Eric D. Snider

Eric D. Snider's Blog

Archive for the 'Angry Letters' Category

Angry Letter: I’m not interested in (i.e., don’t agree with) your politics

Thursday, December 20th, 2007

A now-former “Snide Remarks” reader named Andy sent this in response to this week’s column, “War Is Hell (at the Box Office)”:

Sorry Eric,

Not intrested in your politics. One too many ‘I’ve got serious things to say’ pieces. I just can’t take geo-politics from a guy who piles on teenage girls who like hor-sees.

Also, IT’S NOT WHY I COME TO A HUMOR-MOVE REVIEW WEB SITE.

Peace out, Craker

I assume he’s referring to the incident of Amber the Horse Girl.

I don’t know if he’s calling me a cracker (or “craker”), or if he’s signing his own name there. If it were the latter, “Craker” would probably be on the next line, not the same line as the “Peace out.” Then again, maybe all bets are off when dealing with someone who calls you (or himself) “Craker.”

As always in these cases, “I don’t come here to read your politics” probably means “I don’t agree with your politics.” Which is totally fine. Can we agree on Amber the Horse Girl, though? That was some funny shiz.

Angry Letter: ‘Alvin and the Chipmunks’

Wednesday, December 19th, 2007

Someone named Katrina (not the hurricane) did not appreciate my negative review of “Alvin and the Chipmunks.” Her e-mail reads more or less the way you would expect an e-mail from someone who loved “Alvin and the Chipmunks” to read.

Dear Eric Snider,
I just read your review of the Alvin and the Chipmunks and you have made me extremely mad because you ,yourself, have no idea what you are talking about. Before you try to critizes a movie you need to watch it first. Theodore DID NOT eat Simon’s pop. That is impossable, seeing as how Theordore is the green chipmunk and Simon is the blue. Simon didn’t even eat Theordore’s poop after saying it was a “raisen.” He spit the the poop out and said ” You owe big time.”

I just saw the movie last night and it was written so that it would fit with the cartoon. You know the one called Alvin and the Chipmunks. If you read the dedication at the end of the movie you would of seen that Alvin, Theodore, and Simon were created 50 years ago. You must of not grown up watching the cartoon because if you did you would of seen all the jokes that came from the cartoon that were in the movie. And any one who agrees with you has never seen the cartoons either and has no education. So how about you spend your money and go watch the movie and then write your review.

Big Fan of the Chipmunks,
Katrina

She is correct that I accidentally reversed the roles of pooper and poop-eater in my review. I sincerely regret the error and have fixed it now. As if Theodore would ever eat Simon’s poop! That is totally something Simon would do, as any faithful viewer of the old cartoons would of known.

Angry Letter: Leave UVSC alone!

Tuesday, December 18th, 2007

When I wrote for a paper in Utah whose name escapes me now, one of my favorite things to make fun of was Utah Valley State College, the goofy little cousin to Provo’s more prestigious and selective Brigham Young University. I don’t know which of my UVSC columns a reader named Megan stumbled upon — it could have been this one, this one, this one, or this one (I think it was the second one) — but whichever it was, it roused her enough to send this e-mail:

Honestly I don’t see what you have against UVSC, it’s a really good school and it’s a heck of a lot cheaper than BYU. It must all come down to you being jealous. [She's a graduate of UVSC's fine Logic & Reasoning Department, apparently.] You were probably the one that go shot down to even enter into UVSC, so then you had to go to BYU, Big whoop. [This is like saying, "You couldn't get a job at McDonald's, so you had to take a job as a brain surgeon instead."] You’re an egotistical, presumptuous, and uncultivated man. (I forgive you if your uneducated mind had to look up all of those words but IÂ’ll sum it up for you. I just called you a really big jerk.) Yes, you won you offended me but I can still give you my input (it seems like you’re wanting it or you wouldn’t have written this article). UVSC is a great school and so many talented students have achieved great knowledge there. Though you hear on the TV about BYU and how students are being raped and robbing bars (yes, check the news sometime.) [Thank goodness no UVSC student has ever committed a crime! That would render her argument useless!] But you have no reason to trash UVSC. It’s not like it’s the best college, but neither is BYU. In the real world it doesn’t matter what college you go to just as long as you have a degree in something you’ll get hired for the job. So shut up and grow up. You may be old but you’re really immature and sophomoric.
I’ll be waiting for your reply.

