may have located another of your "insane", or at least bizarrely unconventional, reviews, Mr. Ebert.
"The Howling" review (Rating - 2 stars):
Now for America's favorite newspaper team, Uncle Roger and Little Jimmy. As we join them inside the Movie Lab, we hear
(Whoo! Whoooo!)
I'm ol' Uncle Roger, and this is Little Jimmy!
Arf! Barf!)
What's in the news today, Unca' Rog???
Well, Little Jimmy, new movie in town, name of THE HOWLING.
(Whoooo! Chortle, chortle. Siren sound. Growwwwwl.)
What's it about???
Werewolves! Little Jimmy. Mean, nasty animals, story here aout a girl who went OUT ON A DATE, didn't know the guy too well, one thing led to another É the guy GROWS FANGS, Little Jimmy, starts dripping saliva all over her Gloria Vanderbilts.
(Whoooo!!)
Holy Alpo, Unca' Rog! What happened then!
Girl turns to the guy, doesn't know what to say says, "GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF ME!" Werewolf hardly listens. Doesn't SEEM TO HEAR!
Awful things can happen on a date, Unca' Rog.
Right, Little Jimmy. She said she'd been out on dates with a wolf before BUT NEVER A WEREWOLF!
What else happened?
(Pant, pant.)
Weird CALIFORNIA CULT, Little Jimmy. Up the coast from the big city. People sitting around campfires, singing songs, getting their heads back together. One wanders off into the underbrush, NEVER SEEN AGAIN!
Holy lurking terrors!
Says here this broad who was a TV ANCHORWOMAN. Investigating weird cults. Went into one of those adult movie arcades with the doors that lock from the inside you know, Little Jimmy?
Two bits in the slot?
Right, Little Jimmy. Gets in there, locks the door, lights off, guy standing there in the dark, she wants to GET THE STORY. Guy says, "Turn around."
(Snaaaarrll!!!)
What happened then???
GUY'S A WEREWOLF! Cop comes in, blasts hell out of the private viewing booth, they take the body to the morgue, next day, the BODY IS MISSING! Says here CLAW marks on the inside of the stainless steel door!
Holy Toledo Steel Works!
There's more. Broad follows the trail to the cult's summer camp on the advice of her psychiatrist, turns out WEREWOLVES are running the camp. She's not just hearing things, the underbrush DOES have noises in it.
What next?
Guy says, tells her, says, "I want to give you a piece of my mind!"
Does he?
GIVES HER a piece of his mind. Pulls it out and gives it to her. Nauseating. Research indicates if you're bitten by a werewolf, so long, baby you ARE a WEREWOLF. Legendary story they come out only at night NOT TRUE. Can come out anytime. Daytime not safe.
(Barf!)
Unca' Rog?
Yes, Little Jimmy?
What's the SCARIEST THING in this movie?
In the whole movie?
The MOST AWFUL THING in the whole movie, please, please, tell me, please?
All right you asked for it WORST thing you've ever seen MOST DISGUSTING SIGHT in the history of films you don't believe what you're seeing here it comes, Little Jimmy: Before your VERY EYES this movie CHANGES INTO A DOG!
Holy White Fang!!! Is it worth seeing?
Yes, Little Jimmy, in a sense, it is. Ridiculous yes. Comical at times yes. Silliest film seen in some time by the Animals Movies Critics' Team. BUT great special effects as men BECOME werewolves. WOMEN, too. Before your eyes. Done with says here HYDRAULICS! Sensational!
Is it worth my money?
It sure is, Little Jimmy. Says here worth your money, IF you get it two for one.
As for Mr. Andrew O'Hehir, he may have gone momentarily "Phoenix".
Ebert: Man, I enjoyed writing that review.
Roger,
Thanks for the blog post. It made me laugh. I'm just a humble movie critic in Washington DC, but I did have a delightful chat with Wallace during the PA tour about, among other things, his faith. His words:
"I’ve not wanted anybody to believe I was trying to convince them to think the way I think. I don’t’ trust the way I think. What I believe is not about what I understand, in fact it’s the complete opposite. I don’t understand love at all. I don’t understand how it’s created."
and...
"I am not looking to argue with somebody’s understanding of God. I think that’s theirs, it’s their journey to walk. Where I think I would fail as a Christian is if I am not actively trying to love them."
Sounds a lot like the beatitudes to me, actually.
(You can leave this plug out if you like, but I've posted the entire interview at my blog so no one thinks I left out the raving, Tea Party, racist bits. They just weren't there.)
P.S. Roger, you are quite right that Secretariat was not a "genetic freak." His outsized heart, the secret to his unprecedented stamina, was due to a then-unknown large heart gene passed down among Thoroughbreds through the dam. Secretariat's patrilineage suggested that he would be long on speed and short on endurance, but somehow Penny Chenery intuited from his bloodlines that he would have unexpected endurance. According to your friend Bill Nack, Secretariat had such endurance that he often continued to accelerate in the last round of the race. At the Belmont Stakes, he set such an unbelievable pace that the #2 horse, Sham, who should easily have bested all the other horses on the track, shattered himself trying to catch Secretariat, finished last, and never raced again. Sham also had the large heart gene, and his heart was the SECOND largest Thoroughbred heart on record.
I'm with you Roger. I follow race horsing avidly. I am also a Catholic and a middle-class housewife (well, with a job on the side). I know all the problems and mistakes Disney had in fictionalizing the story of the greatest racehorse of all time. But seriously? I Nazi conspiracy? The horse's name was Big Red (and is still called that today by racing fans). The other horse was Sham, who ran second in all three races and had a thug of an owner. If you wanted to open conspiracy there, mention he's a Cuban native... The groom was black and had some soul and all the owners were white. The horse unified a country (hippies and politicians alike) in the three most prestigeous races on US soil. Those are the facts. Disney can only change them so much before they can no longer call it 'Secretariat.' If you want to get a Catholic conspiracy with MANY "hidden" subtext, stick to Narnia. Leave the brain washing to Veggie Tales. And let the enjoyable "based on real life" horsie-movie speak for itself.
Roger,
Thank you! I have always admired your writing and found it valuable for inspiring thought over some important issues. But I've written in a couple of times taking you to task for acting as though lunatic ideas only come from the right wing. So, I must applaud you for this article and calling it as you see it. Sometimes a movie is just about a horse. You make your points beautifully.
Ebert writes: "This news just in: There are probably more liberals with middle-American values than conservatives, especially if your idea of middle-American values overlaps with the Beatitudes, as mine does."
I think this statement is unfair. I would venture to guess you don't personally hear from a lot of conservatives with values that overlap the Beatitudes, but we are out there, believe me. I find that there is no longer any voice for those of us who don't hold to the extremes of either the left- or right-wings.
Ebert writes: "When O'Hehir says Wallace is "one of mainstream Hollywood's few prominent Christians," what exactly does he mean by that? That one is too many?"
That is EXACTLY what he means. He doesn't want to hear any Christians talking about their faith. His attitude seems to be that Christians should leave him alone and go over there with the Tea Party and all the other wackos.
If you're wondering why many Christians seem to flock to the Republican side of the aisle, it's because of attitudes like that on the left. Many, many people on that side of the aisle preach tolerance, but have a distinct intolerance for anything that remotely smacks of evangelical Christianity, and are not welcoming to those in the faith.
Well said Roger. That was a rather stunning review at Salon. (Although stunning is perhaps a tad politically correct.)
Meh, I suppose if you hate and are afraid of goblins, you probably impose them everywhere.
Or even windmills.
I love me a take down of one of Salon's writers, and especially in a situation where the author's opinion of the film was fully formed before the box of JuJuBes was opened.
Sorry - I just had to get some science in. :-)
When a reviewer starts thinking more about his or her expected audience than about the movie itself, this is the kind of review you're going to get. It's a bit like wing nut radio – which long ago left thoughtful commentary on the issues and has headed full-steam into turning EVERY issue into the same "us against them" issue.
Clearly, his review started before he ever sat down. It started somewhere back when directer Randall Wallace was observed to be a prominent Christian. Sad that he appears to paint all Christians with such broad strokes, outspoken sensible Christians are pushed to the side just as, it seems, this culture pushes all sensible people and opinions to the side.
Perhaps this is another volley from the crazier denizens of the left. Like politician Alan Grayson, it seems some nuts on the left are taking a page from the nuts on the right. Hey, it works. I see the appeal – and we are all the worse for it.
"Christian" movie reviewers seem to exist and operate in separate circles from most popular or "serious" reviewers. They start with their Christian perspective and see the movies only through that filter. Movie reviewers who start sitting down with an "anti-Christian" point of view should stick to atheist publications and leave the clear, insightful, and thought-provoking reviews to the professionals. If subversive message are present, call them on it. If not, Mr. O'Hehir should understand that when people with a bone to pick go looking for ultra-subtle diabolical messages where no one else can see them, they almost always find them (see Fox News).
A horse is a horse, of course, of course.
And no one can Über a horse of course,
Unless of course that horse is the famous ...
Summing up: Andrew O'Hehir is a boring, terminable grouch of a man and Roger Ebert is a cheery, trustworthy man. I read O'Hehir's defense which was better written than his review. Let's consider, director Randall Wallace and the people at Disney made a movie about a prize-winning horse; they had no intent for hidden messages or propaganda. It's people like O'Hehir that have lost being real. Salon is a dustbowl for all I'm concerned.
So glad to hear from Andrew O'Hehir - and his review makes sense now or rather it does not seem as bizarre. I immediately saw it from your view. Mantra: Must think for myself. This debate has put a rocket pack on my back and is sending me flying to the theater to see the film... Aw... showbiz...
Well I don't know -- I mean, Secretariat had a red coat and was called Big Red, so that must make him a Communist at the very least, right?
I have it on good authority that as a foal, Secretariat had posters of Mr. Ed on the walls of his stall and that his favorite song was Mr. Ed's Satanic theme song played backwards.
Please! To suggest that this movie is anything other than it appears on the surface is preposterous. I have pity for the person who can not watch it and take only away simple, pure enjoyment.
I think some people are forgetting to differentiate between a story *written* to place a semi-competent privileged white woman, her genetically blessed/breeded horse, her black groom, etc into a story, and a story *told* about such things. While Disney may have poured some saccharine on it, the story is true.
The 'Christian' (by which I think many mean 'mainstream') ideals can be read into things, the swelling orchestral music can be added, but I fail to see anyone historically comparing the movie and finding inconsistencies. That, if anything, would be cause for conspiracy theory. Presenting a clean, Watergate-free picture of the facts does not warrant such hullabaloo.
Meanwhile, as much as some of your reviews make my brain short-circuit, I think your Blue Velvet and A Clockwork Orange reviews remain spot-on.
I wonder if this is just an attempt to make an honest, straightforward movie as a rebuke to our unreservedly cynical times? I've noticed that a lot of the vocal people who skew to the right tend to paint a picture of the modern world as 'elitist', 'too complex', and 'less friendly', which if you live in a city (and the vast majority of the country does), will ring true to most. The problem is that these things have become the rallying cry of not only the people who long for simpler times, but for the mentalists for who 'simpler times' translates to sometime before emancipation. Liberal eyes are tuned these days to looking for these keywords, hence when something comes along that doesn't have an agenda, but happens to sing the same tune, Lefties go off on it like Righties do when they perceive 'good journalism' as a Liberal plot.
I wonder: If POLYANNA or OLD YELLER had come out today, would it get a similar reaction?
I'm less concerned about Salon's review and more about yours (this film and others). In recent years you seem to be less and less discerning in your criticism and have been giving horrible to mediocre films four stars. How you can look past the formulaic, whitewashed, by the numbers construction of "Secretariat" is rather stunning. And how you can't find the portrayal of "Magical Negro" stereotype ridiculously distasteful is beyond me. It's a film that was constructed to pander to a particular target audience, by the admission of its makers, and it is a glossy, unrealistic purveyor of a US that never existed outside of a certain group of people's wanting imaginations. This movie is "The Blind Side" reworked with a horse instead of another "Magical Negro" stereotype. Its calculated schmaltz that ignores the reality of the situations they purport to be truthful about and instead replace it with feel-good nonsense. This week you dismiss another (equally bad I might add) romcom for being so predictable and saccharin, yet you forgive it in a movie that was even more calculating in achieving the same goal? I'm losing faith in your discerning eye, Roger. These days it seems that the only good film criticism is Slant Magazine.
It is an odd demonstration at how the suspicion of Christianity has reached such levels that reviews like this don't seem out of place. This kind of hyperbole is often mistaken for serious (as mayhaps occurred in this case) precisely because it forms so much of the lingua franca of American politics.
Now, let's skip over whose fault it is that we got here. How do we get back? Roger's helping, and heres' a few elements I identify:
How about finding something that unites us and not feeling we are betraying whom we really are by agreeing to enter into the public space of debate without ascribing hidden motives?
How about actually conceding that both Christians and "the left" probably want to make the world a better place and seeking for areas of agreement, rather than continually regarding areas of disagreement as the "thin edge of the wedge" to either Armageddon or a Theocracy?
How about plunking yourself right down in "middle-American values" and not letting someone else tell you that you don't belong there?
How about neither allowing nor alleging that the Tea Party form the centre of gravity of the nation or the Republican Party?
How about just watching the dang movie and rooting for that plucky broad and the horse?
In other words, how about not making ideological purity the only thing that matters every freaking minute?
You know what's important in my life?
I love my wife.
I'd like to have a few good friends whose company I enjoy and on whom I can rely when the chips are down.
I want a job that's satisfying and pays decently.
I'd like to be respected by my co-workers.
I'd like to be able to watch the ball game on my day off.
I'd like to know if I get sick, I'll get care that won't bankrupt me.
I'd like to think my nation isn't doing evil stuff abroad.
I'd like to be able to worship God as I choose.
etc
etc
Stop me when you get to the part you disagree with.
This is where most of us LIVE.
Ideology is a way of seeing the patterns in the world, great. But when it starts causing to actually miss what's going on out there....
Here's my memo to the combatants in the culture wars: you bore the horsecrap out of me.
I'm just curious... What makes this movie different from other "amazing racehorse" movies like Seabiscuit?
Thank you, Mr. Ebert for your fine review and fine rebuttal of the arrogant and insufferable Andrew O'Hehir.
I haven't seen this film, but I remember seeing the real Secretariat in all 3 Triple Crown races, and it was an amazing thing to view live -- the finest animal athlete of his sport, of all ages. I look forward to seeing the recreation.
Mr. O'Hehir deserved to have his snotty, self-serving, "college freshman who has just discovered Marxist theory" crap handed back to him on a silver platter. (Though secretly, he's rolling about in glee that you simply even ACKNOWLEDGED him!)
Sadly, Salon used to have a fine movie reviewer -- Stephanie Zacharek -- who left for greener pastures. This is the sad, sorry, sack of sh*t they had left. He is an embarassment; as a Salon reader, I personally apologize for what an ass he has made of himself here, especially in posting in such a self-aggrandizing way on your comments page.
I tend to fall more on Roger's side than Andy's on this debate. But one issue that I'm in Andy's corner on is the portrayal of Pancho Martin. (Not that this is opposed to anything Roger said as he did not address it.)
I realize that Hollywood takes the truth as a starting point and works from there. But one thing I truly dislike is when Hollywood takes a real-life person and portrays that person in an unflattering light.
I got the feeling that Disney needed a bad guy or a foil and decided Pancho, and Ogden Phipps for that matter, would fit the bill. These two Disney characters are not anything like the real-life people. (Oddly enough Andy doesn't mention what Disney did to Ogden in making him a bad guy/plotter/stick in the mud, as it does not fit his argument because Ogden is a rich, white, man.)
In discussing this small point I don't want it to be lost that overall, I enjoyed Secretariat. I saw flaws (this one and I would have liked some more about the horse and his greatness. The film seemed to want Secretariat to be an underdog instead of celebrating his greatness), but overall I liked it. I'd have given it three stars and the Penny story I'd give four stars.
