Chris Buffa: ''Words are hard''

TomChick · 07-31-2006, 04:30 PM

PR chicks might flirt with us, but it doesn't mean we can grab their boobs

Hump · 07-31-2006, 04:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TomChick

PR chicks might flirt with us, but it doesn't mean we can grab their boobs

This is a coincidence because I just finished reading that piece and then came here to post about it because I found it so annoying.

I'd love to know who he's referring to when he mentions the "arrogant" game journalists.

Lorini · 07-31-2006, 04:38 PM

Agree with Buffa, that review was ridiculous. She is certainly free to express herself in any way she likes, but if she wants her reviews read, she needs to use language that a movie goer would understand. Now of course if her reviews are only for the high and mighty, then fine, but I wouldn't read any of her reviews written like that.

Lorini

Erik · 07-31-2006, 04:41 PM

Quote:

This starry Night

I think this was line that made him so mad.

JPR · 07-31-2006, 04:45 PM

It's been so long since I last got a free subscription to EW from Best Buy and cancelled it in disgust that I don't remember enough details about why I hate Schwartzbaum and Glieberman so much. I know that part of the problem is that there has never been a wrong-er critic than OG, but I seem to recall thinking he's a douche in addition to stupid. LS was guilty-by-association, but I'm pretty sure I hate her, too.

And that review, specifically, is absurd. She could take lessons on brevity and clarity from Wagner James Au.

TomChick · 07-31-2006, 04:48 PM

That was just the intro. The full review is here. And, yeah, it's a dense intro, but I still don't see what you need a dictionary for.

EW's reviews are like that, BTW. I suspect the approach has served them well, because Gleiberman and Schwarzbaum have been doing it for as long as I've been flipping through EW.

The more trenchant point is that I'd like to see more reviews of videogames that take that approach. Computer Games Magazine avoids the typical low- to middle-brow very well, and I love writing for them and reading them. There's certainly a place for that kind of coverage. But to dismiss it as bad writing that could be fixed if the writer would just buy a style guide already! -- which is Buffa's premise -- is pretty stupid.

-Tom

stusser · 07-31-2006, 04:52 PM

Only two weeks! At this rate the next why videogame journalism sucks article will be due... gimme a second, gotta do the math... Great scott! By the time you read this! Much like all restaurants in Demolition Day becoming Taco Bell after the brutal café cleansing of 2016, soon all media will be consumed by why videogame journalism sucks articles! It's a brave new world comrades!

Quote:

Originally Posted by stusser on 7/18/06

I'm writing this so I can snarkily quote myself when some boy genius posts the next "why videogame journalism sucks" thread. I expect it to show up in early september 2006.

The idea is that when the next next "why videogame journalism sucks" thread follows in november, I'll quote myself quoting the quote, then again in january and so on and so forth. It'll be a thing. But for now, this is the first in the series so it isn't really a thing yet. It's a proto-thing, a thing to be, if you will.

Hopefully I won't forget.

TomChick · 07-31-2006, 04:54 PM

Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down, stusser! This ain't no "why videogame journalism sucks" thread! This is a "why articles on why videogame journalism sucks suck" thread. Important distinction.

Although I suspect it's going to devolve into a "why EW's reviews suck/don't suck" thread. We'll see.

-Tom

Ben Sones · 07-31-2006, 04:56 PM

I agree Buffa is laying on the hyperbole when he says that you need a dictionary to understand that paragraph, but I also think that Scwarzbaum's prose is sometimes overwrought. The "banality of famelessness" bit, in particular, jumps out at me in that quote. That's the sort of sentence that's just begging for an editor to put it out of its misery.

JPR · 07-31-2006, 04:59 PM

Tom: Yeah, I wasn't speaking to your actual point, of course. Context is important in appreciating media, but most reviews you find aren't about appreciating anything -- they're about a quick and dirty metric. Being pretty geeky about my media consumption, I definitely enjoy reviews/articles with context that take a deeper look at what's going on with the movie, game, whatever that I'm interested in. The problem is that I have an intense personal dislike for Glieberman and Schwartzbaum.

I don't complain about similarly faggy reviews in The Village Voice or other media outlets because their high-brow verbosity (gayness) is generally commensurate with that of the rest of the publication. EW just isn't like that. I have found most of that magazine to be the lowest sort of trash -- trash that I flip through every few weeks because it gives me easily digestable information that isn't readily available elsewhere without some minor digging, but still trash.