Since she requested a reply, I gave her one. I didn’t say much, but I ended with this:

Thanks for writing. I do hope you enjoy your stay at UVSC, and that you work hard and earn your diploma. Well, not a diploma, of course; what they actually give you is a Chili’s gift certificate and a balloon. But still! Work hard!

Alas, that joke is recycled from one of the above-mentioned columns, but what can you do?

Angry Letter: Horse Girl rides again!

Wednesday, November 14th, 2007

In a shocking development, Horse Girl has responded to yesterday’s post and answered some of our burning questions. Did she misread “uninjured” as “injured”? No! Is she actually a teenage girl? No! Have her reading comprehension skills improved? No! Behold:

Ok Eric, maybe I did get a little worked up but you don’t even know who I am. For one thing i am NOT a teenager, I am a 25 year old mother/riding instructor/horse trainer. Both me and my friends (Simone, Ashley, and Beca) have loved horses ever since we were babies and we have been friends ever since we were babies. I have NEVER GROWN OUT OF LOVING HORSES and nethier have my friends.

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Angry Letter: Won’t someone think of the horses?

Tuesday, November 13th, 2007

I wrote a “Snide Remarks” column in June that dealt with renewing my driver’s license, and somehow horses were involved, too. Accompanying the column was the picture seen here, of a minor British royal falling off her horse during an equestrian event. I included this caption: “She and the animal were both uninjured, but I don’t care, because that’s an awesome photo anyway.”

This cavalier attitude struck a nerve with a reader named Amber, who discovered the column five months later and posted three very angry comments (#60-62) on it. She also sent me the following scorching e-mail, from a return address of “beautyofhorses@[something].com”:

Have YOU read my posts ERIC!!?!?!!?!?!??? If you have you can tell that I’m pretty pisted off!!!!!!!! All my friends are too and they all [swear word] HATE YOU now!!!! How rude is it to post a picture of an inosint horse and rider getting injured and then say I DON”T CARE!!!!??!?! [So she read the part of the sentence that said I didn't care, but missed the part of the same sentence where I said they weren't injured. That is some seriously selective reading.] YOU [swear word]!!! It’s people like YOU who kill animals and the environment!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Maybe I should post a picture of YOU, yes YOU ERIC doing something painful and say “well I just wanted to post this picture because it is a good picture,but I don’t care that Eric’s hurt. I DON”T CARE!!!” [Fine with me! I'll send you some.] That’s what YOU did with the horse and rider!! Horses are amazing, beautiful animals and deserved to be treated with respect unlike YOU i may add!!!!!! SHOW A LITTLE RESPECT FOR OTHER THINGS IN YOUR PATHETIC LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and to think I used to like this site!!!!! HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I [swear word] hate it now!!!!!!!!!! I bet A LOT of other people do now too!! [How can they fail to, when you make your arguments so convincingly?] Oh ya and the driving learn how to drive YOURSELF [swear word]!!!!!!!!!!So please e-mail me back SOME kind of response.You should read my posts too. THEY might scare away some potential ericsnider site lovers!!!! BYE

P.S.I’m right to be doing so too!!!! Even though I didn’t put this letter in THE ANGRY LETTERS SECTION I want this to go STRAIGHT to YOU!!!!!! [I do wish more readers shared her foresight and labeled their correspondence as "angry" when appropriate. It would save my staff so much sorting time.]

Per her request, I replied to her e-mail. This is what I said:

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The stupidest message ever posted on the Internet

Monday, November 12th, 2007

People have been posting stupid messages on the Internet for as long as the Internet has been around, maybe longer. I always thought it would be hard to single out the single stupidest message.

Until now.

As you know, I often post dumb e-mails written to Raven-Symone by fans who don’t realize the address they’re using is not actually her address. I post those e-mails here in this blog. On Saturday, someone named “Shanae” stumbled across one of the batches of Raven e-mails and posted the following comment. Read it carefully.

hello whoever this is,

i just wanted to say, you are so SICK TO ME. i mean you are saying raven fans are idots and they are not. that is making raven look like a bad person. raven if you ever read this you just lost a fan because of this fake person. i thought i should become a fan of tia and tamara mowery. i am just saying, whoever you are,since the people that write to the FAKE E-MAIL ADDRESS are stupid,you are just making yourself look like a bigger dumbie. i am so sorry raven for saying that but it is true. if you ever get the time, look at what this person is saying online. look at what your number 1 fans are saying. nobody should even e-mail you because of this stupid person. i dont even care if you show this e-mail to your friends,family,and husband this e-mail because it is not going to hurt me. you can thank this SICK PERSON FOR ME WRITING THIS LETTER.thank you and have a nice day or night. i am still going to be a fan but you are my 3rd favorite person in the world.

