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Chronicle film critic turned amateur psychologist Mick LaSalle has a lot to say about those filthy peons known as commenters. Mainly, that they suck. Hard. In his post "The Real You is the Anonymous You," LaSalle boasts that he never reads his stuff online, only in print. (In between leafing through a well-worn copy of Finnegans Wake, no doubt.) But by random chance, it seems, he ended up reading remarks on his year-end review piece, and was "struck by the belligerence and the willful stupidity of some of those comments." (Welcome to the club, angel. Can we get you a drink?) While he had initially dismissed comments as vessels for which people could play a character, LaSalle now reads them kernels of readers' true selves.
Then, in a stroke of unfiltered genius, LaSalle chides his faithful commenters. It is awe-inspiring.
Next time you're foaming at the mouth online, assuming you ever do (and the people who visit this site tend to be fairly civilized), consider the possibility that you're not acting, that this is who you'd be if you were unfettered and unconstrained, that this is who you'd like to be. And then take a long look at who you'd like to be. And then think about aiming . . . a little bit higher.
Oh this is just too delicious. What did you people do to him? Revolutionary Road couldn't have been that bad.
It goes without saying, but the comments to his massive butthurt are well worth your time.
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So I guess being a smartass prick since my testicles dropped in 6th grade has had a certain cause and effect on those thin of skin. I'll go on record and say that Mick LaSalle sounds like a whiny douche whose testicles will never drop. And I'm fairly certain that if I listened to him whining in some bar or restaurant, I would probably say that to his face.
No time for suffering weak kneed fools, Dr Jones.
Yes, he's that bad.
well the truth is that most of the people on SFGATE are assholes. as a result, commenting on SFGATE can be tons of fun (if bigoted idiots entertain you, as they do me).
Poor Mick, reduced to trolling for pageviews. Maybe rumors of Chron layoffs swept the office yesterday so he's trying to sing for his supper.
The most entertaining thing about SFGate is the comments. I take that back. SFGate writers complaining that people on teh internets are mean is very entertaining. Thank you, Brock.
It's an old, old, old cliche, but what is it with critics hating criticism.
totally!
And another thing...is this feel-bad-for-film-critics year? Yesterday it was the fatty hatty lady getting the hoof. I'm sorry, you're a film critic, you sit and watch films and then write about them. Professionally you've had it pretty good. Here's an idea, go make a film, see how easy it is. Bogdanovich did it, so why don't you?
And yes, that last comment is the real me.
SFGate has a particularly nasty set of trolls. They seem to mostly be right-wing nutjobs attracted to the site by the words "San Francisco." Once there, they promulgate their views on any old article that attracts their attention. Sounds like LaSalle only just learned this fact the other day, hence his surprise. He'll get over it, I'm sure, and learn to ignore them before long.
This is also the Mick LaSalle who called Martin Lawrence's Black Knight "a comic tour-de-force."
Clearly this person is a total n00b.
Lecturing folks to take a look at themself? Pushaw. What's the time-span for the average person to finally understand that their computer screen is more like a mirror?
Shocking revelation LaSalle. I also hear people look at porn on the 'Net which they would probably not do in real life.
And here I was, a random commenter, defending Mick LaSalle on this very site just yesterday.
waitwaitwaitwaitawait....
we ARE talking about Mick La Salle, right?
THE Mick LaSalle? the opinionated "film critic" of the Chronicle for like, a zillion years? the one who coined the opinion of one of the revenge of the nerds films "you may laugh once or twice in the 2 hours this film lasts...but don't you do that anyway?"
ok srsly? rilly?
Mick La Salle has always been one opinionated dude. Heck, I remember the days when SFist ripped on him (and with cause).
Here's what happened. For decades people had their 2 cents about Mick's reviews. Until now, that sh*t was uncorked. Then the Internets and "comments" were made and OMG WTF people are expressing opinions. Oh noes!
It's like everything else. Once upon a time people just kept this all bottled in and released it at the appropriate time ("like when daddy hit the referee with the whiskey bottle?"
Now, thanks to technology they all get their say. And apparently it makes Mick mad. (this , someone who ripped on me personally because I dared suggest on his non film blog on the Chron that Hillary Clinton was human and therefore less than perfect as a presidential candidate. His fatwas = those of the left any day!)
Gee, our old LaSalle ran great.
FTW
Dyin'!
Look out Mick, the Internet is all four foot wide vaginas with razor sharp teeth and Quentin Tarantino fanboys with violent fantasies about movie critics who don't agree with them. We white male elitists better just stick to using it for our 401k statements.
Oh noes! Mean people!
I have only this to say to you, Mr. LaSalle: Invent a time machine, go back to the year 1993, and you could actually be one of the first thousand journalists to break this story.
***WARNING: This thread is now approaching epic proportions of LOL***
What, has Mr. LaSalle never heard of The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory?
Mike LaSalle is a terrible critic and deserves to be harshly criticized. As I recall, I'm pretty sure he gave a good review to "Big Momma's House."
I agree completely with LaSalle. If you sign on and boast about annoying people by being a "...smartass prick..." I think it does say something about the real you.
This isn't an old stale idea he's finally discovering. There's definitely an anti-snark wave starting up.
It's fun to be the joker in the back of the room pointing out how stupid everybody is, but it gets old after a while.
"I'm interested in what intelligent nice people have to say."
Hilarious! This is exactly why I don't listen to this jerk.