Topic: So That Happened....
Two things happened, recently. One of them was a shining example of amazing generosity and inspiring kindness, from a handful of friendly, relative strangers. The other was a baffling, sickening display of hurtful word venom, from a complete stranger I used to be close friends with. Both of these occurrences have left me deep in thought but let's start with the story that I can better understand, the positive one:
As some of you may know, my Stepfather passed away at the end of March of last year. I promptly moved into my Mother's house to take care of her both emotionally and financially. Money was extremely scarce during this difficult time, to the point where we were having trouble keeping the lights on and possibly going to be evicted. A few weeks after I had moved in, my Mother became very sick and we discovered she had Ovarian Cancer. To help make ends meet, I was taking freelance work for a film critic friend, transcribing audio interviews to text. In addition, I also installed a Paypal "Donate" button on my Sofa Dogs podcast website, as well as joining the Amazon Affiliates program.
Over the next year, thanks to such outside, financial support, not only were my Mother and I able to stay afloat but we also managed a reasonable modification with the mortgage company, so we could stay put. My Mother had a hysterectomy, during which Tim Minear kept me company on the phone that night so I wouldn't worry myself ill. After six, monthly sessions of chemotherapy, Mom has been kicking ass and taking names. A few weeks ago, her Cancer came back.... The Doctors give her a year and a half, provided she undergo a different, more radical form of chemotherapy. Her first treatment is tomorrow.
Suddenly, my purpose in life had been given a severely limited window of time. I needed to make the time count. The Dallas Comic Con was coming up and Mom had never experienced such an event. I put out the call to a few online friends for donations. In just three days, a handful of folks around the globe (one of them being Zarban of these forums) had greatly chipped in! My Mother and I had a fantastic time and it gave me the opportunity to meet Heather Langenkamp, from Wes Craven's A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984).
Having said all that, here's the awful, fucked-up thing that happened. I've expressed on these forums in the past, my frustration with a number of film reviews by Confused Matthew. Well, on the blip.tv version of his site, viewers can use Facebook to comment on specific videos. After Confused Matthew's review of Drive (2011), I was fed up and decided to voice my opinion:
"You know, the more reviews I watch from Confused Matthew, the more I come to the conclusion that he should really reconsider being a film critic. He's just not very good at it. Sure, there are occasional reviews that are contemplative, well thought out and intricate with a strong attention to nuance and detail. The problem is, for every The Dark Knight review, there's a Drive, The Avengers or Cloud Atlas, where Matthew completely misses the message and lacks any understanding of what the film was actually about, sometimes to the point of missing clear, important details, as if he wasn't paying attention at all. I pray the alternative explanation isn't that he actually didn't watch the film he's reviewing. For a guy who believes the screenplay to be the most important thing (he's right about that), he sure does let a lot of bad ones slide, based solely on how well the movie "entertained him" (Independence Day). So, not only is Matthew not very observant much of the time, he's also a bit of a hypocrite. The problem with Confused Matthew as a film critic can be summed up in the opening theme music that accompanies his main reviews. During the lyric, "He knows what's good," (which is obnoxious arrogance to begin with) we're shown a poster for Pan's Labyrinth. I hate to break it to you Matthew but though visually stunning and imaginative the film may be, the screenplay is an inconsistent, inconsequential mess. These guys will explain why better than I could: http://www.downinfront.net/index.php?id=60 I'm sorry to be so cruel but I just couldn't hold my tongue anymore. Ultimately, if you lack the ability to pick up on the subtle nuances of a film, that's on you. It's not the movie's fault. I'm not saying you have to like it, I just want you to have a better understanding of the material so you'll at least have good, informed reasons for dismissing it."
The few responses to my post and the corresponding video have so far been mostly in agreement. You can see the video and read all viewer responses here: http://blip.tv/confused-matthew/request … ve-6885932 Earlier today, Facebook notified me of this:
"Dude, you know the more I read from you the more I come to the conclusion that you've just really devolved into one of the most passive aggressive not to mention delusional and duplicitous taints I've ever met. I've watched you over the years crawl further and further up your own ass and then have the sack to go on passive aggressive tirades about other assholes who are really only doing the same thing you are..which is you took your precious little biased soaked opinions about a movie or tv show, combined it with an ample amount of bitterness toward people who've made you feel small, found an outlet like the internet and decided to say "screw you outside world, I'm going to have a voice and it's going to be heard" (or something similar) Problem is all you really did was become the asshole you used to hate..overly sensitive and defensive to a kind of creepy degree when it comes to the C and D level shit you like..which would be fine but you attempt to pass yourself off as sincere, which to anyone who actually knows you, you are absolutely not. Confused Matthew is a blowhard, he knows it and makes no qualms about it...hell, it's kinda sorta the underlying theme of his videos..but at least Confused Matthew attempts to be humorous in his rantings, meaning he at least on some level acknowledges this all as at least in some part a performance. Kevin Smith, in all his fat, puerile pomposity does the same thing...he makes people laugh while he's bitching about shit. They both have a noticeable dose of comedic delivery in their material. You're an asshole...but you're one of the worst kinds of asshole in that you either don't know it and or won't admit it and you don't offer anything else to compensate for it. You are the D level podcasting version of Fox news. You pathetically try and pass yourself off as fair, balanced and knowledgeable, all the while spouting lackluster, often times banal and worst of all...just not even remotely fun or funny "opinions". If Confused Matthew should reconsider being a film critic, so should you...because you're really, really, REALLY not good at it either. Please offer a better product to the public you're marketing to or kindly go away because you're not funny, you're not particularly witty, you're a niche inside a niche inside a niche market and to be that monumentally redundant and then have the audacity to publicly ask what you call your "fans" for financial support so that you can continue giving them watery shit?....that's got to be one of the lamest, most pathetic things I've ever seen you do. Ultimately if you lack the ability, or willingness to realize how you're no better than the fuckheads you complain about, then that's on you..it's not Confused Matthews fault (I'm actually fucking floored that I end up inadvertently defending Matthew as I don't agree with almost anything he says, but that doesn't mean he's wrong) and I won't feign concern for "educating" you or trying to help YOU to understand, you already know exactly what you're doing, that's what makes it so pathetic."
