Someone tell Mike Kinsley to hold on to his post as editor of Slate and not to try and take up a career in sarcasm. Setting aside for one moment why he bothered to critique what will undoubtedly be a flop of a movie (I have a rule about movies; if you only see the same preview on television ads, it sucks. Unless they can throw together two or three different previews showing different parts of the movie, you've got a bomb on your hands.), this opinion lacks any kind of wit or satirical insight. Can you imagine a letter writing campaign from the heads of Skull and Bones to the Washington Post to belittle "The Skulls"??

An opinion piece of this kind says many things that are infinitely more telling about the environment the person writing lives in than the object of criticism. Either Kinsley was induced to write something on this movie by his superiors at Microsoft or he wasn't, either way the implication is the same. I'm inclined to believe that he wrote this of his own accord, as he always seemed to me (last time I saw him, though, was before he started Slate) level headed. Unfortunately, I think it is more sad that he wrote this drivel independently. What it says to me is that the general demeanour at MSFT is one of total self delusion and complete denial of reality. There's an almost Nixonian obsession to lashing out at a suspense movie that dares to cast your company as the bad guy. Kinsley's opinion represents a new low for the totally self absorbed and egomaniacal atmosphere around Gates's company and the (Star Trek: Next Generation reference coming, inquiries as to its meaning are welcome) Borg-ian attitude of the MSFT employees to His word. Truly pathetic from a man I used to respect as a newsman. I may stop reading Slate all together ("I may stop reading Slate") now. Break the company up just to shake these deluded fools out of their trance.
- posted by levinson @ 1/12/2001 08:09:00 AM