Mea Culpa

Never let it be said that I'm too full of myself to admit a mistake.

In my piece on Eric Snider dated October 18, I took a broadside shot at Philip Martin, a movie critic for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. I implied that he “delights in walking out on movies.”

I went too far in saying that.

Mr. Martin and I have corresponded via email since that column went up. I see that I took a remark out of context. The piece that got me all riled up was written in 1997. Here's a direct quote from it:

“Now no one has ever asked me, but I've only walked out on one movie in my life (it was Top Gun -- I still don't know whether they kicked MiG butt in that one), and I would never walk out on a movie that I intended to write about (and I never would have gone to see Spawn had I not intended to write about it -- I was curious, but I didn't think it would actually be good) but I have to say that, at 97 minutes, Spawn seemed about an hour and a half too long.”

As you can see, while he DID write about walking out on a movie, he also immediately pointed out that he would never walk out on a movie that he was reviewing.

Basically, I took a comment out of context and ran with it.

I didn't like the sound of that remark when I read it, and it hacked me off. It's been my experience that anyone who ever walked out on a movie just had to brag about it afterward.

I was writing from memory, and the statement immediately following the walk out remark slipped my recall.

I may have stopped reading before I got there!

However, it clearly shows that walking out on movies is obviously not something that Mr. Martin does “on the clock.”

With that, I issue a mea culpa. Furthermore, today's FamilyFirst site is the blog of the aforementioned writer, complete with angry remarks about yours truly.

He's actually pretty good, if you can get over occasional statements that rub you the wrong way.

http://strangepup.blogspot.com

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