Holy Moly. Maybe She Just Had a Bad Day.

Following the trail of comments to my reporting of good reviews of The Lady in the Water, I came across another to add to the gaggle. Sarah at The Drama of Existence also reveled in the storytelling in that movie. In the process she mentioned something that I also had wondered about ... however, not having seen either movie I didn't comment.

I'm sorry to pick on Ms. Nicolosi again, but for someone to say Lady in the Water is "monstrously bad storytelling," and then call The Devil Wears Prada one of the best movies of 2006 shows the sad fact that originality and imagination and hidden meanings and allegories and even fairy tales are no longer appreciated nor wanted.

Now this is not unusual criticism for a movie critic to receive. And, it is not the first time that Barbara Nicolosi has been way off target from my point of view. Beginning with her strong dislike of The Lord of the Rings movies she has established a pattern of disliking movies that I usually love.

Well, we can't agree all the time. She and I can hardly agree any of the time about movies. So I simply ignore her reviews. I enjoy her other writing quite a bit and disagreeing on movies is hardly a crime (or so I thought until today). Possibly, it is as simple as Enbrethiliel's comment, made after hugely enjoying the most recent Pirates of the Caribbean movie which Barbara Nicolosi most emphatically did not find entertaining, "I guess that Barb Nicolosi, for all her wonderful qualities, has just, to quote another work of Uncle Gilbert's, 'never been a boy.'"

I was frankly stunned to see the tone and severity of the remarks that Nicolosi made in Sarah's comments boxes under the guise of "(and I am being harsh here to match the harsh comments you made about me as a critic)." Tit for tat.

Go read them for yourselves. Because here's the thing y'all. I thought that Nicolosi was a pro. A Hollywood pro. I also thought she understood how the industry worked and the way that blogging works.

Most of all I thought she was the type of person who wouldn't attack like that (read "a faithful Catholic practicing her faith"). We all have bad days. We all react suddenly sometimes when surprised and hurt. We all make mistakes. Here's hoping that someone who knows something about cinematic storytelling having been a screenwriter for a decade, after getting a graduate degree in it, and then afer having worked in a production company ... who has read hundreds of scripts and screened hundreds of films as a film juror for several national film festivals and awards ... oh, and so much more y'all ... here's hoping she also knows something about making an apology.

UPDATE:
Barbara Nicolosi ... one classy lady. Well said!

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity