3. “Gwyneth Paltrow saved my life on 9/11″ story of the day: Wait, really? I could almost forgive Paltrow for her multitude of sins if she acted heroically on Sept. 11. So let’s check it out:

“Clarke, then a 24-year-old account manager at Baseline Financial Services, was on her way to work shortly before 9 a.m. and about to jaywalk across the street to catch the 1/9 train in Tribeca when the Oscar winner abruptly cut her off in her silver Mercedes.”

Oh wait, so Paltrow almost ran over a woman, inadvertently making her late for work at the World Trade Center? Man, and here the firefighters got to take all the credit. 

4. Narrowly averted train wreck of the day: Disney has split with Jerry Bruckheimer on “The Lone Ranger” movie, apparently because the director’s insistence on adding werewolves and “Indian spirits like Obi-Wan Kenobi” to the plot was getting too expensive.

5. Must read of the day: Roger Ebert’s new memoir, of which he’s posted the first several pages on his blog. It begins, “I was born inside the movie of my life,” which might be the best opening line since that Dickens book people are always quoting when they want to reference a good opening line.

First, there was the “What about ME?” response: Both Lily Allen and The Rock celebrated their birthdays yesterday and didn’t want that fact to get overshadowed in all the hubbub.

On the complete opposite side of the spectrum, there were the thoughtful responses from men like Rob Lowe, Roger Ebert, and — not joking — MC Hammer:

 Some people bordered on the brink between knee-jerk response and good taste, like Jim Carrey, Judd Apatow and a somewhat restrained tweet from Charlie Sheen:

 Other celebs used the time to start a death certificate conspiracy club, like Johnny Weir:

 … or just sidestep the issue completely with a pithy remark, like Aziz Ansari:

But by far the award for the weirdest response goes to Steve Martin, whose reaction to America catching the #1 most wanted man in the world was to make a completely bizarre joke about drugs and flying body parts:

Too soon? We doubt this joke would have been funny even if we gave it a year.

I don’t claim the review makes its case with perfect clarity, and I didn’t expect many people to agree completely. Being forcefully told that you’re full of crap goes with the job description, especially in an inherently subjective endeavor like movie criticism. I was gratified that a lot of people read the review, and e-mailed or Tweeted it onward — and was somewhere between flattered and startled that Roger Ebert posted a lengthy takedown of my review on his Chicago Sun-Times blog. Like almost everyone in this insular field, I venerate Roger as a passionate movie lover, a generous spirit, and an old-school journalist who has made the transition to new media and now pretty much owns the joint.

I thought Roger’s response was worth a response of my own, partly because I think he’s misreading or misinterpreting me, but mostly because I think the cultural gulf between our understandings of “Secretariat” offers a fascinating opportunity to talk about all kinds of stuff film critics don’t generally discuss: the nature and meaning of propaganda, the ideology (or lack thereof) of Hollywood movies, the role of religion in public discourse and maybe the gap between idealism and cynicism when considering movies, or the world. (Actually, activists and commentators on the right are way ahead of us: They talk about this stuff all the time, and have compelled Hollywood to understand that there’s enormous demand for a movie like “Secretariat.”)

UPDATE: I also posted this to Roger’s blog, where he has responded. Scroll to the bottom of the page to read that.

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Well, gee. Thanks, Roger. (I think.)

I’m not eager to get into a public dispute with you over a Disney movie that you found “straightforward” and “lovingly crafted” and I found weird, fake and inexplicably disturbing, which may be all this boils down to. The world isn’t likely to care much, and will render its verdict without our help.

I appreciate that you opened and closed this piece with some kind words, and I have great respect for you as a man and a critic. That said, I think the only place where we agree here is when you say, “O’Hehir’s reading [of 'Secretariat'] is wildly eccentric.” I’ll cop to that happily — my review of the film was willfully hyperbolic, even outrageous, in hopes of getting people to look at a formulaic Disney sports movie through fresh eyes. I know I don’t have to explain the function or uses of hyperbole to you, since it’s a technique you often employ (here and elsewhere). My hyperbole in the “Secretariat” review was supposed to be funny, and also to provoke a response. I appear to have succeeded brilliantly with the second part! The results on “funny” are more mixed.

Now, clearly I could have written a more “normal” review, in which I said something like: “Secretariat” was kind of fun to watch, but it bugged me. It presents a prettied-up, phony-baloney vision of America in the early ’70s, in a transparent effort to appeal to the “family-values” crowd who ate up “The Blind Side” — people who want a comforting and unchallenging movie without any sex or swearing. There’s nothing wrong with that as a way to make a buck, but this example is ultra-tame, scrubbed clean of any genuine conflict or drama, and I pretty much think it’s crap.

