Don’t forget Easterbrook’s movie reviewing skills.

He got his knickers all in a twist over Kill Bill, a fucking kung-fu movie fer chrissake. He thought it was too violent. “Waaah, I’m Gregg Easterbrook, and I’m a big fucking pussy, and kung-fu movies are going to be the ruin of us all.” Then he throws in a nice heaping pile of anti-semitism to make his point, because Eisner and Weinstein run Miramax. Whatafuckingbitch.

God that’s right, he does review movies too. Sigh. There goes my fallback plan.

Let’s just pray REALLY HARD that he doesn’t start writing a sex column, OK?

Gregg Easterbrook is
a really shitty writer
and is ugly too.

But he’s so completely clueless he’d start writing at Pitchfork with a 4 star review of Paris Hilton’s album, and even the P-bags wouldn’t stand for that.

But he could totally destroy sex. I wonder if he’s the DobsoManiacs secret weapon?

Here’s the passage from Easterbrook’s “Kill Bill” hit piece that got him fired from ESPN:

Disney’s CEO, Michael Eisner, is Jewish; the chief of Miramax, Harvey Weinstein, is Jewish. Yes, there are plenty of Christian and other Hollywood executives who worship money above all else, promoting for profit the adulation of violence. Does that make it right for Jewish executives to worship money above all else, by promoting for profit the adulation of violence?

Oops. Not very smart. Then, in classic weasel fashion, here’s his non-apology apology:

When I reread my own words and beheld how I’d written things that could be misunderstood, I felt awful. To anyone who was offended I offer my apology, because offense was not my intent.

That thing about Jews valuing money above all else? Sorry if you all misunderstood that or took it the wrong way. I didn’t mean to offend anybody. I mean, lighten up, guys.

He’s also well known for being a long-time skeptic of global warming, which now even he admits is science fact. I fucking hate, hate, HATE that asshole.

He’s also skeptical about the Big Bang, ferchrissakes — he loves to gloat about the difficulties astronomers have in finding Dark Matter, for example.

Easterbrook: Truly
Such an annoying butthead
That there’s really no way to sum it up in 5 goddamn syllables. “Others seem hauntingly round numbers;” – WTF?

Leering at ‘cheer babes’
Somehow Jew japes forgotten
Beltway perv Gregg E.

Nice one DA-

Estabrook is great when he writes about science.

Some say polymath
Others claim useless tosspot
Answer is clear

A great deal of his schtick is in saying things like “why do drive-thru ATMs have braille buttons? Wokka-wokka!”

Oh, the trouble when he deemed it appropriate to consider global warming a serious idea… less time spent wacking off to NASA budget estimates and pretending to be a science columnist…

He picked my Eagles?
Now despair, Philly Phaithful;
We’re gonna get screwed.

His football column was fun to read the first few weeks, but it slowly dawned on me over the course of the season that he writes the same column, over and over again.

He seems the sort of person people find fascinating until they talk to him for more than 15 minutes.

But Brad, you’ll know all there is to know about Gregg’s views on sex just by reading his NFL column. His Sexual Personae is that of the Dirty, Unseemly Voyuer.

He’s waaaaaaaaayyyyyy into cheerleaders. Cheerleaders. Strippers are unseemly. Janet Jackson?! Strumpet! Cheerleaders flashing everything but their clit ring? Wholesome all-American types to be leered at. In other words, he holds the typical stance of the American Prig: women are to be oggled, but they must remain chaste as well.

Oh yeah, he’s a Intelligent Design douchebag too.

Please, Ron, try 15 seconds…

Say what you will about Gregg Easterbrook, but I’ll always remember him from such films as “Westworld” and “Saturday the 14th.”

In other words, he holds the typical stance of the American Prig: women are to be oggled, but they must remain chaste as well.

Because a douche like him will never, ever get near the kind of girl he fantasizes about, therefore nobody else should have them either.

He’s a very specific type of Christian– the “I’m not getting laid, so I don’t want anybody else to either” Christian.

And, right on cue: Autism is caused by TV! Why? Becasue he doesn;tunderstand terms like “correlation”, “causation”, “scientific method”, “if”, “and”, and “but”, apparently.

Estabrook is great when he writes about science

If by “great” you mean, “smacked around like a pinata by people that actually study in the fields he writes stupid, unsupported bullshit about”, well, sure.

he loves to gloat about the difficulties astronomers have in finding Dark Matter, for example

Sadly, not any more!

http://cosmicvariance.com/2006/08/21/dark-matter-exists/

Gregg Easterbrook: wrong, almost all the time.

