for 20 January 2000. Updated every WEEKDAY.
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Hit & Run Hey, Sucksters, I emailed that guy Fumento about one of his articles. I can see why he posts the letters he does. Smart ones from people who can spell piss him off. He said I was worse than a "bleeding-heart lib." Can you really abbreviate that? Chris McCall <chris.mccall@ nbc.com> The secret to any good hate mail page is to weed out all signs of intelligence and good spelling. That's something we never have to do for our own Fish page, as the participants tend to be self-selecting. Yr pal, Tim  Hey guys, I am writing in for the first time to you and want to say how much I enjoy the site. Thus said, I ventured into the hate mail site you listed and read a little. It quickly reminded me of a similar, although much more humorous site located at http://www.thethirdrail.com/. If you want to investigate, check into the archives (not sure if this is there) or ask them if you can see the mail they used to get (and their responses) about their anti-Hootie site. I read it at work and laughed much too loud for doing such an illicit, immoral act. Dennis Schulte <dschulte@inet.ed.gov> Thanks. Somehow Fumento's hate mail seemed to have an edge of direness that made it especially memorable. Yr pal, Tim Just a short, virtually meaningless complaint: "The least the 20th century deserves is a spirited John Williams score...." I just want to voice my slight disdain for this "composer." As an avid classical music listener, I feel an obligation to point out that many of John Williams' scores are copies of great works by music's best composers, such as Holst and Mussorgsky (much of Williams' Star Wars score was borrowed from Holst and his Olympic songs from modest Mussorgsky). While Kenny G.'s music may (pardon my rudeness) blow, at least he has written and performed pieces that he has acknowledged to be variations of someone else's work. If you want an excellent 20th century American composer, I would recommend Aaron Copland; at least he recognized that his famous Appalachian Spring was a variation on an old Shaker hymn. If you are looking for a live composer, you are out of luck, because all the good ones are dead. OK, I think I'm done trashing John Williams now. Sincerely, Erich Theiss <etheiss@umich.edu> No good living composers? Two words, Erich: Liverpool Oratorio. Yr pal, Tim Consider yourself lucky that you got to watch an Emmanuelle Beart vehicle on your Air France flight. My in-flight movie was Asterix, a Gerard Depardieu vehicle. Supposedly this was France's attempt to make a big, expensive, Hollywood-style movie. Phew! They also had some sort of Tom & Jerry–style cartoon, which stunk. The meal was OK, though. They don't charge extra for the champagne, even in coach, which makes them more civilized than the US airlines, at least in this respect. Eric Ritter There truly are not enough words in any language to describe how terrible that Asterix movie is. All this time I was feeling sorry for the frogs because they could never make anything as cool as Reservoir Dogs, and here it turns out they can't even make something as cool as A Kid in Aladdin's Court. You're right about the meal, though. Best I've had on an airplane. Yr pal, Tim Dear Sucksters, Day after day I read your site. Some days, it's good ... and somedays it's great. Some days I agree ... and some days I disagree, but always I'm amused and sometimes amazed at your twists and turns in arriving at the point. To me, stirring up the proverbial pot provides the bubbling energy and interest in matters that might otherwise go unnoticed. That's a very good thing for those living in this aging republic. I suspect Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams could have used some of your urbane wit and breadth of knowledge back in their days, but it's better for me that you're here now. I applaud the variety of topics you tackle, and the breadth of knowledge you demonstrate (not to mention a savvy understanding of international cinema to boot). For this expatriot child of humble Iowa, you provide more than a smile on my face but demonstrate that there is room in this world for people with open eyes too. Keep on Suckin' , Andrew West Rochester, Michigan <andreww7@hotmail.com> I think if Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams had had our urbane wit, the American Revolution would have been an abysmal failure, and right now we'd be speaking, um, English. But thanks for your kind words. Bubbling with energy, the Sucksters Aliens was the best sequel, hands down. And just to correct your mistake, it