Also, far be it from me to complain about other people's convoluted sentence structure....

JoshV · 07-31-2006, 05:00 PM

I only clicked on the link in the vain hope of seeing some cute PR girls. =)

Flowers · 07-31-2006, 05:01 PM

Myself hopacates Buffa sports preparedness to acceptify his ass multitudinousing schitical witicrisms.

triggercut · 07-31-2006, 05:02 PM

I love the writing style of the EW movie reviewers as well; even when I'm not in agreement with them, I know why I'm not, and that's one benchmark I have for good critical writing.

As far as the "big words"...there aren't any. If you're struggling to understand that review, maybe put down EW and grab a copy of US Weekly or People. I hear there are some Hee Haw reruns coming up soon on TV too!

If you're writing a game review, I think you can assume that much of your readership has some basic intellect going on--especially if you're not reviewing a title that's going to sit in the Top 5 in sales for two years like The Sims.

MikeSofaer · 07-31-2006, 05:04 PM

That quoted paragraph was like a metaphor puree, with "chilled" and "warm decor" in the same idea, but it didn't actually have any hard words.

Here is one of Buffa's great moments:

Quote:

As much as some people would love to think that there is only one way to write a respective language, the influence of slang as well as pop culture cannot be ignored, which is probably why it's a good thing that various entertainment industries aren't covered by old and crusty English professors.

This is the sort of "one true sentence" that is exactly not what Hemmingway was aiming for.

stusser · 07-31-2006, 05:05 PM

Oh I dunno. Once steve and jeff show it'll end up the same ol thing. Someone's gonna mention edge magazine and lester bangs by page 7, I can smell it coming.

Lester bangs is the why videogame journalism sucks equivalent of hitler in godwin's law. I like to call this principle "The Mandate of Bang" because I think it sounds pretty cool. "Bang's Rule" isn't a bad alternative, but just doesn't roll off the tongue as readily.

Hans Lauring · 07-31-2006, 05:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorini

Agree with Buffa, that review was ridiculous. She is certainly free to express herself in any way she likes, but if she wants her reviews read, she needs to use language that a movie goer would understand. Now of course if her reviews are only for the high and mighty, then fine, but I wouldn't read any of her reviews written like that.

I believe Tom is an avid movie goer and understood that review just fine - your statement is silly. Fine, you don't like long sentences go read someone else, that Joel Siegel guy's easy to read... and good with the puns.

But I disagree with Tom, that there's anything wrong with quoting King's On Writing, it's a good little book for any aspiring writer. A bit basic, but sound.

Apart from that I'm glad I'm a proper journalist and not one of them game journalists (allthough I do recieve the occasional trinket in the mail from Nintendo... and I di believe I'm a God amongst men because of it). If there's guys like Buffa in my field at least nobody is taking him serious and pointing out his screeds to the rest of us, which it appears people do all the time with these 'game journalism suck' discussions.

Enidigm · 07-31-2006, 05:08 PM

I remember how the University crushed the budding wordsmith in me by utterly flunking any of the carefully crafted papers that i would literally spend days on, by profs stating matter-of-factly, "This paper is too wordy". Along with an F to reinforce the point. And then giving me perfect scores for 6am rush jobs i would throw together in under an hour. Of course, this was before my brain had turned to a milkshake of half-forgotten memories and vocabulary :).

The idea he needs a dictionary is ridiculous exaggeration, but what he was trying to say was to be clear and not too wordy - a point about which, ironically, he isn't very clear. EW weekly's review isn't incomprehensible but neither is it a brief bagel-sized review you can digest in under a minute.

He didn't even quote the more complicated paragraphs that may have muddled the straightfoward ideal with off-hand references to directors and other fantasy creatures that might have confused the reader and focused on the vocabulary which, frankly, isn't the thing causing his confusion.

stusser · 07-31-2006, 05:09 PM

Now that I think about it, "The Edge Effect" is pretty good too.

Lorini · 07-31-2006, 05:11 PM

Huh? I never said her review was not understandable, nor did I say or mean to imply that Tom couldn't understand it. I can understand it just fine, it's tedious to read. Reminds me of Dicken's Great Expectations, a good book but a tiresome read.

