He hated Back to the Future, Star Wars and almost everything Steven Spielberg ever did, and loved Terry Gilliam's Brazil and Kubrick's version of The Shining.Odds are we would have argued a great deal at the movie theater if I hadn't been petrified of him. It's funny to me that as much as I disagreed with Harlan on so many things, his language still manages to fascinate me. At least half a column is devoted, at one point, to showering annoyance at the letter-writers insisting that his column should be canceled, as it was arguably one of the most popular items in the magazine. This collection of his column, "Watching," covers the gamut of much of the 1980s in film with a not-inconsiderable number of detours and digressions. If you met him, you know Harlan Ellison can rant about almost anything. Rest assured, Ghost of Harlan, that I do sincerely love and respect the art of filmmaking as well as literature and the craft of writing, so I will nervously skate past your rant about reviewer dilettantes drooling on unworthy fare. Having met the man several times, I shudder to imagine Harlan Ellison's responses to my reviews.
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