The other day I was traveling home on the tube. I had just seen some awesome people and had had fun. This particular journey is an hour long by tube so I brought my favourite new film magazine of the moment, The New Empress. I enjoy the articles because they talk about past films (which I am partial too) and if a magazine includes Labrynth art I am going to read it. Anyway I had enjoyed the evening and the magazine until I read an article called 'Wars vs Rings' by Diana Thompson.
The article was about how the journalist had never seen either the first Star Wars trilogy or The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I usually enjoy this sort of article as its always interesting to see why they hadn't seen then in the first place bu no, not this article. Instead the journalist went on to say how she quite enjoyed Star Wars only because "any movie with two cute robots is always going to have a head start." WHAT?! Is that even a reason? Then the journalist went on to say that they found LOTR "incredibly pretentious" and this coming from someone who had opened an article saying that she had been brought up in a "cultural void" and that her previous boyfriends (compared to her current one) were more likely to own George Melies' Le Voyage Dans La Lune (1902) than Empire Strikes Back (1980). Pretentious much???
I personally detest journalists like this. The snobs who hate successful films just because they are successful. I have seen and studied Le Voyage Dans La Lune (1902) and I enjoyed it, I love old black and white films but I can also appreciate big budgeted films like LOTR, which is in fact one of my favourite films of all time. All she did was compare the LOTR to Star Wars (no idea why) and ridicule it. That isn't film journalism. I am glad to say that her opinion, in the greater scheme of things, is irrelevant. Lord of the Rings is already a classic and millions of people can agree with me.
After being outraged by this article I immediately told everyone I could then looked up this journalist and discovered that she is a Fashion Journalist. Then it all made sense, she doesn't know anything about modern film and I suggest that never writes about film again. But of course she will. The only thing I didn't see wrong was that she enjoyed tea and vintage cameras.