TomChick · 07-31-2006, 05:12 PM

Oh, I don't think there's anything wrong with quoting King's On Writing, Hanzi. It's a good primer. But Buffa's article consists of only three things: 1) his confusion at certain words in a movie review, 2) him handing down the basics of King's On Writing, and 3) some utterly inane crap about how to relate to PR chicks that most of us have known since eighth grade.

Okay, I lied. Some of us didn't figure that stuff out until well into tenth grade.

-Tom

Hans Lauring · 07-31-2006, 05:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorini

Huh? I never said her review was not understandable, nor did I say or mean to imply that Tom couldn't understand it. I can understand it just fine, it's tedious to read. Reminds me of Dicken's Great Expectations, a good book but a tiresome read.

You said:

Quote:

...she needs to use language that a movie goer would understand.

As if a 'movie goer' is some special demographic that have a hard time with long sentences and not all kinds of people - including those that like a bit more substance to their reviews.
And I like Dickens.

What Tom?! Are you saying those nice pr ladies aren't trying to get me into bed? Here I thought I was valiantly fighting off their advances because I'm a married man, and you're telling me they just want to get me to write about their crap... man, I'm not going to enjoy a junket ever again.

sluggo · 07-31-2006, 05:18 PM

Ha! Someone linked me this article today, and the first thing that jumped out at me was the complaining about needing a dictionary for that section of the Schwarzbaum review. Are you kidding? Learn to read already.

The thing I love about articles complaining about videogame writing is that they're usually written by the worst of the bunch. There's plenty to complain about, and these articles should be easy layups. And yet the people who write them continually throw the ball into the crowd.

Kitsune · 07-31-2006, 05:23 PM

I bet Chris Buffa rolled back in his swivelly chair with a self-satisfied smirk on his face as he completed the article with the last masterful swish of writing: references! This dynamo of games writing has included references in his article! Doesn't that just fertilize the bunnies? Why! References legitimize anything, including my Nazi Tea Time Club.

I would criticize him more, except I took his advice: I didn't read something that could would be bad food for my own writing. I prefer not to wither through the osmosis of ineptitude.

I don't find that clip of Lisa's hard to digest, and if I don't, and English isn't my first language, I doubt others do. On the contrary, I appreciate the writer's craft when it shows me an observant eye and an attention to salient and insightful detail. I think her summary of M. Night's career tells a lot in a small space and is written with a certain pizzaz.

This guy (I'm not going to refer to him, I'm not that good a writer) also mentions "shock jocks". Well, shock is a writing method preferred by genre hacks and tabloids. I think the truth, no matter how odd or disturbing is a preferable standard. I think good writers observe and then relate, not in perfunctory, exhausting detail, but in the way good cooks choose the right ingredients to engender a certain taste and imbue with memories and a lasting impression on the senses. Shocking just for the sake of it is hardly a good idea.

I remember this guy's Katamari Damacy is exemplary of a one-hit wonder statement, both too premature because Keita Takahashi hasn't done anything else yet, and off the mark because what he has done doesn't really deserve that kind of criticism thus far and it makes you look like a whiney brat who wants to be different for the sake of it, like some fool who stands up in the middle of the theater during The Godfather or The Usual Suspects and says, "This is no good! I do not like it! Why are you all enjoying it?" It's also quite off because it's not clear the creator even wants to be involved in video games.

In the end, it's more than a little annoying to get how-to-write primers from someone at a website that's hardly distinguished itself from the other, more well-known and well-liked, longer-established places, like some sort of sanctimonious whale trying to teach other whales how to do whale calling by blowing bilge water up its blowhole.

-Kitsune

Flowers · 07-31-2006, 05:29 PM

Say it, don't spray it.

triggercut · 07-31-2006, 05:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorini

Huh? I never said her review was not understandable, nor did I say or mean to imply that Tom couldn't understand it. I can understand it just fine, it's tedious to read. Reminds me of Dicken's Great Expectations, a good book but a tiresome read.

I think Great Expectations is a wonderfully written book, and if it wasn't a total page-turner, I'd have never read it as many times as I have.

TomChick · 07-31-2006, 05:47 PM

I get what Lorini's saying, but EW's reviews are like that. They're dense, thoughtful, and aimed at a higher-than-average attention level. Which, as John pointed out, is unlike the rest of the magazine!

And while I completely understand that some people don't want that kind of review -- either for movies or videogames -- there's a place for coverage that isn't the typical low-brow 'this game is teh cool so I give it 8.3'.

