What I find most hilarious about all this is that I’ve actually got some stories that would curl even Wissot’s hair. I’m just not giving them away.

For a guy who had a blog called In the Company of Glenn and who recently blogged about his vacation, you draw a pretty hard line on self-indulgent commentary. And, weirder still, your George-referencing recollection of the Worldwide theater wasn’t even your own but your co-worker’s. At least Lauren wrote about someone she personally fucked.

This is silly. Nobody throws a fit when J. Hoberman mentions his friendships with filmmakers (such as a recent recollection of his relationship with Ken Jacobs and family in a review of son Azazel’s movie) or raises an eyebrow at Jonathan Rosenbaum’s I I me me surveys of various films. I have to conclude that it’s the sex talk that got you guys so hot and bothered. Me, I find it interesting when somebody writes about the connections between films and real life that occur beyond 9-5 and behind closed doors. The movies we write about are big commercial enterprises, yes, but they reach in personal places– and I dunno about you, but I find myself arguing passionately about this stuff in the strangest places.

Filmbrain, what rich person can we beg to build another $3 (shit, or even $5) cinema in NYC? With insomniac late late shows? Yeah, I’m dreaming, but, damn…

It’s noble of you to defend your colleague, but come on….Wissot blew it in that piece by feeling the need to share with us who she fucks (and how great it was.) It smacks of both insecurity and immaturity. (I’ll go on record to say I don’t believe her tale of a heterosexual bodybuilder/personal trainer who discusses Dietrich.) Yet anyone and everyone who raised a similar point was labeled a prude. Please. This has nothing to do with sexism, or some sinister cabal of white male critics trying to suppress her sexuality.

The subject of her piece is fine, and well worth exploring, but the narcissistic post she turned in is more suited for Livejournal than it is for The House Next Door.

On a lighter note, I couldn’t agree more with you about the Worldwide. So obsessed with the place was I that I would find myself going there 3-4 times per week JUST for the experience.

I disagree with your opinion of Lauren’s talent and how well/poorly it served her argument. She and I both talk about how films relate to our lives. I got the sense that some of the negative reactions to her piece were more about her life than her prose or even her point. How dare she include strange, incongruous episodes from her life in a film discussion? How dare she describe a sexual encounter without apologetic preamble or apology? Maybe cuz she’s a grown-ass woman and expects you to react as a grown-ass man?

As for Manny Farber, I was talking about the effete, delicate flower that the anonymous reader had evoked. I was destroying the Farber of that person’s imagination, not the real guy. Folks build Kael up the same way now that she’s dead– as if she weren’t street-level when she was here.

And I don’t know where you get this notion that Manny Farber was some kind of effete, delicate flower averse to profanity, mild or otherwise. I dare say were he alive, and inclined to pay you any mind, he’d laugh in your face and tell you to, well, piss off.

Incidental factoid for gossip lovers: that much-missed Cineplex Odeon was a favorite hangout of my old office mate John Kennedy Jr. —when things got too stressful at “George” he’d duck outta 1633 Broadway and go down the block to take in a matinee. We caught a couple of the same shows there, in fact…

Also, I used to regularly go to a $1.50 theater in PA, that showed mostly everything at one point or another. I’d go see anything I didn’t feel like paying full price for and I mean anything, including Swayze and Meat Loaf in “Black Dog” and the only film I’ve ever walked out of, “Safe Passage.”