Why I Hate Lazy-Ass Journalists.

I graduated from MSU's J-School, which is a rather fine journalism school as far as I could tell. The teachers that I had were competent save for that one troll that seems to exist in every college everywhere (he must get up very early in the morning.) Unfortunately the more I read newspapers the more it seems that like, next to no one is actually doing anything we were taught because... well shit, I don't know. I understand deadlines are tight and everyone and their mother is competing for a decreasing pie but dammit, your pie wouldn't /be/ decreasing if you could actually write decent shit.

... and yes this /does/ matter if you're writing entertainment news and not 'real' news, I mean shit I know what I read most of the time and it isn't global/local, it's What Cute Color the New VW Beetle Will Be.

Example (pulled off AOL News, I think from the AP Wire)

Revolution blames tabloid gossip about Lopez and Affleck for overexposing the stars and undermining the movie's appeal. That rumor mill, compounded by ``Gigli's'' failure, also might bode ill for Lopez and Affleck's second collaboration, next year's romance ``Jersey Girl.''

All right, now would it really hurt whomever wrote this to go and quote any of the lovely people off "Rotten Tomatoes" who would be happy to tell them that no, overexposure had nothing to do with the fact that this was a big flaming pile of monkey doo. FACT. FACT it was so bad I could actually see the stink waves emenating from the title in the /listing/, one of those movies you don't need to see to know it will give you some horrible mental disease and possibly crotch rot. Fact like the fact that George Lucas should be forced to give back every fucking dime he made off of Episode One and Two because god, we didn't really think it was going to be /that/ bad I mean he's got a huge fandom and all the money in the goddamn world and JESUS Lucas why didn't you just rip open Timothy Zahn's head and suck out the lovely insides?

... where was I? Oh yes, FACT. Two bullshit lazy-ass sentences in the same paragraph, because "Jersey Girl" in all likelyhood will not suck, at least NEVER a tenth as bad as that hideous Movie That Shall Not Be Named Ever Again because it's a fucking KEVIN SMITH MOVIE and Kevin Smith had a lesbian falling in love with Ben Affleck (including that chin) and not having me heaving popcorn all over the coffee table.

I mean, it's one thing to be a lazy fucking writer but can you at least try? Have a little fucking pride in pop culture?

Still, other directors have moved on to new successes after making bombs, among them Terry Gilliam, who rebounded with the ``The Fisher King'' and ``Twelve Monkeys'' after flopping with ``The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,''

I guess not. For god's sake you fucking moron, 'Adventures of Baron Munchausen' is like a goddamn art film. NOTHING Terry Gilliam does is pandering 'Gigli' bullshit (oh hell, I said it. Hope my tongue stays on), and it was not a 'flop' in that it was a shitty movie with a horrible concept and (from what I hear) godawful dialogue driven entirely by the hope that people want to see more of Ben-The-Chin and J-Lo. (I do like J-Lo and Ben, got nothing against them at all, they probably made a shitload off this movie and more power to them. The writer, though... ooh.)

In summary, do not give the corporate party line for why a movie failed when it's obvious to you, me, that drunken bum and Napoleon Boneparte's corpse that IT WAS A SHITTY SHITTY MOVIE. Also, do not compare art with shit.

Terry Gilliam is the MAN!

If we don't take this more seriously, there will be a Daredevil 2.