Now, I gather you would have disagreed with that, and pretty sharply, but I very much doubt you’d have bothered writing several thousand words ripping me apart. Now perhaps you see the genius of my plan!

Seriously, that is what I think — and pretty much what I said, albeit in somewhat stronger language. In your haste to take me down, I think you frequently read my gag lines as being deadly serious, mix or conflate different aspects of my argument (e.g., I don’t say or think anything about the horse being evil, or representing evil), and confuse events in real life with what we see in the film.

Now then: I do indeed compare “Secretariat” to “master-race propaganda almost worthy of Leni Riefenstahl,” a deliberately outrageous claim that, I suspect, pissed you off right at the outset. Let me elaborate a little. In my view, the most effective propaganda movies are not the ones about dudes with guns that espouse militarism, or the Soviet boy-meets-tractor films, or the Nazi cartoons about Jews. Those are too obvious. The most effective kind of propaganda depicts normal life, or rather an idealized vision of normal life, one that (as one of my readers put it) “makes a particular worldview seem natural, right and appealing.” Viewed that way, of course, a very large proportion of Hollywood movies could be considered propaganda, which is a subject for another time. (The shoe may fit.)

Of course it’s offensive to compare a contemporary filmmaker to Riefenstahl — although she was unquestionably a great director — but I never said or suggested that Randall Wallace had consciously or deliberately created a film whose primary purpose was ideological. It’s more like the ideology of reassurance and comfort and gorgeous images — what I refer to as the “fantasia of American whiteness and power,” which is, yes, going kind of far — is so built into this kind of movie you can’t get it out. I do, however, see Wallace’s desire to appeal to Christian audiences and a never-enumerated set of “middle-American values” as politically coded, at least to some degree. (Or rather, it’s coded if you want it to be; of course he’s happy with secular left-wing types watching the movie too.)

You believe, or suggest, that I damn the film for not noticing Vietnam or Watergate, but that isn’t quite right. As I think I make clear, I was struck by the oddness of the film’s idealized, “Ozzie and Harriet” portrait of American life, which feels more like the ’50s, being set in one of the most tumultuous periods of American history. That’s a suggestive fact, an element of the overall picture, not an indictment. You indulge in some hyperbole of your own in suggesting that I accuse Penny Chenery (the movie character? the real person? I am not sure) of being an evil right-winger, when I never say, and do not know, anything about her politics. Watch out for the “O’Hehirian Riefenstahlian TeaPartyite” clique, though –we’re on the rise!

I could go on, and I guess I will just a little: I never say or suggest that anyone considered the Triple Crown victories “as a demonstration of white superiority.” (I honestly don’t believe you don’t get the “Nietzschean Überhorse” joke. Secretariat was a product of eugenics if any living creature ever was.) You suggest that I attack Randall Wallace for his religious faith, but I do not, and you cite nothing to support this. You say that I see “a repository of Christianity (of the wrong sort, presumably)” in the film, when I say clearly that religion plays almost no role in the story. On the other hand, it’s simply a fact that Disney is marketing the film to Christian conservatives, and neither of us is required to have an opinion about it. And I’m not sure what you mean when you say you refuse to allow me to define the film as “Tea Party-friendly.” Is Sarah Palin not allowed to like it?

On the film’s racial issues: You suggest that I am demeaning the real-life Eddie Sweat, Secretariat’s groom. I say nothing about Eddie Sweat. I am discussing a fictional character, the only black person ever seen in the film, who is presented as subordinate, unreflective, constantly cheerful and uniquely well equipped to communicate with an animal. Could there be such a person? Of course. But in the context of my perception of the film’s total universe, this feels like an unwholesome and old-fashioned stereotype (for which there is a borderline-offensive name I will not use).

Similarly, I have a tough time believing you don’t get what I’m trying to say about the Pancho Martin character. Those who reported on the Triple Crown at the time have said that the real Pancho Martin was neither talkative nor boastful, and had no particular adversarial relationship with Penny Chenery. That stuff we saw in the movie did not happen. But the filmmakers have taken the one faintly “ethnic” or non-American character in the movie, and made him thoroughly despicable. What was that? An accident? An aesthetic choice? Or a lazy and coded shortcut?

For me, all in all, “Secretariat” adds up to something that looks pretty but tastes pretty bad, and apparently I expressed that view with a degree of force you found “insane.” Frankly, I wish you had avoided those kinds of epithets, and focused more on areas where we may have real differences of philosophical or political or aesthetic opinion and interpretation to discuss. I’m inclined to believe that you understood my argument well enough — better than you claim to, at least — but that it pissed you off so much you just didn’t want to deal with it. But that’s only a theory, and I assure you that my faith in Roger Ebert remains. Generally speaking.

