Manohla Dargis is mean.
Or so says Patrick Goldstein at his blog at the LA Times, deeming her a "movie killer" and adding: It's an open secret in indie Hollywood that no one wants Manohla Dargis to review their movie, fearing that the outspoken critic will tear their film limb from limb. It's the ultimate backhanded compliment, since what they really fear is Manohla's persuasiveness -- that she'll write a review whose combination of vitriolic snarkiness and intellectual heft will actually persuade high-brow moviegoers to drop the film from their must-see list. Which is all very well, except Goldstein then digs into Dargis' review of "The Reader," which he interprets (I'd say wrongly) as "total damnation" of the film, writing that she "manages to trash the film's source material, Bernhard Schlink's much-praised novel... as well as the film itself." That "much-praised" is a cheap dig; the "But Oprah liked it!" argument doesn't make Dargis'...
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