Word: put-downs
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...quest for entertaining copy, the critic all too often falls into what I call the "Time Magazine Syndrome:" the witty dig, the cutting remark, the clever put-down. It usually takes the form of word-play--perhaps a pun on the film's title, or on an actor's name. Sometimes the put-downs are more involved, bringing in associations from previous films, or the personal lives of the people who made the film, or aspects of the film itself. The one thing that all forms of this syndrome have in common is that the put-down is gratuitous...
Every critic seems, at some point, to be influenced by this syndrome; at their best, the put-downs are clever and amusing--at their worst, crass and tasteless. But what's always offensive about the syndrome is that it is antithetical to any exchange of ideas. It's much easier to come up with a put-down than with solid reasoning explaining why a critic disagreed with or disliked a film...
...A put-down is a way of shutting off discussion, not encouraging it. That's true in discourse, and it's also true in reviewing. The advantage derived from a well-written put-down--a moment's entertainment--simply isn't worth the damage to the process of communication.
After returning for brief law study at Chapel Hill, Ervin passed the North Carolina bar examination. But he decided that he needed more training and entered Harvard Law School as an advanced, third-year student. After earning his degree ('22), he then began an unusual career in which he...
The difference between the plays is that Osborne is the master of long, eloquent, spellbinding monologues, while Britain's Simon Gray, author of last season's transvestite farce, Wise Child, is more the fencing master of brief, bitchy repartee. All of the fun is put-down humor, incessant...