And it's ironic that someone who's being so patronizing needs a dictionary to get past the words 'compositional' and 'torpor'.

Also, if Chris Buffa is in such a damn hurry to get out the door and get to whatever movie he's going to see (might I recommend Little Man?), why is he bothering with writers like Schwarzman and Glieberman when he hop over to Rotten Tomatoes? Which reminds me, I wish Janet Maslin* had used some sort of rating so I knew whether or not she liked a movie!

-Tom

* I'm using her to avoid the Bang Mandate.

steve · 07-31-2006, 06:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TomChick

* I'm using her to avoid the Bang Mandate.

*cough* Pauline Kael *cough*

steve · 07-31-2006, 06:13 PM

Oh, and I think EW's movie reviews are terrific, even if I get why some people may not dig them. I think they balance the art/populist part of moviegoing as well as someone like Ebert.

Having said that, that intro kind of blows.

steve · 07-31-2006, 06:18 PM

And one other thing: Who's Chris Buffa?

Matthew Gallant · 07-31-2006, 06:19 PM

I think this article means that Friday Night Smackdown is too high-brow for Chris Buffa. There's a wrestler on there that encourages vacations to his native Quebec, "an island of tranquility in a truculent world."

07-31-2006, 04:30 PM	#1
TomChick Administrator World's End Supernova Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 17,877	Chris Buffa: ''Words are hard'' PR chicks might flirt with us, but it doesn't mean we can grab their boobs Last edited by TomChick; 08-14-2006 at 01:33 PM..

07-31-2006, 05:23 PM	#23
Kitsune Social Worker Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Иatural Planet Posts: 2,301	I bet Chris Buffa rolled back in his swivelly chair with a self-satisfied smirk on his face as he completed the article with the last masterful swish of writing: references! This dynamo of games writing has included references in his article! Doesn't that just fertilize the bunnies? Why! References legitimize anything, including my Nazi Tea Time Club. I would criticize him more, except I took his advice: I didn't read something that could would be bad food for my own writing. I prefer not to wither through the osmosis of ineptitude. I don't find that clip of Lisa's hard to digest, and if I don't, and English isn't my first language, I doubt others do. On the contrary, I appreciate the writer's craft when it shows me an observant eye and an attention to salient and insightful detail. I think her summary of M. Night's career tells a lot in a small space and is written with a certain pizzaz. This guy (I'm not going to refer to him, I'm not that good a writer) also mentions "shock jocks". Well, shock is a writing method preferred by genre hacks and tabloids. I think the truth, no matter how odd or disturbing is a preferable standard. I think good writers observe and then relate, not in perfunctory, exhausting detail, but in the way good cooks choose the right ingredients to engender a certain taste and imbue with memories and a lasting impression on the senses. Shocking just for the sake of it is hardly a good idea. I remember this guy's Katamari Damacy is exemplary of a one-hit wonder statement, both too premature because Keita Takahashi hasn't done anything else yet, and off the mark because what he has done doesn't really deserve that kind of criticism thus far and it makes you look like a whiney brat who wants to be different for the sake of it, like some fool who stands up in the middle of the theater during The Godfather or The Usual Suspects and says, "This is no good! I do not like it! Why are you all enjoying it?" It's also quite off because it's not clear the creator even wants to be involved in video games. In the end, it's more than a little annoying to get how-to-write primers from someone at a website that's hardly distinguished itself from the other, more well-known and well-liked, longer-established places, like some sort of sanctimonious whale trying to teach other whales how to do whale calling by blowing bilge water up its blowhole. -Kitsune Last edited by Kitsune; 07-31-2006 at 05:31 PM..

07-31-2006, 04:38 PM	#3
Lorini New Romantic Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Pasadena, Ca Posts: 7,113	Agree with Buffa, that review was ridiculous. She is certainly free to express herself in any way she likes, but if she wants her reviews read, she needs to use language that a movie goer would understand. Now of course if her reviews are only for the high and mighty, then fine, but I wouldn't read any of her reviews written like that. Lorini

07-31-2006, 04:45 PM	#5
JPR Social Worker Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Austin, TX Live/Steam: roberdjp Posts: 3,988	It's been so long since I last got a free subscription to EW from Best Buy and cancelled it in disgust that I don't remember enough details about why I hate Schwartzbaum and Glieberman so much. I know that part of the problem is that there has never been a wrong-er critic than OG, but I seem to recall thinking he's a douche in addition to stupid. LS was guilty-by-association, but I'm pretty sure I hate her, too. And that review, specifically, is absurd. She could take lessons on brevity and clarity from Wagner James Au.