I enjoyed Roger's review and Andy's explanation of his review cleared some things up.
The main problem with O'Hehir's review is that he doesn't offer any actual evidence that the film is a veiled "Christian-friendly yarn". Surely this must exist if O'Hehir is correct.
But I will also hazard to observe that Roger may not be best critic to catch overt Christian-friendly (or unfriendly) themes in films. Exhibit B is Roger's positive review of The Straight Story. Consistent with the rest of Lynch's work, The Straight Story is not so straight a story. This film is apparently the Odyssey of an old man on the way to visit his brother, but is actually a metaphor for death, Christian redemption, and the journey to heaven. Roger completely misses the central point of this film in his review.
Why do I say this about the The Straight Story? Here is my evidence, which anyone making such claims must provide: the old man Alvin "dies" at the film's beginning, but appears to come back to life. In fact, Alvin is dead, and only "awakens" to the deathly journey he must now take to "Mt Zion, Wisconsin". Of course, Zion in Christianity represents the kingdom of heaven. I'll spare mentioning all the other minor-but-obvious Christian and Biblical references that Lynch includes, and just point out that immediately after Alvin passes through the "Valley of Death" (the Mississippi River valley, upon which he enters Wisconsin—the land of "Zion") Alvin really camps with the dead in an actual cemetery and converses with a priest. Lynch's key motivating revelation in this conversation with the caretaker of the dead is to tell us the intent of The Straight Story, Alvin says:
You can watch this key scene yourself on youtube here. Previously, Lynch had shown us Cain and Abel directly in the person of two comically argumentative brothers that fix Alvin's tractor.Does Roger catch or mention any of these obvious Christian references in his review of The Straight Story? No. All Roger says is, "In the town are twin brothers who squabble all the time, even while charging him by the hour to repair the mower."
My conclusion, based on the review of this and other films, is that even if O'Hehir is correct about pro-Christian themes in Secretariat, I wouldn't necessarily expect that Roger would catch them on first viewing.
Also, because we're taking about "wildly eccentric" readings, I think that John Baez's "crackpot index" is a worthwhile reference, the salient point being that everyone gets a -5 point "starting credit". If O'Hehir has used up his -5 points here, that's okay, but perhaps he or others will be able to point to some actual evidence about the film for believing what they do.
Finally, I'll implore Roger again, for his own sake but also for sake of the many people whose taste Roger influences, to at long last embrace David Lynch's work in Roger's pantheon of "Great Films."
Will Rogers once said, " a difference of opinion is what drives horseracing and missionaries." Add movie criticism.
I started off confused by Rotten Tomatoes positive rating for Mr. O'Hehir's review. So I consulted Metacritic. Their three critic summary:
Ebert(100), O'Herir(60), Joe Morgenstern(30)
Berardinelli gave SECRETARIAT a mild thumbs down, yet Metacritic also scored him a 60. And finally, Morgenstern, another Pulitzer Prize winning film critic, actually stooped so low in his review as to blasphemously accuse Diane Lane's character of "horse wheedling!"
Go figure.
Mr. O'Hehir is backpeddling now, eh? It was 'satire' and supposed to be 'funny'?
Well, he didn't say that yesterday when we were pummeling him over it on Salon.com. NOW, when it's Roger calling him out, it was all good fun?
Yesterday, I thought the review was merely drug-addled classist rascist mysogyny (a hatred of rich white women). Now, I don't know what to think, except that I'll never take anything he has to say seriously.
Roger,
Thank you. I'm a Christian through and through, and equally disturbed by the "Christianity" on the political right. Almost every time I read you talking about things on the right, I'm in the choir shouting amen and praying for things to change and peoples' eyes and *hearts* to open with love for each other and away from fear & suspicion of each other.
This time the suspicion flowed the other direction, and I'm thankful that you wrote everything you have above about this... about the movie and all the issues brought up about it.
I'm always blessed to hear your heart come out in your words and witness your love for people and desire to hear and know them. I think this is something parallel to what you've done sitting beneath countless movies, observing and allowing them to speak as much as possible before juding them. What I see is that you treat *people* the same way. And I think that just rocks.
You've got a brain and you use it, and even though it disagrees with a few things my brain accepts here or there, it's your heart that comes out which makes me thankful for you and your writing. Thank you, Roger. Roll on, keep writing & sharing your heart (and your brain). =)
May God bless you even more!
Ramone Romero
Osaka, Japan
Thanks for this! I had the same thoughts when I read his review! I am liberal and a Salon reader but this just seemed so strange to me! As if the Tea Partiers don't give us enough fuel for the fire, we have to go bananas making strange connections? What's next? Not drinking actual tea anymore? Seeing propoganda in the snow flakes because they are white?
"I myself have written insane reviews."
For those looking for an example of such, look no further than "Speed 2", which, inexplicably, received a positive review. I'll never forget the evening when my friend and I, wandering aimlessly through the VHS rental store (remember those days?), finally picked up the box for this 'film', saw the 'thumbs up!' blurb from Roger, and uttered these immortal words: "How bad can it be?" We were soon to find out...
Anyway, great post Roger, and thanks for the greater body of your work-with certain and rare exceptions.
I've always said that, once a work of art is released into the wild, the sincere viewer/reader/whatever is allowed to have any honest reaction they do.
I, um, may have to reconsider that notion based on this Salon review. "It was the horse's damned name" indeed!
Also--speaking as a (Canadian) liberal who was raised by (Canadian) liberals, I completely agree that a lot of perfectly ordinary family values are completely compatible with liberality. Good for you for taking them back. I'm reminded of Bill Moyers' comments about wearing his US flag lapel pin.
I dunno, Roger - I don't think you're giving O'Hehir a fair shake. Starting with your title, "Secretariat was not a Christian." It's not about the horse. As O'Hehir says explicitly in his review, horses don't go to movies. He makes clear that this is about the people around the horse.
The problem with the societal context is not that the film doesn't mention the crises of the 1970s. It's that the film explicitly diminishes and trivializes those crises by the way it does mention them. This is not something that occurred to me, but I see what he means.
The problem is less with the facts, but with the framing of the facts. Sure, Chenery was plucky and canny. But that's not justification for painting her, as O'Hehir describes, as "a female Job." Yes, Sham was the other horse's actual name. How much more damning, then, that the movie is able to take this neutral external fact and make it sound evil.
As for your defense of the character of Eddie, to borrow your own rhetoric, Roger, Roger, Roger, are you kidding? That line of reasoning could be used to justify even more cringe-worthy pictures of happy darkies on the plantation. Surely, somewhere in the antebellum South there was an actual happy slave, somewhere, somehow. That wouldn't justify such a character, unmediated, in a present-day movie, because stereotypes do real harm, and more importantly because framing and context count. This movie is making a statement about blacks whether it intends to or not.
But considering your throw-away line at the end of the paragraph about employee relations at the Chicago Tribune, maybe you are kidding. Sometimes with you it's hard to tell.
Regarding the salon reviewer: When your head is a hammer, everything else looks like a nail.
Thanks for taking that reviewer to task. Similar vitriol was spewed over The Blind Side. Any feel good story these days seems tainted by the fact that we live in a country that injected syphilis into the spines of Guatemalan mental patients. Yes, there is evil afoot in the world. No, admiring a flower, or a pleasant story, does not mean you're passively accepting that evil, or ignoring it.
However, you've used some of Andrew's attacks yourself- such as when you excoriated "Gods and Generals" for being about a battle, and not about the plight of slaves. It was a film about the Civil War- of course it was about slavery. That one's stuck in my craw for a dozen years. I wouldn't call your review of "Life as We Know It" insane, but it does seem odd that you attack its predictable story. It's a rom-com; much like a coming of age tale, or a mythic action hero, its destiny is foretold. It is a fairy tale. Because so many of us live in an extended adolescence, we require these children's tales for succor sometimes. You might as rail against comfort food for being bland.
I thought Andrew's review was interesting and funny. I also enjoyed Roger's blog comments in response. Now I guess I need to see the movie.
Roger,
Thank you for stating my exact reaction to Andrew O'Hehir's truly bizarre review where the reader has no other conclusion but to believe the writer has completely gone off the deep end.
I always have a problem when any film critic is purposely trying to look for things to criticize about a film that are clearly not there. However O'Hehir's review is so intellectually incoherent, so over the top that you had every right to question it.
Where Mr. O'Hehir somehow makes the connection between the greatest race horse that ever lived and the Tea Party, Nazism and the KKK shows that O'Hehir allowed his ideology to distract what his real job is; to judge the film on its merits. I never been much a fan of Mr. O'Hehir's film criticism which I I've found to be smarmy and uninspired. He is that type of snotty critic who likes "films", but hates "movies", the type that refuses to believe once in a blue moon with pink dots, Hollywood can produce a great work of art.
With his silly review of "Secretariat", Mr. O'Hehir simply has made a fool of himself.
I saw the film on Tuesday night and found it to be exactly what it is advertised as: a feel-good movie. That's because Secretariat, like Seabiscuit and Zenyatta, was a feel-good horse. His blaze of glory did take other news off the front page. While I wasn't as horse savvy then as I've become since, I remember it well enough that even young adults like I was, who hated Nixon and the war, gathered around the TV to watch one of the greatest blow-outs in racing history.
The movie changes some facts and the time-line. The writer who suggests that Penny Chenery wasn't equipt to run the stable missed out on the scenes where it is clear she took an interest in the farm from a very early age. She was a woman of privilege, yes. Horse racing at that level is a sport of the wealthy (How to make a small fortune in the horse business: start with a large fortune. A horse owner joke.) But she attended Smith and Columbia University business school. She was no dummy, but the movie shows her as a smart woman of the time.
The actual coin toss was earlier than the film depicts, and it was her father that did it. Penny, however, was the one who made the decision to breed Secretariat's dam to Bold Ruler.
Secretariat's heart was more than twice as large as a normal horse's heart. That probably did account for at least some of his extraordinary ability. That wasn't known until after his death.
Secretariat was what horse people call a "nick," a once-in-a-lifetime horse far better than what even his excellent breeding could predict.
One other thing, Sham is the name given to the Arabian in "The King of the Wind," the horse better known as The Godolphin Arabian, one of the three famous founding sires of the Thoroughbreds to which all Thoroughbreds can be traced.
Mr. O'Hehir probably doesn't know much about horses or the people who love them. His life is the poorer for it.
This was a very disingenuous take-down by you, Mr. Ebert. Very disingenuous. It reads like you loved the movie whole-heartedly, and when someone else said bad things about it, you went nuts.
It's so extremely disingenuous of you to state you don't believe this DISNEY movie had ulterior motives that I wonder you had the shamelessness to post this at all. This is heightened even more when you defend what is one more "happy black servant" racial stereotype and one more "evil foreigner/not-white-person" stereotype--
--really, what is going on, here? Are you honestly trying to castigate another reviewer for reading into a movie further than you were willing to, yourself?
The mind boggles.
I must say that if a point of a movie review is to help a consumer to decide whether or not to watch movie than O'Hehir's review is a poor piece of criticism that is overly distracted by poltiical subtext. To be fair though it was entertaining and it got my attention which was clearly the point.
I don't plan to see the movie but the deriding of those want to is entirely uneccessary. Also, since when were French Canadians an ethnic majority in the US?
What a retarded movie review. This movie was about a horse, not focused on christian beliefs or propaganda. I never knew that Roger Ebert was such a bigot. Just tell us the synopsis of the movie, not your own criticism of Christianity, or totally fictional portrayals of Nazism. Totally absurd. That is the last time that I consider his "expert" opinion worth anything besides a dung pile.
Ebert: (*cough*) Ah, Derek...I didn't write the review you disliked. I was the one attacking it. But I would be fascinated to learn more from you on the "totally fictional portrayals of Nazism."
The first four paragraphs of Andrew O'Hehir's response appear to be little more than a frank admission of internet 'trolling'. That seems to me to be a rather weak line of defense.
'I wrote my piece offensively on purpose in order to enrage people enough to comment on it... so there!'
Thank you for this insightful rhetorical analysis!
I (hopefully) see something on the horizon here: a recurring blog entry under "The Meta-Critic" or, "The Critics' Critic) or, "Take 2" or ...
O'Hehir may have taken it too far, but my impression of the commercials is that it is being marketed as "a quasi-inspirational fantasia of American whiteness and power". Or at least of wealth and consumerism.
There was a line in your review that seemed almost like a defense of this, too. " If a man neglected his family for a race horse, that might be common. But a woman is committing some sin against nature." I read this and thought of George Carlin's routine on feminism, where he asked if the best feminism had to offer was "...Putting on a man-tailored suit with shoulder pads and imitating all the worst behavior of men?"
But I haven't seen the film, only the marketing materials. Most likely these elements are present merely because they are present in the society we live in. O'Hehir seems to be giving in to the foolish notion that a movie condones an idea simply because it contains it.
Horses Don't Bet On People
That's why Horses never go broke.
-- Kay Kyser's Kollege of Musical Knowledge.
Where to start with this one (especially since we haven't heard from Randy Masters or Bill Hays yet)?
-- Since my interest in horse racing is nil, I wasn't planning on seeing Secretariat.
With this statement I hope to establish my objectivity.
-- A wise man once said:
"If you look for something hard enough, you'll find it - whether it's there or not."
So it is with "political messages" in movies.
Breitbart's rightwing site devotes much of its space to making such discoveries, as do many other places on the starboard side.
The leftwing is scarcely left out, since many of the better-known critics are lined up on the port side.
This isn't limited to politics, either.
Since the sexual bars went down, many of the decency freaks have been looking for salacious content in some pretty innocent movies - and they've been finding it (remember the uproar over "hidden images" in Disney animation?)
Any portrayal of formal religion in movies is going to get scrutinized according to the faith (or lack thereof) of the scrutinizer. All of this, of course, subject to the biases of said scrutinizer.
What everybody sems to forget here is that there are many different versions of Christianity, and many of those different faiths are at daggers drawn - in some cases for centuries.
Remember the Cheers episode in which Woody the bartender is about to mary his dream girl, only to discover that although she's a Lutheran, she's Missouri Synod ("It's like I don't know you!").
Just a silly sitcom?
In Nevada, Sharron Angle's pastor is using Harry Reid's Mormonism as a club against him, calling the LDS Church a cult. How that's going to go over with the many Mormons who make up the work force at Nevada's casinos remains to be seen.
Anyone who grew up as a member of a denomination was usually told that "our church is the True Church - the others are pretenders", and many carried this attitude into adulthood. If someone were to mention that business about "In My Father's house there are many mansions", it would likely throw them off.
Even within denominations, you find splits (Schisms, to use the tech term). We've all heard of William Donohue's 'Catholic League', which is less about defending the faith and more about purging anybody left of Donohue fom the Church.
I've written elsewhere about Nothing Sacred, a superb TV series from 1997, which Donohue's gang drove from the air with a campaign of flat-out lies about its content.Even when many priests and nuns (including our own Fr. Greeley) rose to its defense, Donohue's false witness won out and Nothing Sacred was dropped.
Many of you can come up with examples of your own - in all fields.
-- I notice that many rightie commenters are falling all over themselves praising Diane Lane and her performance.
I wonder how many of them know the identity of Ms. Lane's real-life mother-in-law.
(Don't forget, these are many of the same people who turned on Andy Griffith when he made a PSA in favor of the new health-care laws.)
-- I don't know if "Joe Tailor" is for real, but one of his mistakes is something that I've been snagging on for a long time.
If you're riding a horse, and you want the horse to go faster, what you do is loosen your hold on the horse's reins - you give the horse free rein.
If you want the horse to slow down, you grip the reins tighter - you rein the horse in.
Get it, guys? Rein, not reign.
Don't make me have to do this again.
-- Roger's Crazy Reviews:
That'll have to wait till next time.
Meaning Monday, by which I'll have had a chance to look a few up.
Closing now with the immortal words of Banacek:
"If your socks aren't in your shoes,
Don't go looking for them in Heaven."
