Department of Irrational Hatreds

Everybody has irrational hatreds in film (just like we all have passionate adorations). Everybody has one star, or director, or movie they cannot abide. The hatred itself is not unfounded, but the extent of it may be irrational. I have plenty of those, and so, my dear reader, should you.

• Jennifer Jason Leigh. (aka the female Rod Steiger). I absolutely loathe her. I loathe her face, her hammy acting, her tics and mannerisms. I didn't totally hate her in Dolores Claiborne and I liked that movie that she made with Alan Cumming. I can't stomach the poor woman. The movies of her husband come in a close second.

• Star Wars. I hate this movie with a passion. I blame it for everything bad that ever happened to American movies. I hate Princess Leia's hair and her stupid bathrobe, I hate Mark Hamill, I hate Chewbacca, I hate those two stupid robots, I hate its reductionist good v. evil American crap. I hated it when I was 14. Do I need to lighten up? Maybe.

• Tom Cruise. To paraphrase Gertrude Stein (who was referring to Oakland, California), "there is no there there". This, to me sums him up. There is nothing inside. He is only good at playing assholes. He creeps me out (and this was before I ever knew of Scientology and maniacally jumping on talk show couches).

• Quentin Tarantino. An idiot savant. A talented guy who chooses to be deliberately stupid and stupidly violent. Can't fucking stand his movies. I did like Pulp Fiction, however.  Same goes for Kevin Smith (actually less talented than QT, but funnier in person).

• I hate Clint Eastwood, director. The most overrated hack on Earth.
• I hate Mumblecore. 

• I hate Benicio del Toro (sorry, ladies). He's the Jennifer Jason Leigh of men, a bad ham. Let me know when he stops mumbling.

• Jean Luc Godard. I know, I know. J'aime the old Godard, the one of Breathless, A Band Apart, and Contempt. He changed film forever. Duly noted. The rest of his pretentious, pompous, self-important, childish provocations, I can't stand.
• I hate, I hate, I hate and I hate James Horner. He is responsible for the music of Titanic and other painfully overblown schmaltz.
• This reminds me that I hate Celine Dion. I don't think explanations are necessary. She is the human equivalent of a dental drill on an infected root canal without anaesthesia. I also hate Lady Gaga (just because) and Coldplay. Derivative, pretentious hacks.
• I hate Tarkovsky and the people who love him.
• I hate people who say that they don't hate anybody or that hate is too strong a feeling. Bull. Shit.