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Angry Letter: I don’t know what it’s about, but my whiteness is to blame (again)

Thursday, November 1st, 2007

I got this e-mail today:

Well eric the George Lopez was funny my family really enjoyed it. The caveman show is a total waste of film nothing funny about,they should had left it just has a commerical. Let me quess your white thats why you are so lame white people just dont get it. Maybe you should join the caveman cast your just as stupid has the show!!!!!!!!

First, let’s pause a moment to bask in the sweet, aromatic irony of someone who writes like this calling anyone else “stupid.” Mmmmm…. refreshing.

Now, then. I assume “the George Lopez” means “The George Lopez Show,” and the strange part is that the only time I have ever mentioned that show on this website was in passing in a blog entry three years ago. Why get so worked up about it now?

As for “Cavemen,” I talked about that more recently — long enough to say it wasn’t very good. Which means I agreed with this person. So why is he or she yelling at me?!

Finally, while I am white, and while I agree that white people are lame, I don’t know that being white is why I’m lame. I have other qualities that contribute to my lameness. Let’s not limit it to just skin color.

Angry Letter: ‘Why Did I Get Married’

Tuesday, October 30th, 2007

Just as my review of Tyler Perry’s “Diary of a Mad Black Woman” elicited angry letters, so has my review of his latest, “Why Did I Get Married?” My conversations with other film critics lead me to understand that I am not alone. The e-mail’s sender line says “Latricia Latricia Jenkins,” so apparently she’s named Latricia twice. Good for her! Here’s what she says:

Your review of Tyler Perry’s Why did I get married, is why talented Black film producers will always have a hard time trying to break through mainstream. [It's even harder when they're not talented, which is why Perry's success is so impressive.] Your comments were absolutely ignorant and not true. [Not true? You mean I got my opinion wrong? I actually DID like the movie?! Crap.] But what can you expect when you still have ignorant and pathetic people in 2007 still hanging nooses around trees. You critic are unbelievable, especially when it comes to Black folks.

We critic may be unbelievable, but what’s even more unbelievable is that someone with enough brain power to read a review and write a response could actually think that disliking a Tyler Perry film automatically makes a person racist. I didn’t like Woody Allen’s last movie, either. Does that make me an anti-Semite?

(When I wrote back to Latricia2 and asked her that, she did not reply.)

Where is the creepy Amanda Bynes guy?

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007
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After I reviewed “Hairspray” in July, I got this e-mail from a reader named Jeff:

I can’t believe you made it through whole “Hairspray” review, even mentioning Amanda Bynes by name, without making reference to that 40+ year old creepy guy that hosts a fan website in her honor! Perhaps you didn’t want to detract from an otherwise glowing review….

Then, when I gave a much more negative review of the Bynes vehicle “Sydney White,” a commenter named “ClobberGirl” once again invoked Creepy Guy:

Where’s that creepy Amanda Bynes fan site guy? Someone should show him this review. I bet he’d say more hilariously crazy stuff for us if we did.

Alas, as subsequent commenters noted, his site is no more.

If you’re just joining us, Creepy Amanda Bynes guy, aka Robert Mackey, sent me three e-mails in 2006, each vigorously and angrily defending the object of his obsession, who was also the subject of his website, “Amanda Bynes NOW!”

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Muchas personas no comprenden el review de ‘El Cantante’

Monday, August 13th, 2007
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Whoever said Marc Anthony looks like this guy is a liar.

Readers have posted some interesting comments on my review of “El Cantante.” Four people (so far) have completely misunderstood my very easy-to-understand review, one just seemed really angry, and another went off the deep end entirely.

“El Cantante” is a biopic about Hector Lavoe, a salsa singer who started in New York in the 1960s, rose to fame in the ’70s, and burned out in the ’80s. What I said about the movie was that it failed to “show us why the performer was so beloved.”

I went on: “To put it bluntly: Why should I care who Hector Lavoe was? ‘El Cantante’ does nothing to answer that question.”

My intention was not to say that Hector Lavoe wasn’t worth knowing. The opposite, actually: He probably has an interesting story, and there were probably some excellent reasons for his popularity. But the film fails to convey any of that.

The first comment came from Eddie, and he wrote very thoughtfully and sincerely.

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