{"id":1959,"date":"2006-10-24T09:04:00","date_gmt":"2006-10-24T09:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/10\/former-film-critic-falls-into-full-blown-fuddyhood\/"},"modified":"2006-10-24T09:04:00","modified_gmt":"2006-10-24T09:04:00","slug":"former-film-critic-falls-into-full-blown-fuddyhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/10\/former-film-critic-falls-into-full-blown-fuddyhood.html","title":{"rendered":"Former film critic falls into full-blown fuddyhood"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Rod Dreher<\/a>, author of Crunchy Cons<\/a><\/i> and the proud parent of a newborn baby girl \u2014 he already has two sons \u2014 says he fears he is \u201cslip-sliding into full-blown fuddyhood\u201d:<\/span><\/p>\n

When Matthew was born in 1999, I remember spending a cold Saturday afternoon that fall nesting in the basement living room of our Brooklyn apartment with the newborn baby. The Scorsese film \u201cGoodfellas\u201d came on cable, and I was excited; I hadn\u2019t seen it since it had been released a few years earlier, and it was the No. 1 film on my Top Ten list that year (I was a professional film critic at the time). I settled in for a long, enjoyable afternoon getting reacquainted with the film. But about 45 minutes into it, I had to turn the TV off. There was so much graphic violence in the movie that I literally couldn\u2019t watch it. I had never been overly affected by that stuff, but somehow sitting in the room with that tiny little baby, and intuiting from that how precious human life is, and how fragile \u2014 well, I literally couldn\u2019t continue with \u201cGoodfellas.\u201d It wasn\u2019t one of these \u201cI\u2019d like to, but I really shouldn\u2019t\u201d moments; it was \u201cnope, can\u2019t do it, goodbye.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, flash-forward to last night. The kids were asleep (Baby Nora in my arms) and Julie and I decided to watch Woody Allen\u2019s \u201cMatch Point<\/a>,\u201d about which we\u2019d heard such good things. It got to the part in which the married protagonist begins his obsessive affair with Scarlett Johansson, and I swear, I could not watch it<\/i>. It wasn\u2019t the somewhat graphic sex; it was the deed being done, this creep cheating so vividly on his kind, sweet wife. I felt defiled just watching it. I said to Julie, \u201cYou\u2019re not going to believe this, but this is making me really anxious. I hate watching this guy do this.\u201d I tried to shake it off, but finally said, \u201cI can\u2019t do this anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, let\u2019s turn it off then.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m still trying to figure out why I reacted so strongly to these scenes. I\u2019ve seen far worse on film, and been unaffected by it. I confess that part of it must be that Scarlett Johansson has to be the most boring major actress around. Had the cad been boffing someone like Kate Winslet, someone who had a modicum of wit or mystery about her, maybe it would have been easier to watch, instead of seeing a character betray his wife with such a dumb, dull bunny. But deep down, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s it. I think I just couldn\u2019t stand to watch this creep betray his good wife like this. And I\u2019m left wondering if my visceral negative reaction had anything to do with the fact that while I was watching this, I held my sleeping newborn baby daughter in my arms.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s certainly possible. I am particularly intrigued by the Goodfellas<\/a><\/i> (1990) anecdote. Last night I finally got around to seeing The Departed<\/a><\/i>, which some critics have hailed as Martin Scorsese\u2019s best film since then, and I was struck by how some of the sudden deaths \u2014 especially when they happened in rapid succession \u2014 made me think about how these people had once been babies like my own, and how lots of love and care, or at least work, had gone into raising them and making them who they were. I was more acutely aware than usual of what a waste death is.<\/p>\n

My wife and I still watch action movies and the like while feeding the kids, though. That\u2019s a whole other calibre of violence.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rod Dreher, author of Crunchy Cons and the proud parent of a newborn baby girl \u2014 he already has two sons \u2014 says he fears he is \u201cslip-sliding into full-blown fuddyhood\u201d: When Matthew was born in 1999, I remember spending a cold Saturday afternoon that fall nesting in the basement living room of our Brooklyn […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nFormer film critic falls into full-blown fuddyhood<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Rod Dreher, author of Crunchy Cons and the proud parent of a newborn baby girl -- he already has two sons -- says he fears he is "slip-sliding into\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/10\/former-film-critic-falls-into-full-blown-fuddyhood.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Former film critic falls into full-blown fuddyhood\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Rod Dreher, author of Crunchy Cons and the proud parent of a newborn baby girl -- he already has two sons -- says he fears he is "slip-sliding into\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/10\/former-film-critic-falls-into-full-blown-fuddyhood.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FilmChat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-10-24T09:04:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter T. 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