Black Snake Moan: Ludicrous Pullquote Round-up

When your film's got a bleached-blonde, wild-eyed Christina Ricci half-naked with a chain around her waist, you really don't need a critic's blurb to make your poster. But, just in case the folks at Paramount Vantage decide to pursue critical credibility with the DVD release of Black Snake Moan, here are their best bets for the pullquote:

"Capra for alcoholics and bar-hounds!" - Vadim Rizov, The Reeler

"[Should] be remembered come Oscar time ... Justin Timberlake has a commanding presence!" - Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle

"Outlandish, hilariously overripe, and possibly sexist! A very colorful movie!" - David Edelstein, New York Magazine

"The good ol' boys [will get] what they came for!" -- Rob Nelson, Village Voice

"A wet, hot, lurid Bible lesson and music jamboree! Accessible to boys and men who mostly want to see Ricci's peachies!" - Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly

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reporting on out-of-body experiences in a parallel universe

I'm interrupting my self-imposed vacation from blogging for an essential blockquote: with the Top Ten list the latest battleground in the epic mass plea for attention pissing contest that is film bloggery, J. Hoberman prefaces his '06 list with a predictably spot-on reclamation of the practice:

A curious form of journalism, film reviewing is highly topical yet essentially timeless. It consists of reporting week after week on out-of-body experiences in a parallel universe—subject to its own laws but intermittently visited by millions of others and filled with references to so-called real life. For this reason, a reviewer's annual 10 Best list is not just a barometer of taste. It's an exercise in autobiography (however veiled) and a contribution (however modest) to the history of the present.

Film criticism as an exercise in public autobiography? It sounds accurate, if not necessarily palatable.

Full disclosure: S.T. Van Airsdale and I are friendly colleagues; Hoberman is a former professor of mine; my own crimes in the name of attention-seeking have been well documented (mostly by me).

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