A bit of personal history: The guy who wrote those things used to be a very dear friend of mine. We've known each other since High School. We would discuss popular culture endlessly and we both wanted to be professional screenwriters (except I wanted to be a novelist even way before that, since I was 10). We rarely had any strong disagreements but anytime it looked like he was going to lose an argument, this guy would tell me to "shut up" and that his taxes were putting a roof over my head (because I was disabled and receiving a Supplemental Security Income), or some such strangeness. Keep in mind, we were both Teenagers at the time. I was too young and inexperienced to realize then that what he was saying was not only bullshit but highly insulting. Years later, I recalled these instances back to him and he simply replied, "I don't remember that." To him, that's like saying it never happened, when the appropriate response should have been, "I said that, really? Man, I'm sorry. I was just a kid back then."
Over the years, he and I grew up with differing tastes and ideals. We stayed in touch as much as possible, which usually consisted of me putting in all the effort to take multiple trains and buses to visit him. During one particular visit to his apartment, he said it was "moronic" that I paid $40 for season 2 of Dollhouse on blu-ray (which has exclusive commentary by Tim Minear on an episode). He said this right to my face. I was a moron for spending my own money on blu-rays that I liked. He said this while directly behind him, a wall of shelving housed hundreds of DVDs, most of which could be argued were more a matter of quantity rather than quality.
Because of incidents like these, I conversed with him less and less, until his Father passed away. A mutual friend and I went out there to visit him and offer emotional support. Eventually, without provocation, he reignited an ongoing debate we had been having that year: Drive (2011) versus Scott Pilgrim Vs The World (2010). You see, I loved Drive. He hated it. I liked Scott Pilgrim, but felt it was not necessarily a "good" movie. I guess he loved it. He felt Drive was a bad film because it was "simple" and "without substance". I argued that Scott Pilgrim is the one that's style over substance. My friend kept trying to understand how I could excuse one film for these sins but condemn the other. I kept maintaining that I actually liked both films but I disagreed that they both lacked substance. I believe that just because the story in Drive may be "simple", does not mean the same thing as "simple-minded" and that Scott Pilgrim isn't particularly "about" something. That's the difference.
We had this argument many, many times over the course of a few months and I was growing sick of talking in circles. What irked me the most was whenever he would try to tell me why I liked Drive. He would say that I was being biased and distracted by the movie's aesthetic and atmosphere, which is basically like saying, "Oh, you don't know what an actual, quality burger is. You just like this burger because of the shiny wrapper it came in." So condescending was he in that moment, the only thing left to do would be to pat me on the head and regard me as adorable but that's not the breaking straw.
That came immediately afterwards in the conversation, when I let slip that I loved The Cabin In The Woods (2012). Even though I didn't ask him his opinion, he proceeded to tell me the many reasons why he hated the film, one of them being, "It was written by two different guys and they wrote it in two days and you can totally tell." At that moment, I had an epiphany: This guy is an idiot and knows very little about writing.
Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard had been discussing the ideas and story beats of that film for years before they sat down to actually type it out, not to mention that since they'd worked so closely together on Buffy and Angel, their writing styles and voices were actually extremely similar. Also, to dismiss the script because it was written over a weekend is to dismiss most weekly, Emmy-winning television. It's because of their background in the fast-paced world of TV, they were able to write so fast. You know what else was written in two days? How about The Breakfast Club (1985) or Firefly's The Train Job (2002)?
This, in conjunction with his general attitude of disrespect and dismissive regard for me ultimately dissolved our friendship. I shook his hand, told him to "take care" and never saw him again. That was over a year ago and now this. This comes as a complete, heartbreaking shock to me for a couple reasons:
1. He still can't seem to let go of the fact that I love Drive. I have no problem with him disliking the film but he has always seemed to have a problem with my liking it. It's almost as if it pisses him off, somehow.
2. We haven't been around each other in almost two years. As far as I was concerned, we were on civilized, yet non-speaking terms. I've done and said nothing to this man but suddenly, somehow he hates me. He's built me up in his mind as some sort of two-faced, insincere, self-aggrandizing asshole and I have no idea why or how. I'm like this villain to him.
If you go back and look at what I said about Confused Matthew, you'll see that though I accuse him of lacking intelligent comprehension of film, I apologize for such criticisms because I do genuinely feel bad for insulting him. I simply do not agree with his tactics and am disappointed by his methods with which he uses to examine a film's story. Apparently, this makes me history's greatest monster. A pathetic loser who produces joyless, unfunny podcasting garbage (that he can't stop listening to, it seems).
I also don't know why he feels the need to throw Kevin Smith under the bus with his backhanded compliments (he's a fat asshole but at least he's funny and self-aware?). At no point do I ever mention or compare myself to someone who makes movies for a living. My Mother read that Facebook thread and told me not to try and make sense of those comments. She said he was clearly an unhappy person with a miserable life and that I shouldn't take it personally, because that's what he wants. To get under my skin.
While I will eventually get over it, the words are still very surprisingly hurtful and confusingly mean-spirited.... So that happened. What do you guys make of all this?
