Hump Day Report: RT Stalkers
Rants and raves about burning topics that have caught my attention midweek, be it greedy corporate shenanigans, frustration or joy in regards to the Philly sports teams, a movie or DVD that has fired up my imagination, an intriguing personality, or my on-going battle to lose weight in our fast food world. — Lori Hoffman, Associate Editor, Atlantic City Weekly
My passion for movies began as a pre-teen and has been a driving force in my life ever since. Getting paid to see movies for free is a pretty sweet gig. For the past 30-plus years, I’ve been the film critic at AC Weekly, a.k.a. Whoot Newspaper in its formative years. I have been expressing that passion for the best movies that come along and also expressing my displeasure when movies didn’t cut it. Years ago I would get occasional feedback from fans via letters loving my work, and also complaints from those who didn’t agree with me. Fair enough: I put my opinions out there unvarnished. I’m a critic so I can take criticism.
I signed up to have my reviews posted on Rotten Tomatoes.com about five years ago.
I loved this terrific movie Web site and wanted to be a part of it. My life on RT was as a small fish in a very big pond featuring big paper superstar critics like Roger Ebert.
However, last year I did what I always do, say what I thought about the summer hit Iron Man. I didn’t like it and said so. This is when I became a target of the RT cyber stalkers. These stalkers fish the RT Web site looking for critics who disagree with the majority opinion. They then leave what I’m sure they think are witty, savage comments. The most popular one is “you suck!” No big deal; I was called a lot worse when I was a softball umpire.
However, one Iron Man fan boy decided to email me directly at AC Weekly and say he was going to kill my family and me. Even though I knew it was an idol threat, it was still disturbing. I’m passionate about movies so I understand the passion, but I don’t understand the need to be moronic.
Even my cat Jordi disagrees with me sometimes.
These stalkers do this with all the critics on the site. I find it intriguing, yet sad, that the stalkers think you suck because occasionally you disagree with the rest of the critics. In other words, because you are an individual and say what you think, even when it goes against the majority opinion, that makes you stupid and wrong.
I came of age in the 1960s when standing up against the majority was considered cool. The other comment often left about the critics that swim against the tide is that they present a negative comment just to get noticed on the Web site. Yes, I love the fame being told “I suck” in 17 different ways brings me.
Actually the plan to humiliate me and make me see the error of my ways backfired last year. A blogger from the National Lampoon Website ZAZ heard about the Iron Man controversy. Even though he disagreed with me about Iron Man, he decided he liked my style and interviewed me, bringing me my 15 minutes of fame in cyber space.
It could be worse: I could be Armond White, a Tomatometer critic who writes for the NY Press and who really gets trashed regularly on the site. These dudes even trash Ebert. Most of the time they suck up to him and tell him it’s cool, even if he disagrees with them. However, his negative review of Star Trek, brought out the same “you suck” vibe for Mr. Ebert.
Personally I’d like these cyber stalkers to let us know when they agree with us. A well written, favorable review of a movie rarely gets any comments. Heaven forbid they should ever admit they agree with someone who “sucks.”
And you know what, that really does suck.
Tags: film critic