Woody Allen— No one—not even the rain—shaped my identity more, but now he’s an aesthetic and moral failure. Only Spielberg and Scorsese rival his accomplishments in the70’s and 80’s, but since then there are only a few good movies mixed in with volumes of dreck. His attempts at drama make me want to cut my dick off like Moocher at the end of Little Children and his comedies are tailored to people who have been living backstage at Noel Coward play for the last 80 years.
I even hated Match Point. I’ve always been able to say that even if you don’t like his movies, he’s one of the funniest prose writers who has ever lived, but holy shit the new stuff he’s written for the New Yorker is bad.Also, married his daughter. I should have worshipped Johnny Unitas or Ellen Burstyn or anyone else.
Liz Phair—I thought all of the commotion around the 2003 release of Liz Phair was a pretty disgusting display of aging early 90’s indie rock critics and acolytes lashing out against a world where their own ideals seemed dated and irrelevant. Even her pop singles produced by The Matrix weren’t that far from her best work. Jeremy Engle a song that didn’t make the album but was released as an I-Tunes extra is, by my estimation, her best song. Since then, things have gotten weird. She seems to play some sort of ditzy character in interviews, has vamped a little too much and has released one of the worst albums in the history of humanity, Everybody’s Miracle.
I second both of these points. Particularly the part about all the people who have been relentlessly angry with every album Liz has made since Exile in Guyville. I also agree that it may have gotten to her as things have been pretty strange since…