07-31-2006, 04:48 PM	#6
TomChick Administrator World's End Supernova Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 17,877	That was just the intro. The full review is here. And, yeah, it's a dense intro, but I still don't see what you need a dictionary for. EW's reviews are like that, BTW. I suspect the approach has served them well, because Gleiberman and Schwarzbaum have been doing it for as long as I've been flipping through EW. The more trenchant point is that I'd like to see more reviews of videogames that take that approach. Computer Games Magazine avoids the typical low- to middle-brow very well, and I love writing for them and reading them. There's certainly a place for that kind of coverage. But to dismiss it as bad writing that could be fixed if the writer would just buy a style guide already! -- which is Buffa's premise -- is pretty stupid. -Tom

07-31-2006, 04:54 PM	#8
TomChick Administrator World's End Supernova Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 17,877	Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down, stusser! This ain't no "why videogame journalism sucks" thread! This is a "why articles on why videogame journalism sucks suck" thread. Important distinction. Although I suspect it's going to devolve into a "why EW's reviews suck/don't suck" thread. We'll see. -Tom

07-31-2006, 04:56 PM	#9
Ben Sones World's End Supernova Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Boletaria, Gamertag: Ben Sones PSN: bsones Posts: 16,949	I agree Buffa is laying on the hyperbole when he says that you need a dictionary to understand that paragraph, but I also think that Scwarzbaum's prose is sometimes overwrought. The "banality of famelessness" bit, in particular, jumps out at me in that quote. That's the sort of sentence that's just begging for an editor to put it out of its misery.

07-31-2006, 04:59 PM	#10
JPR Social Worker Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Austin, TX Live/Steam: roberdjp Posts: 3,988	Tom: Yeah, I wasn't speaking to your actual point, of course. Context is important in appreciating media, but most reviews you find aren't about appreciating anything -- they're about a quick and dirty metric. Being pretty geeky about my media consumption, I definitely enjoy reviews/articles with context that take a deeper look at what's going on with the movie, game, whatever that I'm interested in. The problem is that I have an intense personal dislike for Glieberman and Schwartzbaum. I don't complain about similarly faggy reviews in The Village Voice or other media outlets because their high-brow verbosity (gayness) is generally commensurate with that of the rest of the publication. EW just isn't like that. I have found most of that magazine to be the lowest sort of trash -- trash that I flip through every few weeks because it gives me easily digestable information that isn't readily available elsewhere without some minor digging, but still trash. Also, far be it from me to complain about other people's convoluted sentence structure....

07-31-2006, 05:00 PM	#11
JoshV Neo Acoustic Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Irvine, CA Posts: 1,789	I only clicked on the link in the vain hope of seeing some cute PR girls. =)

07-31-2006, 05:01 PM	#12
Flowers New Romantic Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Above the Legal Limit Posts: 5,884	Myself hopacates Buffa sports preparedness to acceptify his ass multitudinousing schitical witicrisms.

07-31-2006, 05:02 PM	#13
triggercut New Romantic Join Date: May 2003 Location: Washington DC Posts: 5,668	I love the writing style of the EW movie reviewers as well; even when I'm not in agreement with them, I know why I'm not, and that's one benchmark I have for good critical writing. As far as the "big words"...there aren't any. If you're struggling to understand that review, maybe put down EW and grab a copy of US Weekly or People. I hear there are some Hee Haw reruns coming up soon on TV too! If you're writing a game review, I think you can assume that much of your readership has some basic intellect going on--especially if you're not reviewing a title that's going to sit in the Top 5 in sales for two years like The Sims.

07-31-2006, 05:05 PM	#15
stusser New Romantic Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 8,672	Oh I dunno. Once steve and jeff show it'll end up the same ol thing. Someone's gonna mention edge magazine and lester bangs by page 7, I can smell it coming. Lester bangs is the why videogame journalism sucks equivalent of hitler in godwin's law. I like to call this principle "The Mandate of Bang" because I think it sounds pretty cool. "Bang's Rule" isn't a bad alternative, but just doesn't roll off the tongue as readily.