was Jeunet who directed Alien: Resurrection, not Caro. Caro is Jeunet's screenwriter, and he's the one who added the palpable sense of insanity in Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children. That sense is gone in A: R. Jeunet is a gifted director, but give him a horrible story, and it still makes a sucky film. (Ripley, clone my hairy ass. I never saw someone dunk so badly.) Frank Pelletier <fpelletier@hermes.usherb.ca> You are correct about Jeunet, and I sincerely regret the error. However, that does not change the fact that James Cameron's Aliens is a beached walrus of a film, which robs the alien of its coolest feature: its invincibility. Once you can kill the alien with a gun, what's the point of going on living? Add to this the fact that the movie gave an early career boost to Paul Reiser, and I think any fair-minded person would agree that all prints of this film should be burned. Jeunet at least tried to take the feeble and arthritic Alien series in an interesting new direction by effectively making the alien the hero. He failed only because he was unable to overcome the crushing literal-mindedness of the genre. Yr pal, Tim Jean-Pierre Jeunet, not Marc Caro, directed Alien: Resurrection. Caro was credited as design supervisor, and that echoes independent reports that Jeunet was more responsible for the actors in their earlier works. Incidentally, while I haven't seen it yet, France's entry in the Oscar stakes this year is Régis Wargnier's Est-ouest. I'll certainly grant your premise; there's been nothing near as exciting as Lola rennt (Run, Lola, Run) or Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke) — or even Being John Malkovich — from France lately. Jon Reeves <jreeves@imdb.com> Correction noted. And we wish Wargnier the very best of luck in his effort to make Oscar say, "Oo-la-la!" the Sucksters hey, keep slagging the frenchies for me! i'm the only american in my office, and it's my patriotic duty to introduce them to some sucky humor. HEE HEE!!!! also, the xmas stress busters where polly sits and says "motherfucker motherfucker motherfucker" was quite funny. ok, so maybe i'm a degenerate bastard, but i still find fuck words in print hilarious. don't post my name if you print this shit, s'il vous plait. Patrick Campbell <patrick.campbell@free.fr> You'd better buck up there, Patrick. You're representing your country overseas. Make us all proud! the Sucksters Hit & Run I agree with your French and movie-going tidbit. I sat through that same La bûche movie on an Air France flight and was glad that it put me to sleep. One remark: Marc Caro did not direct Alien 5 (or 6 or 4??) in Hollywood: Jean-Pierre Jeunet, his Delicatessen and La cité des enfants sidekick did. Thanks. Jean-Pierre Jacquet <jpjfilms@cybercable.fr> You're right. The two of them should patch things up and get back together, since the two movies they did as a team were orders of magnitude better than the Alien film. Yr pal, Tim Dear Sucksters, I'm sorry that you're bored with the Olympian disdain, because I'm absolutely lovin' it. A fairly new Suck-o-phile, I regularly read your essays and cartoons while drinking the days' first cups of java. This helps me to attain the proper attitude to make it through the day in which higher paid and supposedly better educated physicians try to make my life a living hell. Appropriately, I am looking waaaaaaaaaay down my nose as I type this. Ever yours, Kellie Thorne <kthorne@uswest.net> If you're a physician and you're not happy with your co-workers, why don't you just poison them? I've been trying for months to get somebody to do a Suck oncology on Dr. Swango, but what I really wonder is what other doctors say about him. Do you sit around in the hospital cafeteria, reminiscing? "Dr. Giggles, Dr. Mengele ... They were OK. But Dr. Swango, boy, he's in a league all his own!" When you get in an argument with another doctor, do you say, "You're lucky I don't Swango your ass!"? When the doctors go out for drinks, do you come in the next day saying, "I feel like I've been Swango'd!"? At the Christmas party, do you excaim, "Hey! Who put a Swango in the egg nog?"