{"id":1268136,"date":"2022-02-03T07:11:59","date_gmt":"2022-02-03T12:11:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1268136"},"modified":"2022-02-03T12:22:45","modified_gmt":"2022-02-03T17:22:45","slug":"the-men-who-made-it-cool-to-bicker-about-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-men-who-made-it-cool-to-bicker-about-movies\/","title":{"rendered":"The Men Who Made It Cool To Bicker About Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthe-men-who-made-it-cool-to-bicker-about-movies%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1268136&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Readers-Pass-Toto-The-Men-Who-Made-It-Cool-To-Bicker-About-Movies-1.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p><em><span>The following is an excerpt from \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Virtue-Bombs-Hollywood-Woke-Lost\/dp\/1637580991\/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_w=yuIAK&amp;pf_rd_p=29505bbf-38bd-47ef-8224-a5dd0cda2bae&amp;pf_rd_r=5ZNTEY0PPTBE54B841QT&amp;pd_rd_r=c89cdc04-980e-41e4-8491-9657e4d79022&amp;pd_rd_wg=BfbiY&amp;ref_=pd_gw_ci_mcx_mr_hp_atf_m\"><span>Virtue Bombs: How Hollywood Got Woke and Lost Its Soul,<\/span><\/a><span>\u201d available now.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><span>Siskel and Ebert made it hip to bicker about movies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The Chicago-based film critics brought their outsized opinions to TV screens beginning in 1975 and kept the act going until Gene Siskel\u2019s death in 1999. (Roger Ebert carried the TV torch until his passing in 2013.) They weren\u2019t movie-star handsome, but their passion for film&nbsp;<\/span><span>made them famous. And rightly so.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Siskel &amp; Ebert rendered their verdicts with the now-iconic \u201cthumbs up\u201d or \u201cthumbs down\u201d decree, distilling their complex views into an easily accessible symbol. Studios craved putting \u201cTwo Thumbs Up\u201d on their movie posters and DVD covers.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>This critic always found it funny when a movie poster had a single Thumbs Up, which all but screamed the other critic hated it!&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Movie criticism flowered in their wake. The Internet gave every wannabe Siskel or Ebert the chance to share their reviews with the world. And plenty did just that.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Every online critic owes a debt to the duo. I know I do.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Still, no one critic could compare to Siskel &amp; Ebert in terms of fame or influence today. And, in an undated clip from their series, the pair shared a chilling warning about the future of movie criticism. (Spoiler alert: We didn\u2019t listen.)&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The pair broke down an emerging cultural trend that spelled doom for their profession.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cThere\u2019s a whole new world called political correctness that\u2019s going on,\u201d Siskel said. \u201cThat is death to a critic to participate in that.\u201d&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cYou\u2019ve really put your finger on something,\u201d Ebert jumped in, but Siskel was just warming up.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cJust personally wanting to be liked, wanting to go along with the group, is death to a critic. Take your best shot,\u201d Siskel said. \u201cI\u2019ve been given this lucky break to say what I think. If I censor myself, I\u2019m gonna regret it, I\u2019m gonna regret it.\u201d&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Ebert cautioned how aspiring writers of the era were falling victim to the growing P.C. mentality. Remember, the movie P.C.U., a film mocking the rise of politically correct universities, hit theaters in 1994. (Few movies demand a remake more than that one.)&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cA lot of college writers are either working for their student papers or they\u2019re writing papers that are gonna be read out loud in class,\u201d Ebert said. \u201cPolitical correctness is the fascism of the \u201990s. It\u2019s this rigid feeling that you have to keep your ideas and your ways of looking at things with- in very narrow boundaries or you\u2019ll offend someone.\u201d&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Anticipating the ideological conformity in the mainstream press to- day, he went on.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cOne of the purposes of journalism is to challenge just that kind of [P.C.] thinking,\u201d Ebert said.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cCertainly one of the purposes of criticism is to break boundaries. It\u2019s also one of the purposes of art.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cIf a young journalist\u2026tries to write politically correctly, what they\u2019re really doing is ventriloquism. They\u2019re not saying what they think. They\u2019re projecting their ideas into another politically correct persona and trying to pretend that persona reflects their ideas, and that\u2019s tragic.\u201d&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cYou\u2019re training yourself at a very young age to lie, to lie,\u201d Ebert added for emphasis.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>It\u2019s like the duo took Doc Brown\u2019s time machine into the future, took furious notes, and then returned\u2026much the wiser.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Ebert looked back at his own college days at the University of Illinois, when his school newspaper featured voices from the Left and the Right.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cLet\u2019s have a lot of opinions, and that\u2019s very important,\u201d he said, not knowing the website that carries on his reviewing tradition today lacks a single, openly conservative critic on staff.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cToday on the campus there\u2019s such tunnel vision when it comes to political correctness that people are afraid to use terms or to have feelings that haven\u2019t been approved.