About the opposing horse's name (Sham): When I read Andrew's review, I laughed aloud at his comment on this, because - like so much else in the review - it revealed his utter ignorance about horse racing and its history. I was a horse aficionada when I was a youngling, like many pre-teen girls in the 60's and 70's, and I followed Big Red's awesome winning streak with fervor. I also knew that Sham, the horse that raced against Secretariat, was named after the Godolphin Arabian, an exceedingly famous 18th-century racehorse who beat the best thoroughbreds in England. That Andrew thought his name was "sinister" is just ludicrous. Really, I'm amazed how often movie critics will get basic facts wrong in their rush to trumpet their own opinions, because the failure to research just ends up making them look silly. (To your credit, Roger, I find you make such mistakes quite a bit less than others in your field, which is one of the reasons I enjoy your work most.)
Ebert: OMG. Sham was Arabian? So the movie used Sham as a thinly-veiled attack on the Middle East?
The Triumph of Feminism v. The Insidious Hidden Message from the Christian Right. What conclusion must the good Communist draw from this dialectic?
When both you and Peter Travers enjoy a film, I'm pretty much guaranteed to like it too... at least I can't remember the last time I was steered wrong. I'll read other reviews to gain different perspectives, but when deciding which movies I'm going to see, those are the two I'll pay most attention to. So I for one will be checking this one out.
And I agree that Mr. O'Hehir's review was bizarre. But not as bizarre as when I was forced to write an analysis of the Freudian imagery and anti-feminist themes of the movie "Aliens" in a class back when I was in college. I've always admired Cameron's ability to write strong female characters and give them vital roles in the plot, and it just seemed so bizarre to me that someone could regard the film as being essentially misogynistic.
I think it deserves to be pointed out that Liberals also from time to time veer towards the idealization of a racially homogenous society too.
I had a very liberal professor who talked to the class one day about how he loved how much less tense Europe was in general and Sweden in specific. I don't think he was really wishing for a society free of racial minorities but even so when someone talks the way he did about how relatively violence free, ordered and generally peaceful and civilized racially unified societies are it makes me squirm a little.
I'm reminded of an online review I read of Disney's "The Princess and the Frog" which knocked it for not dealing with racism in New Orleans in the 30's.
Similarly, I think maybe O'Hehir is reading waaaay too much into this movie or maybe he was expecting something different out of it. I dunno.
Word of advice to Mr. O'Hehir, sometimes a horse is just a horse.
Wow! Ebert can't defend a film without insulting Sarah Palin and the Tea Party. Telling.
I think that Ebert is just angry that O'Hehir stole his thunder.
Hi Roger.
Love this thread.
But, I don't understand your surprise. The left is fully engaged daily in Palin / Tea Party Derangement Syndrome. This reviewer just finds a venue to roll the daily distortion into a different media. A leftist venue (Salon) that rewards and encourages the distorted view.
The left's distortion of Palin / Tea Party has reached the stage of setting up strawman versions of the strawmen previously created a month ago. And on and on and on, like a looking into mirrors looking into mirrors. You've lost sight of the nature of the original object.
O'Hehir should not advance the TeePee agenda
He's not advancing the Tea Party agenda. He does not have the first clue in the world what the Tea Party agenda is. As most criticizing them don't.
Roger. Take your surprise at this review as an opportunity to step back and see how distorted the portrayal of Palin and the good-hearted people in the Tea Party has become. This reviewer did you that favor - to make you stop and go whoa that's over-the-top. It's been over-the-top from day one.
One thought: my neighbor walked by me this week during his brisk daily walk. Wearing a Tea Party shirt. I stopped him and talked with him for a while. Kind man. Not a racist bone in his body as far as I know. Just wants the spending and debt and size of government back in control. Yet the left would look at him at a rally photo with that shirt on and only see kook and racist and Nazi.
To liberals in general on this Tea Party issue, I would quote Zack Galafanakis in his new movie:
"You better check yourself before you wreck yourself". I mean that in the most kind-hearted way. Really. Gut-check yourself.
Roger, thanks for both your review and your assessment of the Salon review. I was fascinated to learn you and Nack were friends. For many years I have touted Nack's Sports Illustrated story, "Pure Heart," as my all-time favorite feature sports story. I hope you have read it, as Nack wrote it soon after Big Red's death. Like watching the replay of the race, it always brings tears to my eyes.
You nailed, as you so often do, the essence of the story of Secretariat. It is indeed about greatness, and the inspirational effect it can have for everyone. For me, only the jelling and cohesion of the 1980 Olympic Men's Hockey team surpasses it in the greatest moments in sports during my spectator lifetime.
Thank you also for your evisceration of the Salon review. O'Hehir is so tangled up in his ideology that he can't bring himself to admire or praise a true story about inspiring people and a great horse. Not every thing that happened in America in the late 60s and early 70s was about Vietnam or racism.
Phil Ullom
Perhaps your review of Alex Cox's 1987 film "Walker" was a bit insane? Having never heard of it, I just watched the Criterion DVD of the film for my library job (it's a great job) and was very surprised to find a zero star review. It's not a great or entirely successful film, but I found it pretty interesting. At the very least, with some post-Contra hindsight, music by Joe Strummer, and Peter Boyle's performance as Cornelius Vanderbilt it certainly wasn't "North" or "Chaos"-level bad.
Ebert: As I suspected, readers have found no shortage of my reviews they consider insane.
Roger,
I'm a staunch (do we use "staunch" to describe liberals? Hmmm...just wondering) conservative, and as such have disagreed wildly with you over the past few years, especially.
But I have always considered you an inspiration on so many other fronts, including film criticism. I'm keen to attack your positions but not you as a person. I'm always thrilled to give liberals credit when deserved, or at least point out the areas of agreement and offer clarity to the points of disagreement without going on personal attack. What a relief to see that you're still an independent thinker and are still capable of recognizing the illogical when you see it, no matter which side it originates. I was starting to wonder about you! :)
I never take Salon seriously. Just a collection of pseudo-intellectual wannabes looking for attention who rarely have an intelligent thing to say. The guy wrote a stupid review, but he did manage to get noticed. At Salon they take any publicity that they can get.
How come a movie can't be just a movie? A biopic about a triple crown winning horse, and we get a movie critic talking about Christian values and racism?
Just wondering, did Seabiscuit have to put up with this horseshit when his movie came out?
If there is a God in heaven don't let Andrew OHehir ever get within a zip code
of seeing the Australian masterpiece, "Phar Lap"--a legendary thoroughbred which holds the same iconic status as Secretariat.
There are references to uppity Jews, a clear depiction of a "caste" system in Australia where women who are married to uppity Jews can STILL be considered "fine looking" despite being one's wife.
Animal cruelty. Sweet fancy Moses. If PETA revisits "Phar Lap" they'll hunt down anyone who was associated with the horse with the same tireless vengeance with which Mengele was pursued.
And Mexicans! "Phar Lap" will certainly get them marching in the streets since it is unambiguously alleged that it was at the Acqua Caliente race track that Australia's "uberhorse" was assassinated.
I haven't had a taco since.
I can't remember who said it, but it has been suggested that there are two
mistakes people can make: failing to see evil anywhere and seeing it everywhere.
OHehir's review of "Secretariat" suggests in some dark chamber of his being there abide the ghosts of paranoia and he feels "alone and afraid in a world he never made."
I hate to sound like a broken record, but your review of Husbands was your most insane review. Mostly because your criticisms seem to highlight what makes the film so great.
You say, "The best critics, like Kael, weren't won over by Husbands." You mean the critic who writes beautifully yet has such extraordinary apathy towards the art of film that she won't even watch a film a second time didn't like Husbands? The one who says that art must be entertaining or it is nothing? I'm in!
You say, "Nothing in this film, in fact, seems organic to it." What's bizarre is that nothing in Faces did either, but you loved that one. Cassavetes never strove for an organic aesthetic. If something feels natural in a script, it is false. If it feels like it should be there, it's a lie about life, because not much in life should *belong*. Cassavetes didn't aim for aesthetics at all. Faces proved it, as does Husbands. You liked Faces, hated Husbands. How can we explain such a motiveless turnaround? Insanity! Hence the insane review, the one where you went loopy.
You say, "What we see are not performances, but the human beings themselves, photographed while trying not very successfully to improvise." I was able to penetrate the fog of your barmy ramblings to get what you were trying to say but I'd counter by saying any performance where you see a human being is a great performance. And classic Cassavetes. I think he was more interested in those "human beings themselves" to worry about the silly Hollywood trappings of witty banter, flowing dialogue. It's why he was such a great actor in his own right.
You say, "And there is always the presence of Cassavetes, who, whatever else his sins, doesn't protect himself from the consequences of his inspirations." What does this even mean? This is the blathering of a lunatic.
I rest my case.
Of course O'Hehir's review of Secretariat is nutty in a different way, but I have the feeling it's supposed to be.
Okay Roger, turn your ignorance of science to full blast. O'Hehir's painting of Secretariat as a product of eugenics is much closer to the truth than your stating that he "can be read as one more demonstration of the survival of the fittest." Natural Selection (aka. Survival of the Fittest) is just that...natural. Horse breeding is anything but natural. It is so unnatural that genetic deficiencies are rife in racing horse blood lines.
Natural selection occurs over time and without a specific breed goal. Genes mutate and if they provide an advantage or are neutral in impact in a particular environment they tend to survive. There is no breeding to select genes.
I used to work on campus at the University of Missouri-Columbia, doing administrative work in the English department. I got into a quasi-argument one day with a professor who refused to watch Gone With the Wind because it portrayed black people as slaves. That was his sole reason, and I honestly could not form a coherent response, and the conversation ended awkwardly. It was a movie about the Civil War, for chrissakes. How could it NOT have portrayed black people as slaves?
Then there was the time another professor told me she disliked Dances With Wolves because it "preached a philosophy of doom" in regards to the Native Americans. Another stumper...the Native Americans, historically speaking, were doomed the second the first white guy jumped off his boat and swam ashore. That's what we know from HISTORY. That's how it played out, unfortunately. I don't understand critiquing a FICTIONAL MOVIE by attacking the historical underpinnings of the story when you just don't happen to like how it really played out.
I have to agree with Tim Milligan in drawing the distinction between selective breeding and natural selection. Survival of the fittest for a horse doesn’t mean being as fast as a car, it just means being faster than a wolf. Being faster than that is a disadvantage, because the trade-off is being more likely to break a leg if it trips. Faster horses aren’t objectively any more of an improvement than fatter pigs. It’s an important distinction because eugenicists used to use the success of selective breeding programs to bolster arguments in favor of their crazy theories.
I would argue that Roger could stand to revisit his BLUE VELVET review, but his FIGHT CLUB review nailed that movie.
One thing that all of you must realize is that the "horsey set" live in a different world. A world where politics (Vietnam, Watergate, Democrat, Republican, etc.) is meaningless, a world in which religion (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc.) does not matter. The only race that matters to them is the horse race and the only class that matters is the class in which your horse runs. All that is important is the horses (and racing them).
Bigger, better, faster!
As for genetically superior, has anyone tested Johnny Unitas or Michael Jordan or Wayne Gretzky or Tiger Woods to see what made each of them "the best that ever was" in their particular sports.
Having just read the Salon review itself, I'm a bit amused at the hypocritical way Roger has taken this review out of context. While I'll agree that O'Hehir did go overboard, the general thrust of his argument is not one I'd hold against him and he's open about enjoying the movie's surface pleasures and filmmaking. Its the subtext and throughout the review he does provide more context for his arguments than the "sound bites" Roger wrote.
For example, O'Hehir wrote "In the world of this movie, strong-willed and independent-minded women like Chenery are ladies first (she's like a classed-up version of Sarah Palin feminism), left-wing activism is an endearing cute phase your kids go through (until they learn the hard truth about inheritance taxes), and all right-thinking Americans are united in their adoration of a Nietzschean Überhorse, a hero so superhuman he isn't human at all." Now, the Nietzchean Uberhorse is definitely going too far, but the criticism otherwise is pretty valid, especially the left-wing activism bit. If the movie just wanted to be about a woman and her horse, fair enough but to start bringing in a b-plots involving that era's protest only to allow them to half-bake is lazy and kind of dismissive. Again, Roger's taken things out of context to enhance his stance, and I can't help thinking he's just punishing O'Herir for going WAY too far on a movie (then again, the directors of Deuce Bigalow, Resident Evil and Kick Ass all probably would say the same about Ebert's reviews to varying degrees of success).
Here's another more complete quote: "Disney also is known for its countless and unforgettable villains, and every Disney movie has to have its Cruella Deville... In this case, the stereotypical villain was Sham’s trainer Pancho Martin, who came across as some street thug and obnoxious braggart ... Even poor Sham, who suffered enough by coming along the same year as Secretariat, was portrayed as the equine villain."
I'll agree off the bat that the "villain" probably was made into a thug and a stereotype; its a Disney joint and O'Herir also links to a review by a horse racing aficionado who rips into that and all the film's other historical inaccuracy better than O'Herir did. Here's the link: http://tinyurl.com/2fvn9mb
He too enjoyed the racing aspects of the movie, but was worried about the revisionism of the film's historical facts, and its a really interesting read for someone like me who has no affinity for the sport.
If O'Herir's main argument was that 'Despite those thrilling sequences, you don't learn much more about the world of racing in "Secretariat" than you learn about Facebook in "The Social Network"' that's a valid criticism, and I don't think all the points he brought up should be dismissed just because he went overboard on the Christian bashing. I know it offends Roger and does little good getting stock with middle America, but he's right that Hollywood often makes empty, pretty movies filled with great performances. Especially if they can have animals in them, and it makes people feel good without thinking too much about it when the lights come up.
What could possibly be the point for the filmmakers to supposedly fill a movie with these political and religious overtones if one and only one viewer (a critic) got them?
Ebert: Reviews gone mad
I have long contended CALIGULA drove you over the edge.
I love reading your insane movie reviews, Roger. One of my personal favorites is your review of Gladiator on the Friday it was released back in 2000. You made a glaringly bad mistake that was later omitted, stating that THE ROCK was one of Russell Crowe's fellow gladiators. This error was later removed from the review a couple of days after it was published, but that, along with your overall negative review of the film, leaves me convinced, CONVINCED, that you took a nap at some point during Gladiator.
If a person holds Middle American Views, they are liberal (the true meaning of the word), they're not "Liberal" the lefts bastardization of the words usage. True liberals can and do have philosophical differences on certain matters, the founders did, and they were all liberals the true meaning of the word.
The movie critic from the Salon isn't a liberal, he's an angry lefty with an agenda. He didn't find the obligatory amount of left wing crap in the movie to reflect the "tumultuous happenings" of the times so he was angry, very angry. He feels that that's what the movie should have been addressing, or at least as a subtext. The problem is public is tired of the continuous bombardment of left wing snipping in movies, and it shows in the receipts so he'd better get use it.
My first thought was he should be fired for what he wrote, but I was wrong it was funny and he made a fool of himself, that's better than being fired. So keep it up Andrew.
I've seen a few previews of "Secretariat," and honestly, I'd be hard-pressed to read any sort of messages into it. It looked like a bland biopic that happened to be about a race horse.
I'm interested in his implication that it's bad for Randal Wallace "to make movies that appeal to 'people with middle-American values.'" Or, as I would call them, mainstream movies. Not every movie needs to be "Mesrine," and Hollywood has made its business on making movies that "appeal to 'people with middle-American values.'" It's a shame that they don't to challenge those values more often, but it's not a crime that they don't.
I haven't seen the film, but this review reminds me of the way Peter Biskind explained how Michael Cimino's "The Deer Hunter" was a despicable Nazi piece of cinema. At the time he didn't get that the movie wasn't really about Vietnam and tried to read all of its themes and elements as bearing strong ideological undertones.
Sometimes reviewers get so carried away through political reading that they write absolute crap. I still wonder how Biskind could miss such a cinematic masterpiece by constructing nonsensical theories.