So, he sucks at science writing, movie reviews, sports, politics and would probably blow at writing music stuff too. It’s failure on grand scale, really. What a great country this is that he’s not mocked and scorned every time he shows that mug in public but instead is steadily published.

This haiku schtick stopped
being cute five years ago
so knock it off, dicks

I thought he got screwed on the anti-Semitism accusations. The basis of the column was that, as representatives of a persecuted minority, Eisner and Weinstein should be held to a higher standard of humanism in filmmaking and should not glorify the slaughter of innocents. That may be wrongheaded, but it is not anti-Semitism. I presume he got fired because he was writing for ESPN, which was owned by ABC, which was owned by Disney, so he was in effect biting the hands that fed him, because he felt he needed to. That is not a shameful activity on the part of a journalist, either, and ESPN was ballless for putting out a statement which selectively quoted from the column to make Easterbrook appear to be anti-Semitic (they also purged all of his columns from ESPN.com in a single day). I can see I’m in the vast minority here; I think TMQ is tedious but has its high points. As for never getting laid, last I heard his wife represented the US government on refugee issues to the European Union, so yeah, she probably isn’t around much.

Yeah, I used to read his column all the time too. I remember when he got (silently) canned from ESPN.com and had his archive pulled.

Considering his repetitive writing style, the whole “some Christians are interested in money above all things….” comparison didn’t set off any alarm bells with me, although it was pretty excruciating to read, no matter the intent.

But he doesn’t get a free pass for becoming tedious.

I thought he got screwed on the anti-Semitism accusations. The basis of the column was that, as representatives of a persecuted minority, Eisner and Weinstein should be held to a higher standard of humanism in filmmaking and should not glorify the slaughter of innocents.

Sorry, I can’t agree with you on that one. I will repeat the exact quote:

Yes, there are plenty of Christian and other Hollywood executives who worship money above all else, promoting for profit the adulation of violence. Does that make it right for Jewish executives to worship money above all else, by promoting for profit the adulation of violence?

That is loaded language. “Does that make it right for Jewish executives to worship money above all else” is a phenomenally stupid thing to say.

well, have you read the whole column?

here it is.

TAKE OUT THE GORE AND KILL BILL IS AN EPISODE OF “MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS”: Is Quentin Tarantino the single greatest phony in the history of Hollywood? I realize that’s saying a lot–about Hollywood, not him. But it’s the sole explanation I can think of to explain his bizarre prominence.

All of Tarantino’s work is pure junk. How can you be a renowned director without ever having made a film that’s even good, to say nothing of great? No film student in 50 years will spend a single second with a Tarantino movie, except to shake his or her head.

Tarantino does nothing but churn out shabby depictions of slaughter as a form of pleasure–and that, for decades, has been what the least imaginative and least talented of Hollywood churn out. Supposedly it’s “revolutionary,” or something, that Tarantino films revel in violence to a preposterous degree, but that’s like saying it is revolutionary for a presidential candidate to revel in complaints against Washington bureaucrats. Nothing about Hollywood is more hackneyed or trite than preposterous violence–and that’s all Tarantino has ever put onto film.

Set aside what it says about contemporary Hollywood culture that the supposed liberal progressives of this city now ceaselessly mass-market presentations of butchering the helpless as a form of entertainment, even, as rewarding self-expression. Why do we suppose that, with Hollywood’s violence-glorifying films now shown all around the world to billions of people–remember, mass distribution of Hollywood movies to the developing world and Islamic states is a recent phenomenon–young terrorists around the globe now seem to view killing the innocent as a positive thing, even, a norm? Set that concern aside. Tarantino’s films are simply trite as regards adoration of violence. In Hollywood, nothing could be less original.

And his supposed innovative screenplays? Spare me. The out-of-sequence technique Tarantino uses is praised as ingenious, yet every first-year film student is taught this device. To laud Tarantino as innovative because events happen out-of-sequence is like lauding The Bridges of Madison County as innovative because it opens with a discovered letter from someone who has died. All novice novelists know that device. Of course, the novelistic device may be used well or poorly, just as time-shifted cinema may be good or bad. Tarantino’s out-of-sequence film moments are, uniformly, trite drivel.

And supposedly Tarantino is some kind of counter-genius for getting box-office stars like Bruce Willis and Uma Thurman to debase themselves in his drivel. But commercial Hollywood types debase themselves for a living; most never do anything else. To persuade someone to do that which he or she was eager to do anyway isn’t much in the way of accomplishment.