? That Dr. Swango! If he's not your hero, you don't deserve to live in a free nation. Yr pal, Tim Subject: Ceci est une bombe (pas vrai, c'est un message) Dear Sucksters, it's the first time I take time to criticize your work, but I will sure enjoy it. The movie you refer to in the fragment: "... about more crowd-pleasing topics than drag-queen funerals ..." is just not French as you say it comes from the Republic's auteurs. In fact, I guess you're talkin' about the new Pedro Almodóvar, who is, in fact, quite Spanish to me. The movie title is, in English, All About My Mother; in Spanish, Todo Sobre Mi Madre; and in French, Tout sur ma mère (as I've seen it, since French is my main language). So please, don't try to pretend being cultural when you can't even know the origin of a good movie. Or at least ask the good people. Richard Huot directly from Quebec City and still a bit French <rebel69@megaquebec.com> I'm sure you felt a nice, rectum-tightening burst of pride at being able to correct us "culturally," but you're wrong. The movie in question is Ceux qui m'aiment prendront le train, in which an artist leaves a last request that all his various friends and lovers take a long train ride to his funeral. The talents of Jean-Louis Trintignant and other fine performers are wasted in the course of this film, and Vincent Peréz steals the show as a zany transsexual named Viviane. Just to bring the circle around, I note that you have a Quebec mailing address. The director of this film, Patrice Chéreau, turned in a first-rate performance in Michael Mann's Last of the Mohicans playing General Montcalm. Montcalm, you will recall, was killed at the Battle of Quebec, as was his opponent, the British general Wolfe. However, the British forces prevailed, which is why you are now compelled to send out your nit-picking emails in non-idiomatic English, rather than in the French with which, one assumes, you are more comfortable. Keep trying to catch us, though. We average about 28 errors per day, so it should be easy to do. Yr pal, Tim Subject: Re: Dead-on? Or put upon? Dear Sucksters: Gene Rayburn above Curtis Mayfield? Oh, come on. I enjoyed Match Game as much as any other schlep, but I would put Rayburn no higher than fourth in the pit parade, behind Mayfield, Rick Danko, and Madeline Kahn. It's debatable, I guess, and one can only wonder if the occasion would cause them to debate if they were indeed holed up in a compound somewhere near Roswell, waiting either for The Rapture or the return of The Price Is Right to prime-time television. Impressionistically yours, Tim Nekritz <nekritz@dreamscape.com> As long as Brett Somers, Dick Gautier, and Charles Nelson Reilly have breath to draw, we give top honors to the late Gene Rayburn. Yr pal, Tim Dear Tim: It could have been much worse. You could have flown back via SAS, where all announcements are given in three languages (one of which — Flemish — is spoken by three people in the universe) and the movie was The Runaway Bride, with Flemish subtitles. It wasn't a total loss; I got to read your excellent December Wired article in the airport in Brussels. (I'd keep Batman, by the way, at least in the better graphics versions. I was once offered an original, signed Batman poster for several thousand dollars and actually had to think about it before saying no, so fine was the original work.) and, without anything at all to do for 8 hours, was able to finish Dubliners. I highly recommend it for air travel; after finishing it, you're able to view landing in an overused, fog-hidden, Y2K-infested JFK airport without worry, contented that you don't have to live in Joyce's Dublin. Alan S Kornheiser <ASKornheiser@prodigy.net> Air France did show Just Married (Ou presque) dubbed into French, and I have a question about the Flemish version: There's a scene in which a woman named Fleming asks Richard Gere, "Have you heard my husband's morning radio show, Wake Up with Flem?" How can you translate that bon mot into Flemish? Yr pal, Tim What happened to you with French cinema? You're bored with the Figaro cinema's entries. OK, French people went to see your American movies. It's only for one reason. You Americans only think money, money, money. Your movies are demeasurated and ultra-expensive to attract the most people you can. I won't speak about American advertising, which is as expensive as the movies themselves. Most of your movies are action movies, and a lot of times we can see enormous patriotic messages (I think about ID 4 as the most patriotic movie I've never seen). But where is the real life here? You Americans have been since your childhood attracted by big spectacular shows like Catch or big Dragster or bombing Iraq on the TV. (Note that I don't disclaim the fact you fuck Sadam, just the fact you like to show war and a lot of things that get on my nerves.) All that is to say that your movies need to be spectacular shows with strong men, etc. The French go to see your movies only because of ads you make for them and because they have their eyes opened wide by your special effects. But there is no artistic