Reading his review takes me back to the days of studying "lit theory" in college, where every single piece of culture, no matter how benign or innocuous, was actually some sort of propagandistic tool of the white male christian power structure or something similar, as seen through a Freudian/Marxist lens. Even as a left-wing atheist kind of guy, it got really tiresome after a while, and I wondered if these people even enjoyed reading books or watching films. It requires such a twist of logic and over the top rhetoric that invariably, when called out on its stupidity, the author must always state "It's satire/hyperbole!" as O'Hehir did earlier.
Reply to: Ebert: Why is it a Christian fantasy?
Because it's a specific fantasy that Christians in America want to watch, embrace and live in for two hours.
An alternative America where "Christian VALUES" are in control.
Everyone is seeking a spiritual experience. Some get it inside a church. Some get it from reading a Bible, or clapping their hands at a Gospel concert.
It's a good question. Why did so many Americans respond to "The Blind Side."? A lead character who has "morals" and never questions the validity of Christianity?
Wallace named "Chariots of Fire" as a clue.
I don't think part of the Christian fantasy is to see "Bible" thrown in their face any more. They want to live in a reality without crime, where people have money, where life is comfortable, where civic leaders provide for the poor, where everyone just "knows" Christianity is right without anyone having to say it.
Reply to: it's simply a fact that Disney is marketing the film to Christian conservatives, and neither of us is required to have an opinion about it....Randall Wallace had consciously or deliberately created a film whose primary purpose was ideological. It's more like the ideology of reassurance and comfort and gorgeous images -- what I refer to as the "fantasia of American whiteness and power," which is, yes, going kind of far -- is so built into this kind of movie you can't get it out. I do, however, see Wallace's desire to appeal to Christian audiences
The AUDIENCE is Christian. It shows a time when America was 85% Christian instead of 70%, and a limited geographic area where it was 100% Christian.
Christians have to spend so much time defending their claims and beliefs, they want to spend two hours in a fantasy realm where everyone accepts Christianity as true AND lives according to their idea of Christian morality.
Marc Burkhardt writes
"I also find it a shame that the Far Right has poisoned the well to such an extant that such terms as "Christian" and "middle-class" immediately have negative connotations for so many."
The Far Right? Is he kidding? American popular culture has been trashing Christianity and the traditional values that flow from it for decades. Christianity gets dissed by our media "elites" more often than not, and Academia is hostile to orthodox Christian faith whether it comes in the protestant or Catholic variety. The negative connotations come directly from his side, that is the secularist left side, of the political/cultural spectrum.
When I was young, my father made me do what I considered at the time to be rather inexplicable things. He made me watch the moon landing. He made me watch the Forman/Ali fight. And he made me watch Secretariat's win at the Belmont. Each time he would say, This is History! in a way that implied history was indeed capitalized.
In the cases of the 2 former examples, I was rather unimpressed at the time. The third, of course, being about a horse, piqued my excitement. Even so, I distinctly remember being spectacularly unimpressed with the distance in which Secretariat won. I remember my dad yelling, and thinking to myself, those other horses aren't even running. This isn't a race. This was be like me running away from my little sister when she was still in diapers. It wasn't even a fair fight.
Only later did I realize the implications of what each of those historical events were, which brings me O'Hehir's review. Maybe his father didn't make him watch things from a purely historical perspective. Perhaps he wasn't even born at the time. What I fail to understand is, how can he slam the Uncle Tom portrayal of the groom, and totally ignore the fact that Mrs Chesney was, for her time, encroaching on a facet of utterly male dominated society that had previously never allowed a woman into its ranks? How could he slam the fact that the Vietnam War and Watergate were everywhere and barely commented upon, and fail to note that it is for this precise reason that Secretariat's accomplishments were so lauded?
There is a wonderful series on youtube, about Secretariat, here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym9dVyczfJg
Secretariat was loved BECAUSE of all of the horrors of that era. He surpassed politics, equal rights, wars, death and worry. He was utterly pure, in a time when everything else seemed tainted. I'm usually not a fan of Disney films, but I'm glad they illustrated this aspect of things, and it saddens me that a reviewer who wasn't there and is clearly oblivious to the whole history can attempt to taint what is, to me, a tribute to the memory of that purity by injecting politics now. In that, the reviewer completely misses the point of the movie, and worse, uses it to promote his own political agenda. If you are going to review a period movie, perhaps a bit of research into that period (aside from the obvious) is in order.
I, too, am a Democrat. But so what? Secretariat was a horse that wanted to run. Why can't we just leave him in our memories as simply that? Why sully him? Some things that surpass politics, and, to me, this is one of them.
Mr. Ebert-
Thank you for your fine, unbiased review of this movie. I take your reviews very seriously, and I will be putting down the $10+ for it on the basis of your review - not that it might show Christianity in a decent light.
It also help that I have two semi-horse crazy daughters to take to the film- looks like it will be enjoyable for them, too.
priest's wife
Can we be sure Andrew O'Hehir isn't secretly a right wing counterintelligence specialist seeking to lend credence to Tea Party descriptions of leftists?
I can't think of any other reason an adult would write something like that, except maybe some shattering good drugs.
Roger, I live in a part of the world (Northeast Texas) where many people believe that Jesus takes a personal interest in high school football games, so I would not be surprised if someone thought He also put a battery in Secretariat's saddle. Myself, I just think Big Red was one hell of a horse, and I can hardly wait to see the movie.
Like everyone else, I have seen the footage of his Triple Crown races many times, but my favorite film of Secretariat was a few minutes of him in a pasture, long after he retired. For his own sweet reasons, he started running, full gallop, just because he wanted to. Pure animal joy.
Hey--how old is O'Hehir? Was he old enough to place a bet--a really BIG bet--on Sham in the Belmont? That would explain a lot of his hostility to a movie that has Secretariat as a hero.
Great, thanks for your honesty Mr. Ebert
Hey Kevin. by your definition I'm Tea Party ilk so let me respond.
"It's our nation, damn it, and I'm tired of the Tea Party people and their ilk trying to steal it from us."
No sir, we are trying desperately to preserve it for "our" descendants.. the "our" even includes you.
It would be great were you to reserve judgment, attend a rally, and use your own mind to formulate an opinion instead of latching on to that of someone else.
We've reached some kind of weird polemic singularity where a race-horse is now subject to Godwin's Law.
I suppose if the horse is a National-Socialist Thoroughbred, we should definitely...not appease its designs on Eastern European equestrians?
Roger,
As a Christian and pastor, I so appreciate your level-headed approach to this down-right wacky review. Not to beat a dead horse (pun intended), but Mr. O'Hehir's attitude toward a Christian who would dare direct a positive, historically accurate (based on your take), and unprovocative film is exactly the kind of bashing that many of us have been pointing to.
I certainly do not believe all liberals in the media have this kind of anti-Christian bias. But it is clear there are some who have decided they just don't like Christians, and really get a kick out of labelling us with many of the steriotypes you pointed out in that review. That kind of thinking is just as narrow-minded as racial prejudice, and betrays a very cynical and hateful mindset.
So, in the name of civility and kindness, I'd like to ask my liberal friends out there (in the words of that time-honored philosopher Rodney King) "Can't we all just get along?"
Love you, Roger, and appreciate your fairness, especially toward those with whom you disagree. I continue to pray for you in a completely uncondescending, "hoping-the-best-for-you" kind of way!
Dave
WOW!
I saw the commercial for the movie, when to see what Roger said about it, saw the line about the horse's heart being twice as large, and was disgusted. I turned to my wife and said that I was tired of this Nazi crap.
I work in psychology and have done so for over twenty years, thus my handle. Anywy, I've seen the focus go from being on the "mind" (How and why you develop your beliefs, which lead to actions) to one of genetics. It's as if humans are just born to know and do everything, which is absurd. If you research the history of Nazis, you'll find that psychiatry is right at the beginning saying what we now see on TV all the time, and that's "you're born that way" and that unsual behavior is inborn.
This Nazi trend has been going strong (because it's easy and dumb) for quite some time. Just off the top of my head, Forest Gump was a big first. I try, struggle, and work at being a good person, but Forest, he has no ethics, he's just an awesome retarded dude. No work needed on personality development.
The worst blow to my childhood was the latest Star Wars films. In 1977 when I was ten, the Force was something all things had and with work you could develop it. That was a good lesson. In 2000 we learned that you had to be born with the ability to employ the Force, which is Nazi.
Really, it's not Nazi, it "royalism" which comes from the Abrahamic religions. Again, if you research Nazis, they were attempting to trump jews at their social game. No, we're the "chosen people"; no we're the first people, and so on. All of this is against the Enlightenment thinking that there is no royalty and that even the lowest family can have a genius kid (Ben Franklin thought that).
On a side note, I love athletics. When I wanted to learn how to run I read what Flojo (an Olympic runner) had to say about it, and got solid training advice (that was like 15 years ago). I got into biking and wanted to know what Lance Armstrong had to say. Well, I got the info that he has a genetically freaky heart, and has some special ability to process lactic acid (that was about two years ago). So, according to Lance, I'm genetically inferior to him and my attempt to gain a little of his success is pointless.
That's the same message royalty used to give, and what chosen people religions give.
That sucks.
Many years ago, one of my drama profs warned us--just as we were about to begin "The Iceman Cometh"--that if you wanted to kill a story, just look for Christ metaphors.
Like Freud's cigar, sometimes a horse is just a horse, of course, of course.
And still, Ebert can't resist a jab at the tea parties to ensure his liberal cred remains untarnished.
Mr Ebert,
I appreciate your interaction with other critics very much. It's all too rare these days.
I read film and book reviews all the time because I find them fascinating ways to learn more about so much in our world. Perhaps that is why I also like Frank Rich's work in the NYT so much.
In this case I found O'Hehir's review to be brilliant and courageous and it resonated with much I've felt for a long time.
I hope that helps.
Pat
Roger - How do you compare the movies "Seabisuit" and "Secretariat"?
Which horse in real life do you think was the bigger legend?
Hello Roger,
Your most insane reviews (in my book at least) were:
1.) "Salt". I know you don't like arguing about how many stars you give, and I agree: usually this is a pointless debate. But FOUR STARS for this ludicrous over-the-top extravaganza is one of those instances where (to quote Gene Siskel) "a personal opinion shades off into an error of fact".
4 stars, that's two more than "Die Hard", 1,5 more than "The Untouchables", 1/2 more than "Heat", as many as "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". You can't seriously believe that "Salt" is equal or superior to those time-honoured action masterpieces.
I'll go out on a limb and say that your "Salt"-Review or at least your star rating will not pass the test of time. I suppose that most of your readers shook their heads in disbelief at this one (I know I did), and at some point in the future, you'll give in as well (at the very latest when it's time to compile your next "Great Movies" volume).
2.) "Brazil". That one is a masterpiece. I'll just never re-read your review (and pretend you forgot the other two stars).
Best regards, M.H.
RE the article on racehorse genetics linked by Bob O'H above:
The article does not state that there is no link between genetics and a horse's earnings. Rather, it states that there is no link (actually, a very very small link) between stud fees and earnings. The article goes on to say that the genetic influence on success is about 500% greater than the typical influence of genes on Darwinian survival in the wild.
"blah blah evil whites blah blah kkk blah blah"
You obviously are bigoted against white people
Roger,
In your review you attribute a quote to Sebald regarding the gulf of understanding between man and animal. Could you please provide a source for this quote?
I ask because it's remarkably similar (uncanny, really) to a brilliant essay by John Berger titled Why Look at Animals? My first reaction was that Berger deserved the citation, not Sebald, but I'm not sure.
A PDF of Berger's essay is available here:
http://artsites.ucsc.edu/faculty/gustafson/FILM%20161.F08/readings/berger.animals%202.pdf
Ebert: I've read all of Sebald, and can't put my finger on a page, but I find it attributed to him here:
http://j.mp/9cyuAA
And that doesn't look authoritative.
Some randome thoughts on this subject:
Apollo 13 is probably the best example to draw a parallel with. The film came out in 1995, and was attacked by some of the Leftists of that day for not showing any blacks engineers on display in mission control, only white men with sliderules.
This kind of thinking is what led to the controversy over the 9/11 memorial of the firemen rasising the American flag, when some well meaning (I hope) folks wanted to change the race of the firemen in the photo for the picture/statues/etc that were planned to come.
O'Hehir's review cites director Wallace's films (I'm surprised he doesn't refer to him as Herr Direktor) including "We Were Warriors"[sic]. Curious that he'd use the word Warriors rather than Soldiers. . . I guess Slate doesn't fact check, but the very word implies something different. Especially when the source material was titled "We were soldiers once. . . and young."
I would wonder if O'Hehir would be upset with Star Wars (released in 1977) for racist overtones but then I recall the uproar about Jar Jar Binks with the prequel releases; the Prairie View A&M Marching Band scene at the end of the film, the stepandfetchit references in many reviews.
In the end, film is art. Some good, some bad, some tasteless. But the eyes of the beholder tint the artwork in one way or the other.
It seems that far too many film reviewers pine to be the next Woodward and Bernstein. And therefore see injustice where there is none.
I have to say when I read O'Hehir's yesterday morning, I quickly became so inflamed that I immediately wrote a letter to him. I spent the rest of the day reading everyone else's responses/letters that were all pretty much in line with how I felt about his ridiculous review. Later, I just became sad. I saw the movie in a sneak preview last week with my stepmom who remembers the event fondly from her youth. I wasn't even born yet, a year shy, so naturally I had no idea what to expect. All I knew was that this horse won the Triple Crown, Disney made a movie about it, and my stepmom REALLY REALLY wanted to see it. So I went with her and saw it.
And not to sound too "idealisitc" or heaven-forbid "hopeful" or "romantic" ... this movie provided me an opportunity to relive a wonderful moment in history and all during a time where there was such division and faction plaguing American lives. Sound familiar? Of course. And I'll be honest, I freakin cried at the end! I'm a 36 year old professional CRYING during a freakin Disney movie. (Sidebar-my therapist and I are talking about this.)
However, sincerely, I really left the theater feeling uplifted, hopeful, inspired, that maybe we too, the people, can come together again and cheer for just the sheer beauty of one of nature's beautiful creations. Secretariat was just that. A thing of pure beauty. Yes, he had a big heart. A HUGE heart. And that heart pumped that blood though every fiber of his being that enabled him to fly like the wind. And why can't we simply marvel in THAT? I just want to ask O'Hehir what is so wrong with just praising that horse's glory? And leaving it at that. Why all the subtext, why all the insinuation, why all the ... doubt. I mean, WHAT is so WRONG with doing just that? OK fine, there was racism, there was a war, there was classism, there was greed, there were all these bad things...but Jesus Christ, there was also a horse that just loved to run, who was true to his nature, true to his form, and in Secretariat's fullfillment of that role, people rallied for him because honestly ask yourself, how many of us are allowed to be just who we are, creatures who really at the end of the day just want to live and be happy and be what we were built for...humans have yet to figure that out. But Secretariat knew and that's what makes him my hero today, and why I feel O'hehir's review is so insidiously dangerous and wrong that I fear such a condemnation of that better part of our reality will only move the world to apocalyptic visions. Call me crazy, but I believe the world can be saved from ourselves, unlike Mr. O'hehir believes (I think)... and God da*n it really, if it takes a horse with a huge heart to help us out then so be it.
Mr. Ebert, finding your review makes me happy. And suddenly I feel like you just gave me BACK my hope. Thanks so much, sincerely.
I have to say when I read O'Hehir's yesterday morning, I quickly became so inflamed that I immediately wrote a letter to him. I spent the rest of the day reading everyone else's responses/letters that were all pretty much in line with how I felt about his ridiculous review. Later, I just became sad. I saw the movie in a sneak preview last week with my stepmom who remembers the event fondly from her youth. I wasn't even born yet, a year shy, so naturally I had no idea what to expect. All I knew was that this horse won the Triple Crown, Disney made a movie about it, and my stepmom REALLY REALLY wanted to see it. So I went with her and saw it.
