As many of you have probably read by now, Jack Ryder has decided to use his latest podcast to try to take pot shots at me in order to stir the pot and stay relevant before he is shut out at the Golden Reel Awards. I considered addressing that in one of my regular articles for the studio's blog, but that really just doesn't seem like the proper avenue. So now I present to you, The Roundup: Extra Innings, a side blog I will occasionally contribute extra content to. With that said, the first bit of extra content will be a letter I have penned.....
Dear Jack Ryder,
I'm not why you felt the need to drag myself and James Morgan into your podcast. It was pretty out of the blue, and even Phil Dolan seemed a little uncomfortable having to talk about all of that when it should be left in the past.
I maintain that Lewis Tan could not act his way out of a paper bag. What's his claim to fame prior to The Grind? "Secret Service Lobby Guard #1" in Den of Thieves? One episode of "Iron Fist"? He's not a good actor. Acting simply isn't his strong suit. Tons of successful films star people who can't act. Drew Barrymore built a whole career thanks to that. We all know that Tan was cast for his physicality, and not his acting prowess. He didn't carry the film, Jack. He beat up some bad guys. Ralph Fiennes, Dave Bautista and Michelle Yeoh carried The Grind to success, not Tan.
Concerning the soundtrack of Standing Back... Let me ask you something, looking at the some of iconic sports films, how many of them feature songs that are related to the sport? Does Major League open with a song about baseball? No, it opens with a song about Cleveland. Randy Newman composed The Natural, if anyone could pull off making the song about the sport it would be him, but did he do it? No. It would be weird and distracting. Maybe one song would be fine, like John Fogerty's "Centerfield" in Bull Durham. That movie was a comedy though. I maintain that a soccer drama doesn't need a bunch of soccer-related songs to remind you that you're watching a movie about the most boring sport there is (might as well be watching the grass grow with how little scoring there is). The movie was decent (except for those terribly distracting doctor cameos), but the soundtrack was one of its many issues. "First of all it’s football, second of all there are 3 songs with connection to football and do you think there would be songs about baseball in a football film?" As for that comment, I have no idea what that means. You made a movie about soccer and filled it with soccer-related songs, Jack. Nobody is saying you should have included songs about another sport, that is just ludicrous. I can just imagine the producers of Space Jam asking the director to include a bunch of baseball-related songs. Songs don't have to directly correlate to the subject matter of a film, and often when they do it's either as a joke or it's distracting. In Standing Back it was a distraction.
Now for the "sellout" comment. I am a film critic by trade, Jack. That is my job. It's not like I came out of nowhere. Just like anyone else, I paid my dues. One day, after a certain incident my profile rose. After all of that drama, I was offered a position on said blog to do the same job - the job I've been doing for ages. If you were offered a more high-profile, more lucrative job than what you currently have, would you turn it down, Jack? That's not selling out. That's accepting an opportunity that I earned through skill and hard work. Why me doing my job bothers you so much, I'll never know. I will continue reviewing your films with an open mind (even when they are about painfully boring sports). I'm not going anywhere.
- Jeff Stockton
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