The other day I got an e-mail from a reader named “Robyn” who took issue with my review of the Hilary Duff trainwreck “Raise Your Voice.” She writes:
I read one of the reviews that you made on the Hilary Duff movie Raise Your Voice. [Evidently I wrote several “Raise Your Voice” reviews, and Robyn read one of them.] Im not a big fan of Hilary Duff and I was not expecting much from this movie till I saw the previews. I think you were absolutley wrong. This was a great movie that I enjoyed because it was dealing with music and what real people go through, like losing a loved one. I play the violin and piano, so I was especially happy to see music to be a huge part of the movie. I believe that everyone has their right to their own opinion, but next time try not to be so harsh, [because you really only have the right your own opinion if it’s nice] because your opinons don’t agree with everybody, [hence the definition of “opinion”] especially me and Im not going to be expecting any good reviews from you anymore, so Im not going to even bother reading them.
ballet/rocknrollchick
Within 10 minutes, Robyn had broken her own pledge, read more of my reviews, and sent me another e-mail:
I wanted to know why you always diss all the movies that you see even if their really good. Harry Potter movies kick a** and I think that you are way out of line on how you write reviews, but Im not just talking about you. All movie reviewers suck, they are such critizers {whatever}. [Hence the definition of “critic.”] I have no idea why people even join your stupid Snide Remarks s***. I really don’t blame you for writting about Tom Crise, though, the guy has gone bloody mental, but please refrain from making rude remarks about future hp films.
Ballet/Rocknrollchick
I don’t even know where to begin dismantling the logic of that e-mail, especially considering my reviews of the three Harry Potter films were fairly positive, and altogether rapturous on the third one. It’s obvious Robyn is a teenage girl, and ripping apart a teenage girl’s logical flaws is too easy to be any fun. So I didn’t respond to her. Her e-mail address is harrypotter1fan@sbcglobal.net, though; now it’s on record in case I change my mind.
Then I had this succinct e-mail from someone named Mitch (deeppurple1971@comcast.net), who disagreed with my F grade for the original “Friday the 13th.” He says:
friday the 13th ***1/2 you are trash suckhole
Suckhole?! I don’t even know what that means! But it’s a great epithet. I plan to use it now in my daily life.
This guy, I did respond to. I said:
“Wow. Your e-mail address leads me to believe you were born in 1971, which makes you 34 this year. And a 34-year-old man is writing a movie critic to call him a ‘suckhole’ because he disagreed with him about a movie? WOW. That’s all I can say…. wow.”
He did not reply.