And not to sound too "idealisitc" or heaven-forbid "hopeful" or "romantic" ... this movie provided me an opportunity to relive a wonderful moment in history and all during a time where there was such division and faction plaguing American lives. Sound familiar? Of course. And I'll be honest, I freakin cried at the end! I'm a 36 year old professional CRYING during a freakin Disney movie. (Sidebar-my therapist and I are talking about this.)
However, sincerely, I really left the theater feeling uplifted, hopeful, inspired, that maybe we too, the people, can come together again and cheer for just the sheer beauty of one of nature's beautiful creations. Secretariat was just that. A thing of pure beauty. Yes, he had a big heart. A HUGE heart. And that heart pumped that blood though every fiber of his being that enabled him to fly like the wind. And why can't we simply marvel in THAT? I just want to ask O'Hehir what is so wrong with just praising that horse's glory? And leaving it at that. Why all the subtext, why all the insinuation, why all the ... doubt. I mean, WHAT is so WRONG with doing just that? OK fine, there was racism, there was a war, there was classism, there was greed, there were all these bad things...but Jesus Christ, there was also a horse that just loved to run, who was true to his nature, true to his form, and in Secretariat's fullfillment of that role, people rallied for him because honestly ask yourself, how many of us are allowed to be just who we are, creatures who really at the end of the day just want to live and be happy and be what we were built for...humans have yet to figure that out. But Secretariat knew and that's what makes him my hero today, and why I feel O'hehir's review is so insidiously dangerous and wrong that I fear such a condemnation of that better part of our reality will only move the world to apocalyptic visions. Call me crazy, but I believe the world can be saved from ourselves, unlike Mr. O'hehir believes (I think)... and God da*n it really, if it takes a horse with a huge heart to help us out then so be it.
Mr. Ebert, finding your review makes me happy. And suddenly I feel like you just gave me BACK my hope. Thanks so much, sincerely.
Our political speech is being so overtaken by puritans on both sides it's to the point we can't even enjoy life anymore. I found this clip of John Wayne on Norman Lear's old TV show "Maude" and had to sadly smile at the naive sweetness of it. What a joy it is to not take everything so bloody serious and just have fun with ourselves:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBUAywiOWEA
For such a divisive decade as the 1970's, there was far more openess back then. Both men had rock solid credentials in their respective political camps, but admired each other and respected the sincerity of each other's beliefs and work. Today Lear and Wayne would be considered heretics for having fun with their beliefs. When Nixon complained that "All in the Family" was a secret plot to undermine the American family through television propaganda, Wayne said he laughed all the time and was the show's biggest fan. I heard in a radio interview once that Norman Lear loved the fact that John Wayne had accepted an invitation to appear at Harvard's Hasty Pudding show given by largely left wing students, endured trash and eggs being thrown at him during his entrance, but by the end of the show brought the kids to a standing ovation by countering them with an underestimated wit and charm. (My favorite line being when one Harvard student shouted at Wayne to "take that fake wig off!" Wayne joked back by saying, "Let's get one thing clear, this is REAL hair... It's not my hair, but it's real hair...)
Both were Patriotic Americans and didn't reduce their enjoyment of entertainment by constantly seeing things through the narrow lens of dogmatism.
For Christ's sake, folks ... this is not rocket
science! It's the story of the greatest race horse
ever to have walked this planet! To read anything
more into the film is just .... freakish! And to
the fellow who relates the film to the problems
of today, let me say this: this remarkable story
and Disney films are made for escapism! Gawds,
peeps ... git yer panties untwisted! :P
Rate Mel Gibson's Apocalypto already so we can see another insane review!
This reminds me of an article by a conservative commentary who mentioned that these days it seems like those on the left see racism in anything they dislike, almost as much as those on the right see socialism/communism whenever they dislike something.
I expect a heartwarming tribute to a glorious horse and his people. I shall always feel honored to have been able to watch him run those triple crown races on live television.
We were spoiled for a while. Triple Crown winners came in a cluster. Now, it has been more than thirty years. I hope enough people look again toward stamina and strength instead of just speed in the future.
I buy two derby glasses usually. Not to collect but to use daily. They are available in most grocery stores, drug stores, and liquor stores near me. All the Kentucky Derby winners are listed on the glass with special marks for fillies and triple crown winners.
appreciated antidote. really disney has been making these for years, where they are uplifting stories about sports. the rookie, invincible, miracle, and like 5 others i can't remember right now. the are usually about something more than just the sport, but with the exception of miracle, there isn't much politics. and there shouldn't be much division in beating the damned soviets, although beating them in hockey wasn't as important as tearing down that wall.
If you'd like to read a post by someone who was a kid when Secretariat was running and who tells movingly what the horse meant to her, here's a link: http://tinyurl.com/2epggau
I just want to know: has Andrew O'Hehir ever spent time on a horse farm? And when I say time, I don't mean passing by one on his way to another wine tasting. Candidly, I am not a liberal and I have not seen the movie yet. But the tone of the review indicates to me that his belief is the pastoral life is mere fancy, as cliche as a damsel in a Gothic castle or an eye patch on a pirate.
When I see "Middle American Values" I don't really see it as a geographic delineation separating the coasts. I see it as more of a lifestyle. More cultural. More agrarian. More genteel. No fancy horned-rimmed glasses or $50 hair cuts. Sweater vests are not an option. Shoes are rarely polished because layers of clay tend not to be easily buffed.
It's where a man or woman can go outside in the freshness of nature, take a breath of less polluted air (or more polluted if you have never been on a working farm), and see the quality and extent of a hard day's work before your eyes from your own hands.
When I see a review, or an article, or a blog that clearly misses the mark as to what a majority of Americans do on a daily basis outside the confines of urban or suburban existence, I nod to myself and know why "the elite" do not get America. I include all ideologies in view.
I grew up on a farm. My father (a dedicated UAW member, Democrat, and farmer) owns a horse farm. He wakes up at 4:30 every morning. He feeds the horses. He mucks the stalls. Tends to their ailments. Puts them in the pasture. Trains the ones for riding and for show. The only help he has is his aging brother in law and loving wife (sadly I am too far removed to help on a daily basis). He manages the farm, bales and stacks the hay. Fixes the fences. Plows the fields. Mows the homestead (several acres over several days in fact). He tends to the horses needs throughout the day. He literally does more work by 9:00 a.m. then most men do all day. This is not hyperbole.
And when he has a few minutes, he looks around the farm and sees its splendor. He knows what he wants the farm to look like and strives to make that vision a reality. The farm is pretty. The scenery is idyllic. He loves this place on Earth and his place in the Universe. But he doesn't have long to reflect...as his work continues all day until the horses are in their stalls for the night.
The only reward he receives, other than an occasional ribbon here or there from a horse show, is that which he gives to himself. It doesn't come from a panel of peers congratulating him on a particular day of work. He receives no plaudits from the people passing by for his farm's beauty. The horses certainly give him no thanks for being cared for.
And I don't think that many of the people who write on these blogs truly understand this life. There are millions of Americans that do. They are not unintelligent. They don't abhor their lives because they did not escape the pasture and make it "to the big city." They know what hard work is, and they certainly do not take kindly for being treated as rubes or hillbillies. They go to church to thank their God for the blessings which have been bestowed upon them, which includes the green earth that they toil and sweat upon. Yet they get laughed at for this gratitude and communion.
So I will see Secretariat and judge how realistic the movie is as I have lived a life that can relate to it. Certainly I know nothing about winning a Triple Crown, but I know about the anxiety of losing a farm. I know about struggle. I know about darning one socks when there is a hole as opposed to throwing them away. I know about growing my own vegetables and canning them for what may or may not come. It's a hard life. It used to be a common life. And I think until the effete journalists that typically engage each other over how "clever" a wine tastes truly discard their trappings and learn, and know, what it is like to live this life they should strive not to denigrate it. That might not play well at the bar area of a Hollywood Nightclub or the Alumni Lounge in Cambridge, but it might just give that person the respect of someone who ordinarily wouldn't give a damn what you thought or did not think of them.
I eagerly await "Roger Ebert: The Insane Reviews" (University of Chicago Press)
Hi Roger,
As part ot the interactive conversation that is the Journal and Twitter, I like to think that I influence your thinking just a bit now and then.
Did my Tweet to you on Wednesday:
It's necessary for O'Hehir to take a shot at Tea Party and Palin to review this movie? Of course it is, on Salon. #Pathetic
prompt your thinking on this thread any at all? I hope so. :)
I can't speak for the critic, but I think the issue revolvess around most directors being cursed by limited imagination. They can only imagine worlds where rich white people are the center of attention. This is another reason Do the Right Thing struck such a chord, beside being such a great film. You yourself praised Schhol Daze for daring to show African-Americans as independent beings.
My rule of thumb is that the outcasts have the most insightful art:
Jolson's "The Jazz Singer" was praised by African-Americans when it was released and it presents an unvarnished view of Jewish life at the time.
Casablanca was written by two Jewish brothers, and has the bravery to show an African-American without mocking his ethnicity.
The director's intentions are mostly irrelevant, because since great people are very rare, he most likely doesn't have the gifts to transcend stereotypes passed down by Hollywood.
This last question is one I would really like you to answer, are you considering The Jazz Singer for Great movies.
Finally, I love your criticism, because you are not afraid to champion the genuinely "out-there" films.
If you think O'Hehir's review is unusual, check out the Winnipeg Free Press's review. The reviewer accuses the director of whitewashing (or red, white, and blue-washing) the story to hide the fact that Secretariat's trainer and jockey were Canadians. You can read it here:
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/entertainment/movies/horse--manure-104555494.html
I have laughed so loud at both your article and some of the comments that my cat is probably hiding under furniture somewhere. It startles him when I do that.
Yes, I know we've now had the reviewer in question come in and insist it was hyperbole and how dare we take it seriously. On the other hand, we should all know that, when tricks like that fail, it either means a failing on the part of your audience or a failing of your own that you didn't do it well. I am here inclined toward the latter, given that I was perfectly able to see someone as really meaning such a review. I was unable to see some of the points as being made in jest.
On the other hand, it wouldn't surprise me to know that I'd already seen part of this movie when my cousin was in it and it was called Seabiscuit. And even then, I only watched until his character died.
Andrew wrote -"...my review of the film was willfully hyperbolic, even outrageous, in hopes of getting people to look at a formulaic Disney sports movie through fresh eyes."
Well, thank you Mr. Film Critic for bein' so kind as to tell me how to watch a film, cuz Lord knows I ain't got the intellect to do it myself. Silly me thought it was a horse movie. Course, I remember the early 70's - Vietnam, Nixon, the local gas station owner holding a shotgun in front of his hand painted sign that read "NO GAS TODAY!" Although, I thought part of the appeal of Secretariat was the amazing way a horse made us forget those things- if only for a few weeks. Guess not.
Oh, and can we declare a moratorium on the Nazi references whenever we want to overreach with the hyperbole? Kinda overdone, intellectually weak. Unless of course, Disney decides to remake "Downfall" and leave out the nasty bits. Then go nuts.
Mr. Ebert: I'm on the other side of the political divide from you and haven't really liked anything I've seen of your writing in some time.
This however is priceless common sense. Thank you.
Well said, Elder (commenter above me.)
It is so tedious and exhausting to read these reviews where the piece is all about the ego of the writer and the film itself is reduced to a coatrack on which said reviewer hangs his personal neuroses out for display. (The reviewer is smugly patting himself on the back for eschewing the closet where most people keep their personal demons.)
Ebert himself succumbs to this occasionally-- the profession itself attracts this kind of personality which is why I have pretty much stopped reading reviews at all-- but O'Hehir's Salon piece was a humdinger for the ages. I think he'd gone off his meds and I'm grateful that Ebert called him on it.
It's a horse movie. Who cares.
Good gawd.
I so hate that post-modern political readings are still in vogue.
Sign me up for JuJuBe Film Critism 101.
(And I don't eat sugar or fructose. Organic vegan. Double oy.)
Signed, Comparative Literature MA.
I remember the 70s quite well, and I can remember whole days going by where we thought about our own lives, rather than Watergate, Christianity, Nietzsche, or Vietnam. Watergate and Vietnam were not pleasant things to be contemplating, important as they were. Much better to think about bell bottoms, polyester, and hair styles. They may look weird today, but better to think about that than what McNamara was doing to a generation of patriotic youth, and how Nixon was doing the same thing to the whole country.
And heaven knows the Triple Crown was a tremendous relief in a bad year. That review is very strange. Was O'Hehir around in the 70s? Does he remember some other decade from the one I do?
Hi Roger, this debate has been really fascinating to read, it's not often that critics confront each other in this way!
On an unrelated subject, what do you say to someone whom you're trying to convince to go see Let Me In, when they want to see Life As We Know It? Help.
Ebert: You say, "I'm disappointed. I like to think of you as an intelligent person."
Just a couple of quick ones before the wekend:
-- Word Crank again:
Backpedaling - as in trying to ride a bicycle backwards.
You're welcome.
-- O'Hehir's rebuttal:
There's an old rule of comedy that states "Any time you have to explain that you've just made a joke, it's not a joke."
-- When the commenter above finished with "A horse is just a horse", you were supposed to respond "Of course, of course".
Your anti-TV attitude is really tiresome.
-- Randy's Unpaid Political Announcement:
What I said before elsewhere: if the PTP actually believes that simply getting elected will give them the power to change anything, they are in for the rudest awakening this side of M. Night Shamalyan.
-- Websense is not blocking your Twitter page per se,but any link to another Twitter page is blocked for reasons of "Social Networking".
Headshaking ensues.
And in the immortal words of Omar Khayyam:
"That's 30 for tonight."
I absolutely love Mickey's comment (October 8, 4:23pm). His plainspoken candor telling of a life most of us will never know was sheer poetry. Similarly I used to complain because the television shows I would watch were too NYC-centric and that those of us outside the Hudson River Valley - the majority of the country - did not relate.
All I know is, Big Red was my favorite horse, and I'm going to see his movie. Salon be damned.
The film is a little like a "christian memory" of the '70's. Everything so clean and scrubbed including behavior and language. I grew up in the seventies. It was a pretty dirty decade in every way imaginable.
Mickey (above), I lived that life for many years and I still enjoy long sojourns into the back country by myself at least once a year. Notice I said myself because after leaving that life (the east side of the sierras in California) it was impossible not to notice how insulated that life was. It's far from more cultural. It's actually the opposite of cultural. There's just one culture and that's it and, in my experience, the people I grew up with truly knew nothing of the much wider cultural spectrum that made, and makes, America. To be fair, I guess, they never experienced it but they also never wanted to. Their ingrained beliefs made them think that their (my) culture was the true American culture. It's not. The "urban and suburban" population you speak of is 81% of the US population at last count.
Going back to my first question:
The Disney Company lost a lot of money on "The Sorceror's Apprentice" based on Disney's "Fantasia" (kind of).... and occasionally, a movie studio wants to make a movie that is aimed at a specific audience, rather than a generic movie aimed at everyone.
what's wrong with that?
Reply to: AK: I never said or suggested that Randall Wallace had consciously or deliberately created a film whose primary purpose was ideological. It's more like the ideology of reassurance and comfort and gorgeous images -- what I refer to as the "fantasia of American whiteness and power," which is, yes, going kind of far -- is so built into this kind of movie you can't get it out. I do, however, see Wallace's desire to appeal to Christian audiences and a never-enumerated set of "middle-American values" as politically coded, at least to some degree.
If the Christian population in America has a certain set of values...
... which are nothing less than "we rule" and actually a lot more....
why do you object? I understand your review, but I don't understand why seeing a 'white power agenda" should bother anyone. For more than a century, the United States was a white power agenda in reality. Was it terrible? Was it horrible? Or was it also the period when America became the greatest nation in the world?
Director Randall Wallace has been trying to explain his movie. Over at beliefnet:
What makes a champion?
RW: The victory occurs inside the champion before it occurs outside the champion. The task before the story-teller is to inspire and you can't do that unless you are inspired. You have to change the story until it inspires you, until you have to shout it from the rooftops.
*** Every warrior wants a battle worth his blood and Penny found that for herself. ***
That's what I love about being a story-teller, finding those defining moments. There are stories I heard as a child about a deceased ancestor that told me everything I needed to know about who they were and who I was supposed to be. That's what you look for in a story. In this one, Penny not only declares who she is, she discovers who she is. Everything logical around her was saying, "You must do this" and she said, "No, I will do that." It gave me goosebumps!
What makes the story of Secretariat so captivating?
RW: The story, ultimately, is about transcendence, about going beyond what anyone thought was possible, even the horse. His commitment to run that fast, and it was his choice, was what made it possible, and also what made it dangerous.
*** He was running not against the horses in the race, but about every horse who ever ran, and then, after he rounded that corner, for the glory. ***
Reply to: Why is this a Christian fantasy?
The fantasy of Christianity is that a belief in Jesus, and acceptance of Jesus as your Savior, offers transcendence. Of course, it does nothing of the sort. But that's the fantasy world they want to experience for two hours.
Ever attend a Billy Graham Crusade? The music is carefully selected to carry you along an emotional path. For two hours, you are told that your life is miserable because you are lonely.
And then, when you're bored and your brain is tired, they throw in, "But if you accept Jesus as Savior, you will never be lonely."
The movie tries to re-capture the emotional high... of being a champion.... of winning souls for Christ... of outrunning all the other horses in the race as well as every other horse who ever ran on a race track....
... with the Illusion that Christians can have that kind of success in life.
I'm opposed to it because it's a sham, but that doesn't mean I would hurl insults at people who want to experience what it takes to be a champion.
The review in question described something subtle, but real... and then said, "This is bad." And my question is, "WHy is it bad? What can't it be good?"
To me, the fight against Christianity, Islam and "religion based on revelation" is "a battle worth the blood." America, in general, never found the abililty to decide fact from fiction, or stand up to certain enemies.
Oh, yeah, Andrew O'Hehir is blinded by leftist rage and hatred. What's new? How's he any different from Mr. Maddow, Matthews, Olberman, Schultz, etc....?
It's too bad that it's taken Ebert this long to awaken to the insanity on the left.
I'm surprised O'Hehir didn't mention Bush..lmao..
Well see how out of touch those "insignificant" "teabaggers" are/were come November 2nd. Jeez, it's not like it will be a referendum on Obama's failed policies! This November we will see a real legitimate DRAINING OF THE SWAMP of the Democrat fraud and corruption.
I so glad that Andrew O'Hehir responded, and in the way that he did, and that it got put up here - though perhaps it might be good to put it at the beginning of the comment section or at the end of the original post, just to make it easier to find and read for newcomers.
I'm not surprised by what O'Hehir said in his reply/comment. It's pretty much what I thought when I read Ebert's piece and then O'Hehir's. I like both reviews and think both have their merits.
Perhaps the review of Spawn is an example of an insane review?
Went to see it many years ago, on your advice, with three friends.
They all decided I was no longer allowed to pick movies.
James :(
Secretariat was a freak. Thoroughbred breeders talk about 'catching lightning in a bottle' because they have no freakin' idea what they're going to get. Any look at race times will tell you the *breed* isn't getting better. This is primarily because handicapping means the great horses don't show up as great, because many mares never race at all (so that half the horse's parentage is unknown), and most great stallions retire at four, if that. Thoroughbreds aren't products of "careful" programs, they're gambles.
I respect O'hehir's attempt at responding but having read his review, I tend to find it disingenuous. Satire involves some form of irony. O'hehir's review was written very straight-forward. His comment about a cross burning did not come off as satirical as it was not satirizes anything. I believe his response was an attempt to explain away something that was simply inexplicable.
He could have easily made a review about how the movie plays to a socially conservative audience, but he didn't. He made a review that threw out mentions of Nazis, racism, etc. What was he satirizes? Was he satirizing people who speak in hyperbole? Did that help him make any point in particular?
I felt the review was out of line, even if he truly disliked the movie and felt it showed America in a fairy-tale way or that it catered to social conservatives, etc. If satire is meant to be humorous or ironic, Mr. O'hehir failed at it.
Mr. Ebert, please link to said insane reviews!
Ebert: Ah, that's for you to decide.
...Oh, never mind, I can do that! :)
Here--"The King & I" as racist Harlequin-romance sexual fantasy:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19991217/REVIEWS/91217 0301/1023
(As much as we trust you, Roger, have to admit, we've always quietly hidden the sharp objects after that. 0_o? )
As for Andrew's review, yep, he's a few pegs short of a Jenga game--
The movie is basically following, and duplicating, Disney's format that worked for 04's "Miracle" (and while Ebert gave it two stars, rent immediately, those who haven't seen it)--Ie. attaching a great sports event to its place in a unique recent-history zeitgeist, and focusing on the not-always-saintly character-study of the trainer responsible.
This time with Randall Wallace directing, and his track record so far (Braveheart, Man in the Iron Mask) has been impressive enough for the mainstream.
It's the Armond White syndrome: You can always get more unwanted attention digging for "controversy" than by just passing the popcorn.
Ebert: My review was of the animated version, and I think it reads reasonably well.
@ Joe Tailor, on 10-7 at 11:53 pm: I knew this submission would be by a Tea Party jerk - the misspellings, capitals, and bizaare assertions were a dead give-away. Especially this: "Secretariat had his chance, and chose to not go with God." What nonsense.
He. Was. A. Freakin'. Horse.
Fool.
Meanwhile, Rog, I can't wait to see this movie, since I have many fond memories of Big Red myself. As for that reviewer, maybe a horse kicked him in the head, recently. After that strange review, if I was a horse, I'd pop him another one!
There was much more weirdness in that review that you didn't even touch on ... not that I blame you.
However, there is one small sour note - "When O'Hehir says Wallace is "one of mainstream Hollywood's few prominent Christians," what exactly does he mean by that? That one is too many?"
No. He simply means that Wallace is one of mainstream Hollywood's few prominent Christians. Which is true. Mel Gibson and who else?
And Mr. O'Hehir's point is that Wallace fills his scripts with Christian values and themes - both hidden and obvious.
He references the gratuitous quotes from Job at the beginning and end, and the strange scoring of a horse-grooming to a gospel song.
Also, the "fringe left" has been an important part of humanity, whether by championing that black people and women of all races deserve equal rights, protesting the oppressive atmosphere of Nazi Germany, championing for civil rights, stating that homosexuality isn't a mental disease .
What can the fringe right claim? People like Taft and Paul aren't moderates, but they maintain ideas from both parties, so in the words of the Wizard of Oz "are horses of a different color."
Mr. Ebert, I sincerely suggest you look at the Jazz Singer. It is better to express what you sincerely think then to avoid everything by following "moderate." I hope to hear what you think about the film.
Given that we've read Ebert's own humdingers of hatred, I can only wonder if this "confrontation" between himself said Salon reviewer was a set up to imply that Ebert himself is relatively stable, given his wingnutty rants of late???
As to Ebert's inference that he is representative of middle America in any way, shape or form, I have to laugh. I know middle Americans, they are good and decent, honest and hardworking people, who would never slander and abuse others, as Ebert has done. As to the beatitudes, Roger Ebert merely seeks to hide his flabby moral relativism behind something. Given Ebert's callous indifference to the poor and suffering in America, one can only assume that Ebert is seeking to redefine "poor", "meek" and "suffering" to meaning twisted, corrupt, spoiled elites like himself, who he believes are superior to the rest of us mere mortals. Roger Ebert's moral relativistic embrace of fascism, his inference that US citizens, are guilty of being "racist" or "xenphobic" "Uncle Toms" and "race traitors" for daring to criticize a president who has made more than 600 billion dollars of unspent stimulus money disappear, who lied and covered up for BP, so Obama could sell his BP stock at a profit, before the major explosion occurred on April 20th. Obama was informed on February 13th of the first explosion, that there were cracks in the well casing, and oil and methane gas were leaking out, and there was a strong likelihood of a major explosion occuring (Ebert knows this to be a fact, but covering up for corporate HObama is more important than the truth, innocent victims in the Gulf region be damned, right Roger?) Google the name Professor Robert Bea, he's an engineering professor at UC Berkeley, was on the rig the night of the first explosion, and was privy to Barack Obama being informed of the full extent. Obama didn't care about anyone or anything but a potential financial loss if the public was informed and the drilling stopped before he could sell his stock. On March 31st, 2010 after being informed that time was running out, Obama, Senator Durbin of Illinois, his friends at Goldman Sachs and Vanguard, Bill and Melinda Gates all sold their BP stock at a profit, just shy of three weeks before the major explosion.
What's more, Obama has helped BP destroy the Gulf, and sickened so many innocent citizens in the Gulf region, by non stop spraying and applications of the highly toxic corexit dispersant.
Obama is gutting our economy, funneling our money overseas and to corporate contributors. He ignores untold millions of unemployed Americans, while jacking up the amount of visas given out to foreign replacement workers each month, despite knowing the US has neither a worker or skills shortage of any kind (google the studies of world respected economist, Dr. George Borjas, of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, who has proven we have no worker or skills shortage, and the serious harm that is being done to US citizen workers, black, brown and white by Obama and the democrats cruel and corrupt policies). Obama ignores the untold millions of homeless US citizens, the fact that our country is filling up with tent cities, something we haven't seen since the great depression. Roger Ebert clearly doesn't grasp that he comprehends what the beatitudes were in regards to, any more than he grasps what Christ was talking about when the wealthy man asked him about how he could achieve salvation. Per Ebert's attempt to redefine Christ's teachings, he'd believe that Christ would have told the wealthy man to return home, displace his poor neighbors from their jobs, and turn them on to the streets, give their jobs to cheap foreign labor, and make even more profits.. that is what Roger Ebert, Obama and the democrats support.. but then again, the democrat party has NEVER stopped being the party of slavery, Jim Crow and the Klan, and democrats like Roger Ebert and his crony at Salon, feel so empowered to denigrate and demean US citizens who disagree with them, they doesn't have to wear a sheet and a hood they let their hatred and bigotry all hang out.
Ebert: Dear Mary, I am a good and decent, honest and hardworking person. When it comes to slandering and abusing others, how would you rank yourself on a scale of 1 to 10, in view of this message you have just committed?
Yes I realize the Left has the habit of censoring what they don't consider acceptable.
They committed atrocities in the Soviet Union, Cambodia, and other places.
Just remember, the fringe left has performed some good for humanity, along with the bad frequently noted.
LOL! Someone needs to take a chill pill. Glad to see my sport, racing, getting some good coverage (your review made the Paulick Report!)
If anything, O'Hehir's comments don't go far enough in exposing the "great" Secretariat for who and what he obviously was--a fraud and an agitator!!!
Granted, it was a clever disguise, transforming himself into the greatest race horse of all time, but newly exposed facts suggest that Secretariat's winning ways were nothing but a fancy ruse.
There is considerable evidence that Secretariat actually played a significant role within certain right-wing, "pro-family" groups of the time. It is true that most of this support was financial in nature, with Secretariat's trainer handling checks signed by the great horse himself. Look, I can't say any more about this, and there is still no hard factual evidence that links this horse directly to the Ku Klux Klan, but who knows?
There's a lot more to this story. Maybe O'Hehir will have the guts to tell it, I don't know. We all owe him a debt of gratitude for exposing Secretariat's behavior, through his odd review of this otherwise inspiring and wholesome film.
COMING UP NEXT: "SEATTLE SLEW" WAS A COMMIE!!!
Honestly I have to say that being deliberately hyperbolic in order to stir up something strikes me as being intellectually dishonest. I want the critic's real opinion, not what he or she thinks will get page views. It's little better than what the pundits do to get ratings. It contributes to the polarization of ideology and opinion in this country.
I had an English teacher once who simply insisted that everything we read had a subtext, and if we couldn't find it, we just weren't looking hard enough, or perhaps weren't smart enough to find it.
I wonder if O'Hehir was in my class? I don't remember him, but then I don't remember a lot about that class, I just kept waiting for it to be over.
Must say Roger, that Andrew O'Hehir response?
Kind of brilliant.
Ebert: Oh, we crickets are smart.
Greetings Roger and fellow readers!
Aside from the fascinating debate on the merits of the two countervailing reviews, this film also permits reminiscence of a great horse and a great jockey. Ron Turcotte was from Canada’s Maritime province of New Brunswick (I lived in neighbouring Nova Scotia).
Turcotte rode the amazing Northern Dancer to his first victory and was the first jockey in 25 years to win the American triple crown of horse racing. To this day, I still get a cold chill up my spine when I see replays of the 1973 Belmont Stakes. The moment was timeless and breathtaking and a Canadian was right in the middle of it.
Incidentally, Turcotte (1972 & 1973) was the first jockey to win consecutive Kentucky Derby’s since Jimmy Winfield pulled off the feat in 1901 and 1902. Turcotte had an incredible 3,032 career wins.
Chris Alders
Ottawa, Canada
I've loved horses since I can remember. My very first memory is of riding a horse. My first horse was a retired racehorse, and she almost killed me. I'm a professional horseshoer and blacksmith because I couldn't make a living without equine involvement. I knew who Secretariat was when I was four and why he was so good. I've followed the career of many of his children with interest, and he remains as one of the most famous horses of all time. This month, as one hundred and thirty countries come to the Kentucky Horse Park for the first World Equestrian Games ever held in the Western Hemisphere, all of those people will walk by the memorial that demonstrates his twenty eight foot stride.
All that being said, I don't care if the movie has Sarah Palin popups in the background, I'm gonna go see the movie and I'll take it as a tribute to the miracle horse instead of trying to read political subtext into it.
"On an unrelated subject, what do you say to someone whom you're trying to convince to go see Let Me In, when they want to see Life As We Know It? Help."
I suggest "Man, I'm into horror and all, but that's just a little too intense for me. Let's try the vampire movie instead."
I've read a lot of the reviews on this site, but the only one I ever really found baffling was the one for Fight Club. I'm curious as to whether you still feel the same way about that film.
I devoted a few paragraphs in my Secretariat biography to Pancho Martin's verbal attack on Laurin before the Kentucky Derby. Andrew what's-his-face says that "reporters" who covered the 1973 Triple Crown all said that Pancho was mild-mannered. or something like that.
I don't know what old turfwriters Andrew was talking to. Most of the guys who covered that Derby are now deceased. Dave Condon, Joe Hirsch, Red Smith, Joe Falls, Jack Murphy, etc. I am one of the few survivors who hung around Martin and Laurin before that Derby, but he sure as hell didn't talk to me.
On page 301 of the new, Hyperion edition of my book, which has the movie poster as the cover, I wrote that Sham's fast workout at the Ky Derby "seemed to inspire and enbolden Martin, for it coincided with his sudden launch into a week-long run of soliloquies denouncing Laurin and extolling the manifest gifts of Sham. Twirling a Mexican cigar with Havana tobacco, leaning against the cinder block of barn 42, sipping a demitasse...and wearing a hat with a feather in it, Martin held forth among the crowds of newsmen gathered there to hear him. He was cocky, brash and self-assured, confident of victory. He excoriated Laurin in an oratory of disdain, sarcasm and ire."
I continued in the book: "All you hear from Laurin is excuses, excuses, excuses, excuses," said Pancho. "He's got more excuses than China's got rice, and China's got a lot of rice. Cryin' like a little baby..." So Pancho went on and on. The quote in the movie lifted from the book.
I recorded this on a tape-recorder at the time and recall the moment very vividly. It happened more than once before that Derby. Pancho was combative and boastful, regardless of what the "reporters" now say who allegedly covered it.
Ebert: Here's precisely what O'Hehir wrote:
"Those who reported on the Triple Crown at the time have said that the real Pancho Martin was neither talkative nor boastful, and had no particular adversarial relationship with Penny Chenery. That stuff we saw in the movie did not happen."
You were there, you heard it, and you say it happened. Over to Andrew.