creation, only shit. Sorry for my English and my mistakes, but I hope you understand me and will think about what I said. One last point: American people are not the center of the world, nor are French people nor other people in the world. Excuse me for my direct style, but I strongly think that I'm right. My name is Julien. I'm a 22 years old and French. <JULIENHERNANDEZ@aol.com> PS Even I'm a fanatic of Star Wars! I know it's pleasing to believe that advertising is a magical force which turns ordinary people into mindless zombies and forces them to shamble down to theaters where they unhappily watch "demeasurated and ultra-expensive" films like Dans le peau de John Malkovich. But unfortunately for your theory, the tradition of individual liberty is almost as strong in France as it is in the United States. If a movie makes a lot of money, it's because many people freely chose to see it. In any event, the point isn't that Hollywood makes dumb, expensive, special-effects-heavy movies (a song we've all heard so many times before that you should really be ashamed to be singing it again). The point is that, at the moment, Hollywood is also making better serious movies than France. For all the praise lavished on films like Gaspar Noé's Seul contre tous by people hoping to find any signs of life in French cinema, you guys have not been producing anything to compete with The Limey or Magnolia or In John Malkovich's Skin. You can make all the excuses you like, but excuses are like assholes. Everybody's got one, and they all stink. Yr pal, Tim Hey, Sucksters. This email is a response to your recent pathetic whining request for flame mail. Well, let ME flame you, SUCKERS!!! YOU SUCK!!! YOU'RE A BUNCH OF STINKY FOO-HEADS!!! YOURE ALL ... oh, hell, I can't sustain it. Never mind. I do like your online magazine thing, whatever it is. It's usually at least semi-amusing, even when I disagree with it. And it's free, which is pretty hard to beat, so there you go. The parody of /. was particularly giggle worthy. Oh, wait, I do have something to flame you about after all! You live in New York, don't you?!! YOU SUCK!!!! I'll bet you fancy New Yorkers all think that everybody else in the rest of the country is a bunch of illiterate, uneducated, uncultured, and stuff-like-that hicks!!!!! I tell you what; y'all wouldn't be spoutin' that city-slicker talk if y'all had the GUTS to come out west here, where we's know how to deal with folks like yew!!!! Y'all 'ud be lucky if we didn't sic our hound dawgs on yer butts, and chase yew all across the county line!!! I bet you just envy us anyway. I've never been to New York, but I saw Taxi Driver and Six Degrees of Separation, which are both documentaries, so I KNOW that NY is an ugly, polluted, trash-filled, dangerous place where taxi drivers shoot at you and you can get arrested and disappear for the simple crime of being Will Smith when he was younger!!!!! It's times like this when I'm proud to say that I live in a beautiful, sunny, happy, peaceful town like Seattle!!!!! Besides, I think we're closer to Canada, so when the US finally goes belly-up like all the survivalist nuts say it will, we'll be able to sneak across the border before they install the electrified razor-wire fences. Hey, speaking of Canadians, they're a wacky bunch, aren't they? Eh? Ha! What brilliant wit! I'm so much smarter than you! Screw it, I still don't care. Yrs sncrly, Erin <jia_maebashi@ yahoo.com> PS If you want to make money off this letter, you're crazy: You can't make money off anything I write! I have a stack of rejection notices as thick as your thumb right here that says it's impossible to make money off my writing, so nyah! Thanks for honoring our request, and Happy New Year to you. Yr pal, Tim Subject: This is the picture I saw when I woke up Attached is what I got. I'm from Seattle. Pleasa, no more Kenny Geesa. Kenny G. Sucks <kennygsucks@excite.com> Your email address strongly indicates that you are some kind of specialist. We were only appealing to the casual Kenny G. appreciator. Yr pal, Tim Hi, I'm just saying this once. Don't put Kenny G.'s smiling picture on my "homepage" again. You do, and you won't be my homepage. I'll change it to drudgereport.com, where I go anyway. I almost pucked. I didn't need Kenny G. five times today. I know you are so postmodern and isn't it funny, but dear god, it isn't. OK???????? Charlotte Quinn <music@speakeasy.org> Wow, you almost "pucked"? Thanks for visiting Suck five times in one day. We actually have an award for most-frequent visitors, you know. the Sucksters |
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