Every time Kurt Kuenne’s Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father, my review of the film gets a new flood of angry comments. Since my analytical response to the documentary seems to be so thoroughly out of tune with the emotional responses of MSNBC viewers, I thought I’d excerpt from a few of these comments in order present the argument of the other side:
“Katrina ,
Your pure uttering of nonsense assures me that you yourself suffer of some form of illness. And I am not saying this as an insult. I truly believe you must be scarred or simply looking to rile up attention by being simple.” — michelle
“Can’t you see that Karina wrote an amateur minded article with the purpose of stirring up emotions? … Move on to a quality review, secure in your own ideas and inspirations.” — John
“I’m stunned at reading the the above “review”, - or that this film was even ‘reviewed’ at all by anyone…The basis for this film are horrid, the final outcome is unthinkable, and for YOU to criticize “how” it was made is beyond me. Just how many devoted friends to you have Karina?” — Judy
“I’m writing to Karina and I just want to say that people like you are what makes up the crazy in this world. I will say a prayer for you.” — tammy
Lessons learned: Documentaries shouldn’t be reviewed; film reviews shouldn’t ask you to question “your own ideas and inspirations”; my name is Katrina, and I am sick and mad because I tried to do my job, which I’ve always thought is not to assess a film’s merits based on how it made me feel, but on the choices made by the filmmaker, his/her degree of craft, and the quality of the finished product divorced of the maker’s noble intentions. I guess I was wrong!
The following comment came in last night on my post about the National Board of Review’s annual honors. It is anonymous, so don’t, like, bet the farm on it (although I don’t know why you’d be betting your farm on SpoutBlog comments anyway. Take your farm more seriously!), but I thought it was interesting:
I’m a member of the NBR (sort of, well, student, even though I’m not anymore… long story) and I’m consistently left in horror by the comments, questions and tastes of our unimaginative membership, most having been cloistered from the real world in there upper west side four bedroom apartments for millenia, rushing from Q&A’s to meet their 7pm reservations at Isabella’s to discuss just how uplifting The Great Debaters was. Anyone remember how Blood Diamond was the third best film of the year last year!? I promise you, the average membership is so old, feeble and generally unsavvy, that Ben Affleck is the only new director they can remember from the past 12 months.
I should also note that I wrote that post based on a partial list of the honors published by Variety. The Reeler has the full list, which includes the NBR’s Top Five Documentaries and Top Ten Indie Films (”indie”, in this case, seems to translate as “an excuse to lump A Mighty Heart in the same bucket as Once.”)