07-31-2006, 05:08 PM	#17
Enidigm New Romantic Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 7,337	I remember how the University crushed the budding wordsmith in me by utterly flunking any of the carefully crafted papers that i would literally spend days on, by profs stating matter-of-factly, "This paper is too wordy". Along with an F to reinforce the point. And then giving me perfect scores for 6am rush jobs i would throw together in under an hour. Of course, this was before my brain had turned to a milkshake of half-forgotten memories and vocabulary :). The idea he needs a dictionary is ridiculous exaggeration, but what he was trying to say was to be clear and not too wordy - a point about which, ironically, he isn't very clear. EW weekly's review isn't incomprehensible but neither is it a brief bagel-sized review you can digest in under a minute. He didn't even quote the more complicated paragraphs that may have muddled the straightfoward ideal with off-hand references to directors and other fantasy creatures that might have confused the reader and focused on the vocabulary which, frankly, isn't the thing causing his confusion.

07-31-2006, 05:09 PM	#18
stusser New Romantic Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 8,672	Now that I think about it, "The Edge Effect" is pretty good too.

07-31-2006, 05:11 PM	#19
Lorini New Romantic Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Pasadena, Ca Posts: 7,113	Huh? I never said her review was not understandable, nor did I say or mean to imply that Tom couldn't understand it. I can understand it just fine, it's tedious to read. Reminds me of Dicken's Great Expectations, a good book but a tiresome read.

07-31-2006, 05:12 PM	#20
TomChick Administrator World's End Supernova Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 17,877	Oh, I don't think there's anything wrong with quoting King's On Writing, Hanzi. It's a good primer. But Buffa's article consists of only three things: 1) his confusion at certain words in a movie review, 2) him handing down the basics of King's On Writing, and 3) some utterly inane crap about how to relate to PR chicks that most of us have known since eighth grade. Okay, I lied. Some of us didn't figure that stuff out until well into tenth grade. -Tom

07-31-2006, 05:18 PM	#22
sluggo Social Worker Join Date: May 2003 Location: Stockholm Synthdrome Posts: 3,928	Ha! Someone linked me this article today, and the first thing that jumped out at me was the complaining about needing a dictionary for that section of the Schwarzbaum review. Are you kidding? Learn to read already. The thing I love about articles complaining about videogame writing is that they're usually written by the worst of the bunch. There's plenty to complain about, and these articles should be easy layups. And yet the people who write them continually throw the ball into the crowd.

07-31-2006, 05:29 PM	#24
Flowers New Romantic Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Above the Legal Limit Posts: 5,884	Say it, don't spray it.

07-31-2006, 05:47 PM	#26
TomChick Administrator World's End Supernova Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 17,877	I get what Lorini's saying, but EW's reviews are like that. They're dense, thoughtful, and aimed at a higher-than-average attention level. Which, as John pointed out, is unlike the rest of the magazine! And while I completely understand that some people don't want that kind of review -- either for movies or videogames -- there's a place for coverage that isn't the typical low-brow 'this game is teh cool so I give it 8.3'. And it's ironic that someone who's being so patronizing needs a dictionary to get past the words 'compositional' and 'torpor'. Also, if Chris Buffa is in such a damn hurry to get out the door and get to whatever movie he's going to see (might I recommend Little Man?), why is he bothering with writers like Schwarzman and Glieberman when he hop over to Rotten Tomatoes? Which reminds me, I wish Janet Maslin* had used some sort of rating so I knew whether or not she liked a movie! -Tom * I'm using her to avoid the Bang Mandate.

07-31-2006, 06:13 PM	#28
steve New Romantic Join Date: Feb 2003 Posts: 6,918	Oh, and I think EW's movie reviews are terrific, even if I get why some people may not dig them. I think they balance the art/populist part of moviegoing as well as someone like Ebert. Having said that, that intro kind of blows.

07-31-2006, 06:18 PM	#29
steve New Romantic Join Date: Feb 2003 Posts: 6,918	And one other thing: Who's Chris Buffa?

07-31-2006, 06:19 PM	#30
Matthew Gallant New Romantic Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Bothell, WA Posts: 9,646	I think this article means that Friday Night Smackdown is too high-brow for Chris Buffa. There's a wrestler on there that encourages vacations to his native Quebec, "an island of tranquility in a truculent world."

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Chris Buffa: ''Words are hard''