——————–

UPDATE: Ebert’s response, just posted on his Sun-Times blog, is typically concise and gracious, and comes with a zinger or two:

Thanks for responding. I understand your points, and have had similar thoughts of my own about some films. But you’re correct: I didn’t read it as satire, maybe because I’ve been softened up by so many similar Armond White reviews that he (apparently) writes seriously.

We can agree perhaps on one thing: Your review helps us define what Rotten Tomatoes considers “positive.”

The idea for the book came after a 2008 blog post he wrote about rice cookers prompted hundreds of comments, with many readers including their favorite recipes. “I think I was somewhat frustrated by not being able to eat and I wanted to live vicariously,” the 68-year-old said during an interview at his Chicago home, his laptop computer speaking his typed answers.

The book includes many of those comments, as well as more than two dozen recipes for dishes such as chili, risotto, jambalaya and oatmeal — Ebert’s favorite. He took a witty and funny tone when writing it; he says he didn’t want it to sound too specialized or difficult.

“The basic recipe is: throw everything in the pot and slam on the lid,” said Ebert, who has battled cancer in his thyroid and salivary gland over the last eight years. He now uses a feeding tube for nourishment. His book, “The Pot and How to Use It. The Mystery and Romance of the Rice Cooker,” will be released Sept. 21.

During his recovery, Ebert turned to social media such as Twitter and his blog, cultivating a tremendous following. And increasingly he’s reached out to mainstream media to tell his story. In February, for example, he talked to Esquire magazine about missing his former late movie review show co-shot Gene Siskel, who died in 1999 from complications following surgery to remove a growth from his brain.

And in March, Ebert appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” During the appearance, he made his Oscar predictions using a computer voice patterned after his own.

Ebert fell in love with the rice cooker after receiving one as a present for his 1992 wedding. The Chicago Sun-Times critic says he even took the rice cooker with him to the Sundance Film Festival, where he would cook with it during his busy movie-viewing schedule.

“We used to take the rice cooker almost everywhere we went,” his wife, Chaz Ebert, said.

Ebert urges his readers to improvise with the recipes and ingredients, saying there are no rules. He also says it is easy to adapt recipes not written for the rice cooker. Someone could go a week using the rice cooker three meals a day, he said.

And how do you learn to use a rice cooker?

“With experience you develop a sixth sense,” he said.

But writing a cookbook when you can’t eat?

It isn’t as sad as one might imagine that he is unable to eat or drink, he wrote in a blog post earlier this year. Rather, he misses the loss of dining with friends and family, rather than the loss of the food itself.

“The food and drink I can do without easily,” Ebert wrote. “The jokes, gossip, laughs, arguments and shared memories I miss.”

And his memory for flavor hasn’t faded. He wrote he has vivid memories of “an entire meal at Steak ‘n Shake, bite by bite” and for the “taste and texture of cheap candy.”

Anna Thomas, author of the cookbook “The Vegetarian Epicure,” wrote an introduction to Ebert’s book. She calls Ebert, who won a Pulitzer in 1975 for his newspaper film criticism, “a Renaissance man” who combines elements of standup comedy and memoir.

“Cooking, for him, I think in the last few years has become a very selfless act,” Thomas said. “This really tells you about Roger. He doesn’t stop living, doing things or being interested in things or having a good time because in a way something changes. But Roger does not get discouraged. He has such a zest for life.”

That zest is reflected in the book’s many small quips: “Grind it fresh in a mortar and pestle,” he writes about cooking with flax seeds. “You don’t have a mortar and pestle? People these days want everything done for them. Do like the Indians did and grind it with the end of a stick in the depression of a boulder.”

Thomas said she sees Ebert enjoying the social aspect of food, the kitchen and cooking.

“It’s something that he has always loved, so it’s not for him that if ‘I can’t taste it and eat it and swallow it then I’m not interested,’” she said. “For Roger, it’s very much his family, his friends and the people around him. He’s there’s for it. He loves it.”

Ebert even says in his book that he wrote it “simply to establish that I enjoy cooking.” Chaz Ebert says though her husband doesn’t cook as much as he used to, he still spends time in the kitchen. She said he chops apples into thin slices for her.

“I think it’s more of an art form for you and the kitchen is such a relaxing place for you,” she told Ebert.

Ebert explains it more simply saying the reason he cooks: “Satisfaction.”

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Online:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/