Roger,
I love film. You have helped cultivate that. I don't know this reviewer. I don't follow his work. And, having not seen the movie, I have no way of knowing who is right. But, I don't think I have to see the movie to believe it is safe to assume he was over the top. Although we sometimes draw different conclusions about films, you always add a perspective that adds light and understanding to what was on the screen. In short, I trust you in this area.
I want to thank you for being willing to respond to this review. As a liberal who has not been, shall we say, sympathetic to the Tea Party movement, you didn't have to do this. You could have overlooked it. And I want to thank you for being willing to point out that someone had gone over the top. I've disagreed with you on many a blog, and at times my respect for you has declined, believing you were putting politics before the truth. But, not today. This was an attempt to see through the politics and tell the truth, something we all fail to do from time to time. And I commend you for it. Thank you. It's too uncommon today, from both (all) sides.
Although this may have been the most over the top example of hysteria relating to the Tea Party / Sarah Palin / Glenn Beck popularity, this isn't uncommon and it is a regular occurrence. In this case, it was just entirely over the top. People who have an affinity to the movement have noticed long before this (perhaps because they are naturally and reasonably more sensitive to it).
Anyway, thank you for writing about something you weren't obligated to write about. Even though we probably don't agree about very many things (the Beatitudes we would definitely agree about), this post revealed a genuineness, an honesty, and an integrity in you that is admirable. And I respect this type of work from anyone, whether we draw the same conclusions about life or not. And I respect it whether you are writing from a viewpoint I agree with or not.
From a conservative that is very sympathetic to the Tea Party momentum, but much prefers the style of a Russell Kirk to that of a Glenn Beck.
P.S.
I loved seeing Steven Greydanus posting on this blog. Steven, you have a good site and you do great work!
I learned so much about life from this great Disney film:
1. Most African Americans are kind of slow witted--but they usually have a heart of gold.
2. Millionaires are usually evil. Mr. Phipps was too rich to be a nice guy,
3. If you believe in the good lord, everything will work out in the end.
4. People who resemble Arab Terrorists (owner of Sham) are all probably evil.
I came away a better person for having seen this great film!
New favorite line. Excited announcer after the race, "I believe Dick Butkus could have rode this horse today and won."
Was my comment deleted?
An otherwise good piece ruined by Ebert's insulting conservatives for no reason with this garbage: "There are probably more liberals with middle-American values than conservatives,"
Really? Get a grip Rog. By middle-American values, I would include belief in universal health care, unemployment compensation, Social Security, Medicare, no tax breaks intended only for the rich, freedom of religion and similar matters.
Ebert: My review was of the animated version (of King & I), and I think it reads reasonably well.
No, the link pointed toward the Jodie Foster/Chow Yun-Fat "Anna & the King" (1999), and where the heck did the "Drooling over barbarians" yellow-peril streak come into the review?
I'm not going to get into a lengthy discussion of Rodgers & Hammerstein, but I can tell you the universal appeal of the fictionalized version does not derive from "harem fantasies" about Yul Brynner as some whip-wielding slavemaster.
That interpretation was just, er...heh...well, like you said, every critic has ONE off-track controversy-mongering burst of insanity once in a while. But no need to scare the kids over it.
I mean no offense to anyone... but Mary's tirade about Obama, BP, "fascism," etc. was so off-the-wall, incoherent, and, well, stupid, it makes me wonder if a democracy can actually work. This person will actually be voting?!
She even compares you and O'Hehir, completely missing the point that you completely disagree about his article. She clearly didn't read either your article or the O'Hehir review.
After reading Mary's comment, I think maybe I really will buy survival seeds.
Also, you're far to easy on Tarantino. He's a guy who probably wouldn't overtly call himself a man of the right, but there is something very socially unhealthy, backwards, and even reactionary, in his films. The idea that we should be entertained by scenes of degradation, violence and bloody-minded revenge is dispiriting enough [...]
Oh, give me a break. The man writes movies about women jumping around with samurai swords and a character called "the Bear Jew". Talk about paranoia.
Getting lost in this thread is against my better judgment, but two points.
To Bob O'H, regarding genetics not playing much factor in the quality of a racehorse's career. I read the post to which you link, citing that only about 8 percent of a horse's earnings success can be attributed to genetics.
Dr. Fager set the world record for a mile on dirt in 1968, carrying a staggering 134 pounds (he was heavily handicapped) in winning the race in 1:32 1/5. Even trained to a razor's edge by the same talented conditioner, a horse who was 8 percent less genetically gifted than Dr. Fager would be beaten in that race by 35 to 40 lengths.
In competition against the very best, being 92 percent as good isn't remotely good enough.
As for the claims that Secretariat's rival, Sham, was named in honor of the fictionalized Godolphin Arabian in Marguerite Henry's book, color me embarrassed for thinking all these years it was because Sham's sire was Pretense, both words being synonyms for something or someone that is not what it purports to be. Which actually is a lot more likely explanation. Especially since Sham didn't trace tail-male to the Godolphin Arabian (aka "El Sham" of the book) -- rather, to the Darley Arabian. ... Is there any published evidence that the namer of Sham chose that moniker from Marguerite Henry's book? These are honestly the first references to that claim that I can recall. I can't seem to Google-up anything authoritative.
Maybe Bill Nack could tell me. If anybody in this thread might know, it's probably him.
Sham, by the way, was bred by deeply bluegrass-rooted Claiborne Farm, the same place where Seabiscuit was born 47 years prior. And Sham was owned by Sigmund Sommer, who started out as a "modest building contractor in Brooklyn" (per the New York Times) and rose to become one of New York's wealthiest real estate developers. The horse's trainer was Frank "Pancho" Martin. Someone please inform me when the first Arabic terrorist is arrested who happens to be nicknamed "Pancho."
Roger, Roger, Roger!!! You and many of your readers have been dupped. Without even reading O'Hehir's review or response to your response of his review, I knew his review was satirical in nature or hyperbole, as he calls it. How could you not have known that much of what Salon.com publishes is just to get a buzz? And you went into such painstakingly detail to debunk what he said. For that reason, I stopped reading Salon.com months ago. I hope that you learned your lesson.
Ebert: Dear Mary, I am a good and decent, honest and hardworking person. When it comes to slandering and abusing others, how would you rank yourself on a scale of 1 to 10, in view of this message you have just committed?
Let's see. Michael Moore hasn't slandered anyone. Revisionist, Oliver Stone, wouldn't dream of slandering anyone. Nor would the haughty and elitist John Kerry. Leftist rags like the NYT are into objective journalism- they have YET to run a hit piece on anyone. Dan Rather, obviously, IS above slander. Moonbat Dennis Kucinich wouldn't lower himself to slander. We all know the highly ethical Chicago politician, Rahm Emmanual, hasn't abused or slandered anyone, ever. The mild-mannered Howard Dean doesn't have a slanderous bone in his body. Community agitators, er- civil rights "leaders", Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are above slander.
In fact, the whole American left is clean and pure as the wind-driven snow.
Mary was way out of line.
Oh yeah: Obama lied, jobs died. November 2nd will be a referendum on the failed policies of one Barry Hussein Obama (I guess you can throw in his merry of Marxists- the DNC, too.)
Ebert: So, now that we have that out of the way, how would you rank Mary?
To Mr. Roger Ebert.
I was going to write a long open letter to you and to Mr. O'Hehir, and I may still do that later, but as a college student at the moment, midterms are coming next week and I still have a full paper to write. I did have some specific comments I wished to share right away which will form the obvious framework for the letter should I choose to write it.
In essence it comes down to the following: I think that both reviews and responses to the movie Secretariat have been highly engaging, and honestly are great examples of what public discourse in this country should look like. As a lot of talk has turned to politics in the responses, I think more politicians could learn a lesson to both of you. Clearly there has been a level of respect maintained, no attacks on the other's character, just comments on statements made about the movie.
Now let me just say I personally have zero interest in seeing this movie. It does not appeal to me, and as a student I am often without much in the way of disposable income. But I enjoy your reviews and always read them for movies I am interested in, as well as movies you rate very highly or very low. I do not always agree with your opinions on movies but I do find that what you say always makes me think about whatever movie it is in a different and interesting light.
I'd also like to address a couple of direct statements. 1) That Mr. O'Hehir thinks of the movie as propaganda. He is correct that the most insidious propaganda is the most manipulative type which offers it's ideas as he describes in his response. I doubt that was honestly the intent of the filmmaker (as I am not the filmmaker, nor do I know them I cannot say this is a fact), but I could easily see the ideas presented twisted into the kind of propaganda of which he speaks. There is a rash of people claiming the past was more stable, more peaceful and just plain better a few decades ago. I speak as the middle son of a middle class family in the middle of the country (I'm from Kansas, my father made about $70,000 a year for most of my life.) I live in Kansas City, a metropolitan area, so I am not just some "farm hick" who doesn't know, nor am I just raging against my family. I view myself as a moderate politically, who honestly believes the past wasn't so great that we need to get back to it, but also not so bad that we need to throw it all away. And to see the country so polarized makes me weep. But everyday, I see, speak to, listen to, know, hate, and love people who honestly believe that the world was perfect and peaceful place in the 70's and 80's. And they are the types who will take a movie like this, and say it's an example of how it was that way. But you are right to say that the intent of the filmmaker was to spread these ideals is probably crazy (I will not say it is, as once again, I've not seen the movie.)
I do believe that Mr. O'Hehir attacking the movie for not mentioning Nixon, Watergate or Vietnam is extremely unfair, as any movie set in a particular time from the past cannot (literally is not physically capable) of discussing every single major event from the time as set up for how things got to the point they are when the movie starts. This would make every movie days long (minimum) and boring to everyone who watches them (except people like myself who love history.) A certain amount of expected knowledge is required for every movie, especially ones set in our real world's past.
As for calling Secretariat a "genetic freak", in that Mr. O'Hehir is right, albeit the term "freak" is misunderstood. As an aspiring scientist (my major is in genetics) the term fluke might work better than freak, since freak has attached to it many negative connotations. But a freak is what happened. While the eugenics of the horse are evident (both you and Mr. O'Hehir talk about the lineage of the horse being seen in the movie,) no amount of that can truly count for a horse with a heart 2 1/2 times the normal size (as you said yourself in the review was stated by Mr. Nack.) This is a genetic mutation which had allowed the horse's body to pump blood faster through it while running at faster speeds. And that's not Darwin's evolution. Forced breeding and restricted lifestyles are not the same thing as natural selection. It is evolution, but with many man imposed changes (though you could make an argument for that being the next stage of natural selection, once you put human consciousness into the equation, it's very hard to continue to call it "natural" selection.) And I do agree that Nietzschean Überhorse is a fitting title, as Nietzsche would probably himself have used Secretariat as an example of some of his ideals.
So that turned out longer than I intended for a comments section, but I hope that you read this, consider what I have said, and I have returned in some small way the gift you've given me (the inspiration of thought is the greatest gift I can imagine,) and share any comments you have. I also welcome any actual discussion (not just "You're an idiot and here's why") from fellow my fellow comment leavers.
Thank you for your time,
-- David Barnes
To be honest I've always thought of Secretariat as a Nietzschean Überhorse. But he was clearly not a Christian. He was a Shiite Muslim.
What's all this partisan bickering? Can't we all get along? We're all living in Obama's post-racial, post-partisan America! How's everyone enjoying the Democrats socialist utopia??
One thought kept going through my mind as I read the initial Salon review and then subsequent comments criticizing this movie for being a "saccharine" or "feel-good" or "idealistic" movie.
...IT'S A DISNEY MOVIE.
Are we really, really talking about this? Really?
I was initially baffled by the frankly hallucinogenic Salon review and I'm apparently going to stay baffled by others who have such strange expectations of a Disney family movie.
"Life As We Know It" seemed like a pretty crazy review. Accurate, but crazy.
Roger's Insane Review?: "Taste of Cherry".
Sorry, Roger.
Andrew O'Hehir:"For me, all in all, "Secretariat" adds up to something that looks pretty but tastes pretty bad, and apparently I expressed that view with a degree of force you found "insane." Frankly, I wish you had avoided those kinds of epithets, and focused more on areas where we may have real differences of philosophical or political or aesthetic opinion and interpretation to discuss."
Actually this is dead right. I'm not the words/thought police, but what precisely does "insanity" or mental illness have to do with Andrew's (or yours) opinion?
I love reading crazy entries by you far left radicals. Ebert is a nut case and so is his girlfriend who wrote the original insane review. Come Nov 2nd we get to take America back from you arrogant liberal p urea and get this country back on track. Obamma is the worst press ever. Thankfully he is. A one termer. By the way I wish GW B ush was still president AND if Sarah Palin runs for press in 2012 I AM VOTING FOR HER.
Ebert: They can press my pants anytime, girlfriend.
I can't believe I read the whole thread! Good stuff in there. I still don't really want to see the movie, but maybe I will anyway.
Crazy as O'Hehir's review was, I'm so glad he wrote it because it was so entertaining--only slightly less entertaining than your response.
Nietzschean Überhorse! I sincerely hope that a nascent death-metal band somewhere will take that as their moniker.
But picking on Wallace for his faith? Come on, Andrew, be cool.
Stick to the movie reviews and lay off the political bullshit.
Andrew's review is symptomatic of a mind that has been wrecked by an obsession with politics. And now that he's been called on it, he is disingenuously pretending that it was just "satire." I am no right-winger and no tea partier, but I am becoming increasingly concerned by attitudes on the American left. The ugly prejudices of urban white liberals are now being passed off as serious "thought," and outlets like Salon are oozing with an ugly, unfair, contempt of ordinary middle-americans. This isn't cultural criticism- this is thinly-veiled misanthropy.
For the record, I still think your review of Kick Ass was kind of insane, even though I ultimately agree with you when you say it was not that good of a film. But such reviews are few and far between, and definitely do not approach the level O'Hehir went to. Next thing you know, he will say how The Social Network is about the rise of the Nazi Party.
Oh, and if you want real insanity, check out http://www.movieguide.org/
It seems a little desperate to me that an author would try to hide behind hyperbole in order to excuse a really dumb review. It makes me think that he has been saving this review in his desk for while just waiting for the right movie to come along so he could pull it out. Unfortunately, he picked the wrong movie.
Good hyperbole advances a subtext, makes the reader think about the possibilities. Bad hyperbole like O'Hehir's makes the writer sound like lunatic fringe.
Being able to see subversive or evil agendas in everything that is filmed or written (as the groups you mention in this blog surely do), crosses the pathological line.
Gentlemen - sometimes a horse is just a horse.
Joe Tailor, that was excellent.
I think that the Salon articles confuses interpretation with authorial intent, and that is an important distinction to recognize. He might see it that way and so might some tea partiers, I don't know, but that has nothing to do with the intent of the film. I'm sure that any of us here could come up with a million interpretations of William Carlos Williams's "The Red Wheel Burrow" (or whatever the exact title is), some would be quite interesting, some might be close to the Williams's intent, and many more would say more about the interpreter than the interpreted. O'Hehir has an interesting reading of the film that I'm sure others will also have-- some will see it as a good thing, other was a bad. It's a really cool thing that humans can do with their brains: make connections, find meaning, organize information, etc. But to mistake those moves for true intent™ is dangerous and has been happening to religious texts for centuries. He supports his reading, but can't move it outside of the text of the film except with semi-sinister accusation of calling those involved Christians.
Roger:
Ron Turcotte never weighed 130 pounds when he was riding. The most Secretariat ever carried in his career was 126 pounds.
Mr. Ebert I love your work. I love your reviews. Even if I don't always agree with them, I know by the time that I am through reading an Ebert review whether or not I want to see a film in the theater, just rent it, or avoid it at all costs. I am so familiar with your work that I can recognize when you have allowed some leeway in your criticism just because one of a half dozen or so actors--actually mostly actresses--are in the film, because you are honest about your favoritism one way or another.
I also love your books. I can't see Lee Marvin in a film without laughing out loud in remembering an interview that you wrote about.