\u201d&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Imagine what the famous duo would think of the modern film critic. Yes, some still abide by the gig\u2019s core tenets\u2014no spoilers, just a smart sense of whether audiences will like a particular film.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>A growing number of modern critics, though, fall into the sad description shared in that undated show clip. They act as both the woke movement\u2019s advocates and their unofficial enforcement arm. They count up the number of minorities in films, attacking the production should it come up short in their estimation. They rail against stories that suggest right-of-center themes, as if such ideas shouldn\u2019t be considered in the creative process.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Some use the term \u201cwhite\u201d as a pejorative.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Forbes.com\u2019s far-left film scribe Scott Mendelson used the word \u201cwhite\u201d four times in the opening paragraph for his review of the 2018 political biography Vice.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><i><span>Yet the movie, which itself is a cinematic mediocrity that is being hailed as a potential Oscar contender partially due to its subject matter and the established pedigree of its white male filmmaker.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>Here\u2019s more:&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><i><span>The film offers a seething indictment of who we automatically presume to be competent and worthy of leadership roles (white guys of a certain age).&nbsp;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>TheWrap.com\u2019s liberal critic, Candice Frederick did the same for Vice:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><i><span>If there\u2019s one thing writer-director Adam McKay\u2019s Vice does well, it\u2019s highlight how white mediocrity has thrived in American politics and pop culture. But McKay also does this by way of making a mediocre movie about mediocre politician Dick Cheney played by a surprisingly mediocre Christian Bale. At some point, and at some level, you wish the white mediocrity could be reined in, but it never is.&nbsp;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>She does it again later in the review:&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><i><span>And that\u2019s pretty much how a mediocre white man, whose own wife at one point remarks how disastrously unappealing he is as a public speaker, rises to power. The narrator of the film (Jesse Plemons, in a thankless role) notes that Cheney has \u201can ability to make his wildest ideas sound measured.\u201d&nbsp;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>In short, they completely ignore both the Siskel &amp; Ebert model, as well as their advice regarding P.C. groupthink. And there\u2019s little sign this will change anytime soon.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The Daily Beast\u2019s film reporter savaged Disney\u2019s 2020 hit Soul, a movie luxuriating in black culture with black characters voiced by black performers.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>It wasn\u2019t enough:&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><i><span>Pixar\u2019s latest film is a return to form for a company that has built a reputation for heartwarming stories with a creative twist, but these stories continue Disney\u2019s tradition of giving Black leading bodies little screen time as they often morph into either an animal or something else inhuman. If you were looking to watch a very lively Gardner grooving to jazz through- out the film, as was suggested in various trailers and commercials, guess again. Expect to see a melanin-less soul with the voice of Foxx floating through much of the film instead; and if that weren\u2019t enough, Gardner\u2019s body is later overtaken by another soul, voiced by Tina Fey, while Gardner assumes the form of a cat.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>Remember, you can never, ever be woke enough.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>A critic, in theory, could rattle off his or her (is that offensive?) take on a film\u2019s intersectionality scorecard while still keeping the film\u2019s principles in mind.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Is it funny? Scary? Thrilling? Well-acted? Joyful? Sad? Impactful? Entertaining?&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Yet we often see the woke complaints factor into the reviews, often in a sizable fashion. One famously corrupt review gave an \u201cF\u201d to a movie because the story implied a pro-gun position.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Would the critic reverse that grade if the story packed a pro-gun control message?&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The 2018 movie Kin featured a young black male as the lead, but that clearly wasn\u2019t enough for Entertainment Weekly. The liberal site shredded the film via critic Chris Nashawaty, who objected to a fourteen-year-old character, the aforementioned black teen, using a space gun to defend his family from bad guys.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><i><span>That\u2019s three years younger than Dylagn (sic) Klebold and Eric Harris were when they went on their killing spree at Columbine High School and six years younger than Adam Lanza was when he murdered 27 kids and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in New- town, Connecticut. You can disagree with this reviewer\u2019s take on Kin and what it\u2019s saying both explicitly and implicitly about guns. But I can\u2019t and won\u2019t recommend it in good conscience.&nbsp;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>He doubled down on Twitter:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><i><span>If you think a movie with a 14 year old with a giant gun sounds cool, you\u2019ll love \u2018KIN\u2019. Also, you\u2019re insane. My first \u2018F\u2019 review in some time.&nbsp;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>Just remember. If your family is in jeopardy, do not pick up any weapon that might save them, especially a shiny space object. Let them die in peace.