Tarantino must draw his prominence in Hollywood, and among film-buff culture, from the very fact of his phoniness. First, his career says that you can do nothing but wallow in preposterous violence–Hollywood’s cheapest and least original aspect–and still be revered. Second, his career validates the idea that you can accomplish nothing at all in any meaningful sense and yet acquire fame. The idea that you can get celebrity, money, and women through the movies without having any merits whatsoever is at the core of the Hollywood’s conception of itself. Tarantino is its ultimate expression of this phoniness. Please don’t tell me that makes him ironically postmodern.

Corporate sidelight: Kill Bill is distributed by Miramax, a Disney studio. Disney seeks profit by wallowing in gore–Kill Bill opens with an entire family being graphically slaughtered for the personal amusement of the killers–and by depicting violence and murder as pleasurable sport. Disney’s Miramax has been behind a significant share of Hollywood’s recent violence-glorifying junk, including Scream, whose thesis was that murdering your friends and teachers is a fun way for high-school kids to get back at anyone who teases them. Scream was the favorite movie of the Columbine killers.

Set aside what it says about Hollywood that today even Disney thinks what the public needs is ever-more-graphic depictions of killing the innocent as cool amusement. Disney’s CEO, Michael Eisner, is Jewish; the chief of Miramax, Harvey Weinstein, is Jewish. Yes, there are plenty of Christian and other Hollywood executives who worship money above all else, promoting for profit the adulation of violence. Does that make it right for Jewish executives to worship money above all else, by promoting for profit the adulation of violence? Recent European history alone ought to cause Jewish executives to experience second thoughts about glorifying the killing of the helpless as a fun lifestyle choice. But history is hardly the only concern. Films made in Hollywood are now shown all over the world, to audiences that may not understand the dialogue or even look at the subtitles, but can’t possibly miss the message–now Disney’s message–that hearing the screams of the innocent is a really fun way to express yourself

“Kill Bill” is an amazing piece of art by perhaps the most talented American director of his generation. The violence in the movie is tongue in cheek. But it didn’t live up to Easterbrook’s personal standards of “decency,” so he assassinated the character of all the people involved with it, and he stuck his foot right in his mouth in the process. I thought it was a quite lovely example of instant karma.

Yeah, I have read the whole column. The column in its entirety makes Easterbrook look even more like an uptight, humorless prig. The truth of the matter is that Tarantino is a brilliant artist, and Easterbrook is a third-rate ESPN columnist. Film students will absolutely be studying Tarantino’s work in 50 years, because Tarantino is a master of film language. What the fuck a kung-fu movie has to do with the holocaust, I will never understand. Easterbrook is full of shit. He is wrong about everything.

I’ve never seen it. We were talking about whether Easterbrook is anti-Semitic, not whether he knows anything about movies. You continued to pull up the selective quotes offered by ABC as a reason for Easterbook’s dismissal; I thought it might be valuable to see the whole thing in context.

Maybe he’s not anti-Semitic, but he is for sure not very smart, and completely dishonest. He’s basically making the argument that Eisner and Weinstein, as Jews, should not promote violent movies because of “recent European history.” We’re talking about a kung fu movie, and he is raising the spectre of the Holocaust to assassinate the character of Eisner and Weinstein. Parse it how you like, but in a roundabout way, he’s saying Eisner and Weinstein “value money above all else.” It backfired. Boo-fucking-hoo for him.

We needn’t cry for Easterbrook. I’m sure he does quite nicely. It is you and I who suffer when a big media conglomerate elects to shitcan an employee for the ultimate crime of dissing the boss.

It is you and I who suffer when a big media conglomerate elects to shitcan an employee for the ultimate crime of dissing the boss.

If I published a column accusing my bosses (in a baseless fashion) of being greedy and immoral, I might expect to get fired too. If the Anti-Defamation League, NY Times and LA Times were all over my ass about stupid shit I wrote, I wouldn’t be too surprised to get a pink slip.

I see others more quick than I already made the “cheer babe” / “sex column” link.

And another thing…

All of Tarantino’s work is pure junk.

Has this maroon even seen Jackie Brown?

Fortunately, he seems to hate baseball…

Baseball? How are the Red Sox doing anyway? Hmmm…?

Without Papi, they’re Crappi

I’m answering a haiku with a haiku…

Four and twelve season?
Not for my Oakland Raiders
I’m calling bullshit

Robbie:

I could have told you
My Niners will fucking suck
In one syllable

teh –

I have to say that of Tarantino’s work (except From Dusk ’til Dawn), Jackie Brown is my _least_ favorite. Give me Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction or even the last segment of Four Rooms before Jackie Brown.

Haiku is not hard.
You can make them readable.
Not Easterbrook though.

What the fuck is this?
Shit grammar? No “the” allowed?
Brown turd in white bowl.

gjdodger,

I think it is anti-semitism masked in concern troll language. Look at this idiocy:

Recent European history alone ought to cause Jewish executives to experience second thoughts about glorifying the killing of the helpless as a fun lifestyle choice.

