Physically, I haven’t gone anywhere lately. I had to miss my first-ever trip to the Telluride Film Festival because it coincided with my health problems, and then I had to miss the Toronto Film Festival because it coincided with none of the people I write for wanting to cover any expenses. But who needs to travel when there’s the Internet?? I’ve been everywhere on the Internet lately! Here’s a sampling.
NPR! I was on National Public Radio! Weird, right? Back on July 28, I wrote a piece for Cinematical about how the word “retard” had been dubbed out of the movie “Miss March” for its DVD release, even though the rest of the film continued to be intentionally offensive, vulgar, and outlandish. (I was reviewing the DVD for Film.com.) NPR’s Neda Ulaby saw the piece and contacted me for an interview, presumably because when you think of retarded people and political correctness, you think of me, Eric D. Snider.
Two days later, I went to the NPR affiliate station in Portland (Oregon Public Broadcasting) and talked to Neda, who was safely located in Washington D.C. I gather that at this point she wasn’t sure what direction the story would take, or what the overall story even was — it wasn’t JUST going to be about this particular DVD being edited — so she talked to me about a variety of things, covering all the bases. That’s what good reporters do. And it’s why, despite talking to me for 15 minutes or so, only a brief snippet of the conversation actually made it into the story.
I’m only mentioned in the text version of the story, not quoted, but if you listen to the audio (available on that same page) you’ll hear my actual voice. Unfortunately, you cannot hear me saying the word “retard,” which must have taken some effort on Neda’s part, since I probably said it 100 times over the course of our conversation. She also didn’t use my favorite part, which was where I said that since I was the first person to notice that the “Miss March” DVD had been edited, that made me “the Woodward and Bernstein of retards.” I’m not sure that joke even makes sense — I’d be the Woodward and Bernstein of retard-related issues, not of the actual retards — but Neda laughed. So there.
Last Monday, I was a guest on the /Filmcast at /Film (the “slash” is not silent), hosted by the ever-affable David Chen and his cohorts Devindra Hardawar and Adam Quigley. They are always exceedingly gracious hosts, and I enjoy my visits with them. You can listen to the podcast here. Note that while the whole thing is like 14 hours long, I’m only in the part with the “Surrogates” review, starting at around the 62-minute mark. I wouldn’t say any of this represents my finest moments in public discourse — I seem to have forgotten how to express my opinion in words right at the start — but there it is.
At Cinematical, I recently asked whether there are any filmmakers to whom you give the benefit of the doubt when you don’t “get” one of their movies; mocked the Slow Clap and its appearance in “Love Happens”; and praised the legendary car-chase scene in “Bullitt.”
Finally, a few items at Film.com that might amuse or interest you. I pondered the ultimate Disney/Marvel/ESPN/ABC/Pixar collaboration; offered translations of some typical filmmaker cliches; and did Time Capsule reconsiderations of “Dazed and Confused” and “Three Kings.” (One for “Boys Don’t Cry” will be up sometime today.)
So there you go. I think that’s everywhere I’ve been recently, unless you’ve seen me somewhere else that I forgot about. Did you see me at the grocery store? I was there a couple times, too.