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Dear Chris: Is it a good film? Will we be entertained? Does the story move along, or is it plodding? Are the performances worthwhile? Do we care about the main characters?&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>What if we don\u2019t hold the same rigid, nay, maniacal, anti-gun beliefs you do? Do we still count? Are we insane for enjoying the film\u2014or is that a wee bit of projection?&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>None of that matters to this social justice scold, or to countless others like him. And, in his political crusade, he ignores what a film critic should do: advise readers whether a film is engaging enough to spend ninety-odd minutes watching it.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>What about a better film, one that\u2019s an unabashed B-movie, but told with verve and humor?&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Run Hide Fight dared to depict a teen fighting back after a team of school shooters enters the building. The movie offered a strong, empowered lead (Isabel May), crisp action beats, and very little messaging. You can see a glimpse or two of it, that\u2019s all.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>So how did critics react to the movie? Hold on.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><i><span>[Thomas Jane] didn\u2019t survive three biogenetically enhanced backwards-swimming super sharks so that he could live to help sell the \u201cgood guy with a gun\u201d fallacy from Redbox kiosks in red state gas stations\u2026.&nbsp;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span>[Director Kyle] Rankin is uninterested in gun fetishism, white nationalism, YouTube radicalism, or any of the other clear and present dangers that dangle over America\u2019s classrooms like a scythe\u2014and he sure as hell isn\u2019t interested in starting \u201ca conversation.\u201d If the willful obliviousness of his movie\u2019s relationship to the real world implicitly aligns it with Republican ideology, Rankin\u2019s only legible goal is to imagine what John McClane\u2019s daughter might do if some pubescent terrorists took over her school.&nbsp;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>One quip from the comments section of the site was worth repeating:&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><i><span>\u201cNice to see you didn\u2019t let your political biases cloud your review\u2026. \u201c<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>The Hollywood Reporter noted the movie was \u201cslick and compulsively watchable.\u201d So that\u2019s a Thumbs Up in the grand Siskel\/Ebert tradition, right?&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Not quite.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><i><span>[Director Kyle] Rankin (The Battle of Shaker Heights) knows his way around efficient thriller construction, getting capable assists from Darin Moran\u2019s prowling camera, Matthew Lorentz\u2019s nervy editing and the ominous score by composing duo Mondo Boys, which includes a moody cover of the \u201960s protest song \u201cEve of Destruction\u201d on the end credits.&nbsp;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span>But a numb detachment takes hold as you realize sensationalism is being flimsily packaged as social commentary on the kind of scenario that has caused America immeasurable suffering. What\u2019s next, a pulse-pounding action thriller about a fierce transgender warrior thwarting a deadly assault on a gay nightclub in Florida? Please, no.&nbsp;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>Woke film critics get to say what subjects are appropriate for filmmaking, and what ones aren\u2019t.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Critics should be on the front lines of the current free speech fight. Instead, they\u2019re often cheering for the wrong side. That was never truer than when No Safe Spaces hit theaters at the end of 2019. The docudrama couldn\u2019t be more prescient about how the anti-speech forces on college campuses would, sooner or later, leak into society at large.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The film wasn\u2019t dogmatic or partisan, just eager to protect our right to think and speak freely.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>That triggered more than a few film critics.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Common Sense Media uncorked this doozy of an argument against the film.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><i><span>The crux of No Safe Spaces\u2019 logical hole is that although Carolla and Prager work really hard to convince us that curtailing free speech is tantamount to fascism, they\u2019re making their points on a stage, to an audience, with microphones\u2014freely. If free speech is truly in such terrible danger, where are the protestors and police to stop this not-so-dynamic duo?&nbsp;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>Actually, protesters very often do just that. Just ask Ben Shapiro and many others like him.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The saddest part of it all?&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Who knows if Siskel and\/or Ebert would be brave enough to repeat their \u201990s lecture on woke film criticism\u2026or if they would have given two thumbs up to the mob?&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i>The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The following is an excerpt from \u201cVirtue Bombs: How Hollywood Got Woke and Lost Its Soul,\u201d available now.Siskel and Ebert made it hip to bicker about movies.The Chicago-based film critics &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1894012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1268136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1268136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1894012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1268136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1268136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1268136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}