First, what the fuck is he saying here — that because of the holocaust Jews should somehow be holier than the regular run of the mill Hollywood exec? That’s inane.

Second, regarding the movie in question, “killing the helpless” is about a billion times removed from “Kill Bill”. I thought it was a pretty stupid movie, but as far as it went, who the fuck was ‘helpless’ in that movie? It was a revenge fantasy featuring cartoon ninjas, badass female assassins and sadistic assholes with guns.

So, to say “for shame, Jews!” about a movie where one trained killer wiped out other trained killers who tried to kill her — knowing that a large swatch of his audience might not ever see the movie is, at best, disingenuous and at worst, jew-baiting by trying to tie them in with old amoral money-grubbing stereotypes.

Moreover, he gives Christians (and by omission, Germans) a pass for the mayhem put in movies. Why? If the Jews were victims of a singular crime that should make them more moral regarding life and death matters (this is the absurdity of his column talking), why should those who committed the crime be let off the hook? Shouldn’t they be more penitent and concerned about nihlistic violence, since they’ve been the ones who employed it?

And his point on “Scream” belies any sophistication in subtext. He says that half-clever movie “whose thesis was that murdering your friends and teachers is a fun way for high-school kids to get back at anyone who teases them” was glorifying violence. I think it’s rather telling that it was two popular kids in that movie who went nuts. They did it more out of a sense of entitlement and easily nurtured resentment — all while sending up the truly misogynist subtext of most slasher movies where the women who get laid or naked end up dead (“The Rules” mentioned throughout the movie) — not because they were teased. Easterbrook again seems to have written about a different movie while making a banal point (also: the columbine kids worshipped “The Matrix” more than Scream, which only Easterbrook would fail to mention or perhaps even notice.).

Finally, it’s interesting that he called out two Jews and two movies whose heroines were women — and who came out alive. There might be movies where the ‘murder of innocents’ is good fun, but it wasn’t these two. Gregg’s an asshole.

Gregg may not know squat
But two and fourteen Lions?
May be worse than that

I thought he got screwed on the anti-Semitism accusations. The basis of the column was that, as representatives of a persecuted minority, Eisner and Weinstein should be held to a higher standard of humanism in filmmaking and should not glorify the slaughter of innocents.

1) I must have missed it when Eisner and Weinstein were declared Representatives of a Persecuted Minority. Who did the declaring? Oooh, wouldn’t it be so ironic if Abe Foxman had been the one? Did Eisner and Weinstein have any choice in the matter? After all, if the obligations of being a Representative of a Persecuted Minority are as grave as Easterbrook paints them shouldn’t a Representative choose said obligations freely?

2) Because Eisner and Weinstein are minorities, they exist so that they can teach the rest of us a lesson? It sounds like something out of a Very Special Episode of Saved By The Bell. Or maybe Blossom. About half of the episodes of Blossom were Very Special. Honestly, the “noblesse oblige of the minority (or handicapped, because in SitComLand the two are interchangeable)” is the province of the hack.

Which may explain why Easterbrook wrote it.

Say, Brad, OT, but D. Sidhe mentioned that your birthday is either the 10th or 11th. Which is it? I’m hoping that it isn’t the 11th, since that day has the unfortunate connotations that it does. OTOH, if so, at least we’d know something good happened on *that* day.

I’m gonna be tossing down if he compares my boys to Walmart again…

Elvii is dumb
Syllables it posseses
three. Bad Latin too.*

* Unless the Pats’ logo is the Flying Elvius.

I think Easterbrook has a lot of good points about the Space Shuttle program, for one.

I also think he has a valid point about dark matter, although it breaks down when he tries to act like science has proclaimed dark matter to exist, period, no need to study further, as though capital-S Science had proclaimed that a giant chariot pulls the sun across the sky. In fact, science is still quite obsessed with figuring out the nature of dark matter and whether there is actually a flaw in the underlying theory of relativity.

It’s this annoying sanctimonious way of going around saying “aha! Science doesn’t have all the answers!” when science never CLAIMS to have all the answers.

Sorry, I cringed at the thought of getting my balls flattened and never read the story.

I read his column for a couple of years at ESPN. When he actually talked football, it was decent. The violence in movies thing, which he started railing against before his infamous Kill Bill column, is where he lost me.

capital-S Science

Easterbrook should not be allowed near it. When he finds something implausible, he wonders why you can float such an idea but God is still not allowed near the test tubes. A dumbass.

But BradR. What about #5?

What if he starts… brewing???

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