Well, it was a grand vacation…expensive, but grand. But hey, everyone needs some down time every fifteen years!

And, thank God for E-mail! Oy, if all the e-letters I had waiting had been sent by old-fashioned post, my desk would have looked like Gene Lockhart’s bench in the original “Miracle on 34th St.”.

On my vacation, I had dinner with a dear friend, an actor, who was teasing me about my column. He asked me a very blunt, direct question. “Brian,” He said, in an uncharacteristically serious tone, “Why are movie critics such A-holes?”

It depends upon the reviewer. There are those like Hedda Hopper (who played the title role in Louis B. Mayer’s silent film, ‘Mona Lisa’), Rex Reed, (Myron in the cult Classic ‘Myra Breckenridge’,) who tried to make it in films, but had no talent. So, when they had the chance to write, they used their journalistic muscle to exact revenge on the industry, even though it was the public who had ultimately shunned them. Then there are those who went to film school, but lacked the baitsim to try to make it in the real industry, so using their sheepskin, they wangled their way into a newspaper office. Worse of all are those who have no experience or knowledge of the industry, but know how to type, and hok Uncle Schmuey into giving them a job on his or his boss’s newspaper. These are the most destructive of all, for their only insight into film reviewing is reading the slightly comedic, albeit literately clever ramblings of other reviewers. To these people, it’s nothing more than ‘what would Don Rickles say?’ and apply it to a movie. We have one of these in Las Vegas, and I often wish someone go to Israel and uproot a tree in her name!

I have great respect for people like Gene Shallet and Roger Ebert, who have at least visited movie sets and learned something of the creative process. Who know first hand what goes into making a movie. Most people, reviewers included, haven’t the first idea what goes into the production of a movie. That said, what amazes me is, how good some of the films out there really are. Sure, there are some stinkers out there, and it’s a reviewer’s duty to warn the public against those. But then I see a reviewer take a good movie and tear it to shreds just so they can prove to their readers how artistically savvy and witty they are, it gives me a shtuk in my gedyrem that takes two Tagamet to get rid of.

Finally, for the record, I do not fit into any one of the categories I mentioned. From 1961 to 1997, I enjoyed a somewhat successful career as an actor and later as a comedian and producer. I have nothing but admiration for the creative process, and the brave mensches who valiantly bring their dreams to life. Like everyone, I have my likes and dislikes, and my own opinions. I love Sci-fi and screwball comedies, (Mel Brooks was my inspiration to become a producer, and Carol Burnett was the cornerstone in my stand-up comedy career,) and drama usually bores me silly. I despise shoddy filmmaking, especially when it’s marketed as ‘art’.

I have no axes to grind against anyone. In my career, I met some wonderful people, many of whom became lifelong friends, including our Publisher, Michael, whom I met back in the seventies at Grossinger’s when he looked like a Jewish teen idol. Oy, such a head of hair!

Fortunately, critics nowadays are little more than a tradition, with very little real power. We exist more as a fading remnant of a bygone era, with cyberspace slowly sending us the way of the Dodo Bird, and big Cadillacs. The internet affords the public of the only opinions that really count….their own, courtesy of thousands of websites and chat rooms. Maybe that too is why critics are such ‘A-holes’; because we know our genre is dying, and we refuse to go quietly into that good night, opting instead to take as many victims as we can with us.

By the way, the actor whose question inspired this column was one who, in the seventies, beat me out of a role on a sit-com, but who was so charming and friendly, we became friends and remain so to this day. Respect for his privacy keeps me from mentioning his name, but in all the years we’ve been friends, we’ve never hand a ‘Face-Off’!

‘Till next month, Gang!