A DVD SHOW

I was looking through the TV guide and noticed a certain show playing on SunTV (a Toronto broadcast television station). The DVD Show sounded interesting enough so I decided to check an installment last evening. That was a big mistake. I could not believe how bad it was. From watching it I gathered that there are two regular hosts and two guest hosts for any particular episode.

The hosts were obviously fake in personality and maybe lacking any personality. The fun really started for your dedicated viewer when these clowns started reviewing newly released DVDs. One such title, Paul Verhoeven's The Black Book (Zwartboek), was a victim of the DVD Show's skilled reviewers. One of the guests, the guy guest, said something like, "most people know Verhoeven from his Hollywood movies like Robocop, Basic Instinct, Starship Troopers, and Showgirls; so I don't know why they would watch a film he made like one of his earlier movies he made in his country". (I am paraphrasing of course as I made the mistake of not taping the program so I could get an exact transcription with the added benefit of getting to enjoy it over and over again.)

I could not believe what I heard. It goes without saying that subjectivity is part of any criticism, but to dismiss some movie out of hand and with such verbiage is not only unfair to the viewer -- there are those who might be watching this review plus actually like 'foreign' films -- but indicates pure brainlessness on the part of the so-called reviewer. As a critic, you may warn those readers or television viewers who don't like foreign-language films and particularly don't like having to read subtitles, and that the title being discussed is both those so they might want to skip it, then put it in that perspective. Do not dismiss a film outright. Part of film and television criticism, good film and television criticism, is to hold the viewer's or reader's hand and take them through an introduction of varied movie or tv program types as they come along. Believe it or not, many people are open minded; these idiotic 'reviewers' are not... although, it could be argued that one has to have a brain to be 'minded' at all -- or have any personality.

Brain-less.

Don't think I am slagging SunTV: This afternoon, as I discovered in my TV guide perusing, this station is playing Wonder Woman at 3 p.m. and following it up with The Incredible Hulk at 4 p.m.

Awesome. (I all but ignored these programs in their original runs... but still awesome.)