I especially love your social and political commentary with which I almost always agree. You are these days to the literary side of liberal ideology what Olbermann is to the broadcast media side of it, and God bless you for that.
So in this case of the Secretariat film it is not so much that I mind that you have shilled for your good and longtime friend Mr. Nack and his alleged love for horse racing. You admit all of that up front as the honest writer that you are, and there is something admirable to be said for your loyalty to longtime buddies. But in this case I am puzzled that you have uncharacteristically taken such a defensive and condescending stand against the other review--almost the way that Fox News would attack it---without examining it very closely.
For instance, I am pretty sure that the other writer knows that Sham was the actual name of the unfortunate colt that may have won the Triple Crown in 1973 had there not been a Secretariat around to screw things up. I can't speak for the other writer, but I took that to mean that the fact that Sham was in fact the other colt's name was perfect for this heros vs. villains drama. As for Frank "Pancho" Martin, I haven't seen the film yet, but if he was depicted as villainous, the film loses all credibility for me, as I have been around horse racing since seeing Secretariat in the fall of 1973, and Pancho, while colorful and sometimes entertaining, and perhaps not as eloquently spoken as Mr. Nack and his plantation owning buddies, was a pretty good trainer, and certainly not a bad guy.
I have admired Mrs. Tweedy ever since she smiled graciously at my brash Brooklyn friend and me when my friend asked her how she liked her horse the day in 1973 when we saw her riding the escalator down to the paddock at Belmont minutes before her horse lost to Prove Out. But for you to suggest that she wasn't lucky losing the famous coin flip, just demonstrates that you weren't thinking carefully about it. We all should be unlucky enough to lose a coin flip and end up with Secretariat as the result of losing it.
So, all that I would ask you to do is to take another critical look at the film and the other review without your Nack-colored glasses and see if you still so violently disagree with the review.
Despite my fears that the Disney-ized film will just be silly crap, especially with what looks from the trailers like uncalled for over-the-top sometimes cartoonish and badly casted portrayals of Lucien Lauren and Ogden Phipps, I will see the film because I love horse racing and Secretariat and I am curious to seeing how badly they exagerrated the history and screwed up the facts of horse racing when the real story was fascinating enough for me to be a fan of the game ever since I saw Big Red that first time at Belmont.
It would be an interesting experiment to imagine how the film would be, if directed by an openly religous Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist director and see what remained the same and what is interpreted differently.
I'm somewhere in the middle, largely because I have long-since stopped caring about the new vehicles the Disney-machine uses to peddle its wares. The Magical Negro will never get a better gig than the one he got from good old Walt, and that's ok, because his contract is binding; he's always in demand. However, this comment-thread is spectacular! Love the hat-tip to rich white women who have undoubtedly been the unsung trodden-upon heroines battling all these years against institutionalized racism. (Wow. Really?) And nowhere but here will you find an Ice Cube quote misappropriated to Zach Galifianakis. Kudos to you, Roger, for attracting such a crowd.
So I hadda go and read O'Hehir's review. All with IQs over 100.5 are to be forgiven for missing the intended humor. It's that sort of wine-and-cheese-tasting-party quippery that might prompt the jaded attendee to go jiggle his wineglass with somebody else. Haw, haw, haw.
I'm gonna see it and I'll expect a good snuffle. Why I expect a good snuffle is at http://twitpic.com/photos/tomdark9 .
And also because I watched Coppola's "The Black Stallion" (1979) a few nights ago. Forgiving the bits of improbability, I had a good snuffle because that horse acted just like ours do. After the movie I went outside and gave everybody a hug and a candy.
I see our government spy has failed to point out that racehorses themselves are partly from the middle east, therefore Muslim, and should also be subject to a hearty moral calumniation.
Elsewhere in the tinfoil hat news, the CIA has departments of Christian-bashing, with hopes of replacing it eventually with a concocted religion more consistent with administrative policies.
I wish you guys would quit bashing "tea partiers." The real ones are anti-war (unless you get them riled up enough to start shootin' right here at home). As the current toll of "spreading democracy" in Iraq alone is One Million Three Hundred Thousand dead, not to mention the enormous rise in cancer and birth deformities thanks to "depleted" uranium weaponry, we could USE a little anti-war around here for a change.
Roger,
I saw the movie yesterday, and then I read your review. I wouldn't change one word of what you wrote.
Diane Lane's performance was a masterful portrayal of a woman who courageously believed in herself and her Big Red horse. John Malkovich, Nelsan Ellis, and Otto Thorwarth, also gave terrific performances as the trainer, groom, and jockey that together guided Secretariat to become the greatest Triple Crown champion of all time.
Roger,
I've been following your reviews forever and find that you're generally right on and if not, you are at least civil and always insightful. That having been said, in reference to "Secretariat", I haven't seen it yet but the ad gave me immediate cringes when I heard the voice of Nelsan Ellis as "Eddie", speaking in an accent that was, well, reminiscent of portrayals of black people in less enlightened times. So maybe the real guy spoke like that and the portrayal was for accuracy. Is that the most important thing in a movie like this, to be documentary-like?
The Salon reviewer drew some connections to "The Blind Side" which seemed to split Liberals and Conservatives pretty clearly. What does one say to the idea that all a black kid needs to succeed is an upper class white family to raise him? Like an '80's sitcom. I think a point can be made for the fact that we are all looking so hard for that conspiracy. Yet, how can we be blamed for that? While it used to be okay to say whatever nasty things you wanted, now its all in code. "Political correctness" means "I miss saying nasty things about people different than me". "Middle American" or "Small town values" or "Real Americans" means "White people". The list goes on and on. Your idea of Middle American values is the correct and traditional one but it is being changed by overuse in the service of a an agenda. It's called love to push hate and an act of peace to push for war. The only goood thing about it is that usually gets debunked. Hopefully your definition of "Middle-American values" will be retored.
Dan Axelrod, for God's sake, DON'T read Othello.
I wasn't interested in seeing this movie before, but this debate has me intrigued. Since I haven't seen it, I obviously can't comment on its quality, but the previews made it appear trite and formulaic (not that previews can't be wrong). I didn't see "The Blind Side" for the same reason; not because, as some critics have pointed out, it condescendingly portrays a saintly white woman turning the life around of an unfortunate young black man, whom I've read, has no discernible personality in the movie and functions merely as a symbol. The politics of either of these movies aren't what's kept me from seeing them, but rather what appeared to me to be a total lack of imagination. Again, I'm going by what I've read, the previews, and my own assumptions, and it's possible that I'm dead wrong on both counts.
O'Hehir's review I felt was a bit extreme. It came off as gimmicky and a little pretentious; I can picture scores of movie-snobs reading it and nodding to themselves in superiority (I don't find this to be typical of his reviews, however. While they occasionally contain a whiff of arrogance or snobbery, they're rarely overcome by it, and the majority of them are extremely well-written and thought-out). I found his more straightforward rebuttal (where he actually talks about, you know, the movie) to be a much better argument as to why the film is (alleged) crap.
To be fair, your indictment of his review wasn't exactly levelheaded, either. It seemed to me like it was more a gut reaction than a thought-out response. While I'm not sure I would have gathered that much of O'Hehir's review was intended as satirical if I hadn't known so beforehand, certain lines were quite obviously written with tongue planted firmly in cheek ("Even the horse's name was evil!")
So I think you're both guilty to some degree. Either way, you've stirred up quite an interesting debate (which, despite my faith in your judgment, I'm still more intrigued by than the movie itself).
Andrew O'Hehir is an atypical writer of his (my) generation, in that he chokes on his own sense of irony.
Reply to: While it used to be okay to say whatever nasty things you wanted, now its all in code. "Middle American values" or "Real Americans" means "White people". The list goes on and on.
1790 was the first official year of the U.S. Census...
English ancestry 48%
African 19%
Scotch-Irish 8%
German 7%
Irish 5%
Welsh 3%
Dutch 2.5%
French 2%
“The 1850 census saw a dramatic shift in the way information about residents was collected. For the first time, free persons were listed individually instead of by family. There were two questionnaires: one for free inhabitants and one for slaves.”
Let's look at the census data for "white" as a percentage of American population:
1900 88%
1910 89%
1920 90%
1965 Immigration Act passed
1980 80%
1994 74%
2000 72%
The point is, people below a certain age in America have no idea why the older generation thinks of it in those terms.
America's population is projected to increase to 392 million by 2050 -- more than a 50 percent increase from the 1990 population size.
Reply to: "The Blind Side" (says) all a black kid needs to succeed is an upper class white family to raise him?
I would be curious to read how you debunk that particular theory.
I'm assuming you mean "wealthy" upper class, which is the sitcom version. Maybe not "Gossip Girl" wealthy, but a pretty nice lifestyle, enough to pay Ivy League college tuition without having to worry about getting a scholarship.
All I know is this: I watched the trailer for Secretariat and thought, "Gee I'm in a bad mood, but that looks like a fun movie!" Then I read Andrew's review and though "Wow, there's no way I can watch that movie without feeling guilty about liking it." So...I guess I will skip it. I've been effectively policed. Back to my ipad!
As Penny Chenery's youngest son, I am fascinated by “Secretariat's” reception by critics, and the dialogue between Ebert and O'Hehir is to me the most interesting so far. Rather than taking sides about whether the movie is "good" or "bad" (I am far too close to evaluate its merits), I want to comment on the value I see in both reviewers' perspectives. From their conflicting angles, each shines a light on something I believe to be true about both the movie and the events that gave rise to it.
I understand O'Hehir's perception of something relentlessly, indeed forcedly, upbeat about the story, perhaps masking a troubling reality underneath. The movie does, indeed, glamorize and improve on my family's situation in the early 1970s, as it sanitizes the cultural context of that era. In real life, we Tweedys were more riven and frayed by the large and small conflicts of the time, and by the pressures of celebrity into which we were suddenly thrust. The wars between our parents were more bitter, the marriage more broken, and we kids were more alienated and countercultural than the movie depicts. During the pre-race CBS broadcast at the Belmont, Woody Broun interviewed my dad, my siblings and me, asking Jack whether he was the "power behind the throne." He gamely (and for me now, poignantly) replied that he was proud of his wife, his kids, "and the horse.” Mom had wanted us to be all together for that interview, but away from the cameras we were each living in a separate world. The movie navigates this terrain with a combination of erasure, gentleness, and tact, and from the point of view of my family’s privacy, I am grateful.
But Ebert is right that there is something more -- and something better -- at work in the movie than simply airbrushing over painful truth. My mother has always known that the “Secretariat story,” and her role in it, filled a deep cultural need. While the country was convulsed by feminism, Watergate and Vietnam, Penny took pains to present as a wife and mother, offering a wholesome, western, maternal female image that paired beautifully with the heroic, powerful male icon that Secretariat was becoming. Our President may have been a Machiavellian liar, our soldiers denounced as baby-killers, and our fathers excoriated as chauvinist pigs as they commuted grimly to work. But here came Secretariat, deeply male, muscular and graceful, his chest lathered with sublimated sex. And on that day in June 1973, when he blew away the field in the Belmont Stakes, he transcended argument, rivalry, even transcended sport itself. In that moment Secretariat gave my family, and gave the public, something like grace.
Now we are again in a cultural moment of war and dissension. My sense is that the movie’s creators didn’t feel the need to portray the convulsions of the early 1970s, in part because today’s audiences carry the burdens of our current convulsions into the theaters with them, hoping to escape briefly to a world they can believe in and admire. I think the movie is offered to satisfy the old hunger for a kingly male and a queenly female, who together strive for something beyond themselves, who seek victory, and achieve grace. Disney has long been in the business of telling this kind of story. The best such films rise to the level of archetype, while lesser ones sink into the mire of cliche, or worse. Whether “Secretariat” succeeds in this mythic leap is for critics to argue, and for audiences to decide. Personally, I’m enjoying the ride, as well as the critical dust it’s kicking up.
Ebert: Dear John Tweedy,
I find this comment sane, wise, and wonderfully well-written. Are you a writer? Wait, you are obviously a writer... what I mean is, do you write? I think I would be interested in reading you on a great many subjects.
It's this simple, maybe: SECRETARIAT, an "inspirational true story," is based on a book written by a friend of Roger's. Maybe Roger has heard these stories so often, he was delighted to see them up on the screen.
"Inspirational true story," while not precisely an oxymoron, should certainly be a red-flag to anyone who is averse to the glossy or the well-scrubbed. There is truth and there is inspiration, but when Hollywood - for that matter, any media - gets hold of the one it usually square-pegs it to fit the other.
Secretariat was a horse that won races. Um, Christianity and "values" have NOTHING to do with it. To market the film by associating it with such code concepts displays intent that is objectionable. Of course, I'm defining "objectionable" for myself, and it doesn't really matter if I'm the only one objecting.
Some commenters have insisted "a horse is just a horse," while others have suggested the horse is "an exceptional athlete" or represents a "defining" moment in their history. If it were the former, it wouldn't be the subject of a film, likely. However, to present it as the latter is, frankly, just as insane.
After reading Mr. O'hehir's response to your blog post and your subsequent rebuttal, I came to the conclusion that Mr. O'hehir's original review was poorly written instead of insane.
If Mr. O'hehir's goal was to write a satirical criticism of the film, most readers should be able to tell that the review is satirical. Based on some of the earlier posts here as well as your initial response, I don't think his attempt at satire came across successfully.
I am not suggesting that writing a satirical review is a bad idea. I think Mr. O'hehir was trying to creatively engage people into reading his review. But instead of letting the reader in on the fact that the review was satire, Mr. O'hehir assumed the reader would immediately get his sense of humor. There is a difference between assuming an audience's intelligence and assuming an audience understands.
I am reminded of a time when you and Gene Siskel appeared on a talk show where audience members got to ask questions. One of them asked about what a movie review is supposed to say. I am paraphrasing here, but Mr. Siskel replied simply that it is what the person thinks when they see the film. Mr. O'hehir let his writing technique get in the way of saying what he thought about the film.
Pardon me for the following cliche modification, but it seems apropos. A horse won't drink water if it isn't led there first.
"The horse unified a country"
Please get over yourself. It was an over-hyped sporting event. I lived during the times. It had no bearing on my "hippie or politician" life. Or, maybe I'm excused because I was neither at the time?
This is getting sillier by the minute.
Having had the pleasure of hearing your great friend Bill Nack read from his biography of Secretariat -- I was able to assess the movie as being very close to the spirit of his wonderful book. There is no politic subtext. This is a story of an incredible athlete, who happened to be of the equine persuasion, with the marvelous ability to make people who watched him win feel like winners themselves. When I was a kid wrapped up in news coverage of Secretariats spectacular winning streak, my father said the horse was the only one who seemed to generate the excitement he remembered as a child of the Depression following Sea Biscuit's races on the radio.
Andrew, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and a horse is just a horse -- although, in this case, a magnificent magical horse.
I urge everyone to get Bill Nack's book and see this movie for a straight-forward, heart-lifting movie about one of the world's greatest athletes.
(P.S. Andrew, for a tighter focus, it is perfectly permissible for a book or movie to spotlight just the story at hand, not the greater context of the political climate. For instance, you could read most of Jane Austen and barely know that the Napoleonic Wars were raging. I find Pride and Prejudice great literature, nonetheless.)
Some of Roger Eberts more befuddling reviews;
The odd double standard applied to I Spit On Your Grave/Last House On The Left (this applies to their recent remakes too).
Fight Club (It's about nazi's, dontchya know) which compliments this Andrew O'Hehir's review nicely.
The Cell.
Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls (okay, we know why that gets a pass).
The Elephant Man.
Anything by James Toback.
Knowing (I'm gonna go ahead and throw in Dark City too).
Blue Velvet.
Fast Times At Ridgemont High (and we can throw in The Hitcher for the same reason).
Raising Arizona (and Hudsucker/O Brother/Lebowski orignially).
And I'm now going to negate this entire post by saying he lost his mind and got it completely wrong when he thumbed down...
Freddy Got Fingered.
Roger, you've made my day!!