Media Outlets Respond to Creative Differences

One week in operation and I think our presence is already being felt.

Item 1:

Timothy L. O'Brien of the New York Times has this to say about Martin Cruz Smith's Renko franchise (the recent installments of which I so eloquently dismantled a few days ago):

Like Holmes, Poirot, Marple, Marlowe, Smiley and other predecessors who are best in show, Renko just doesn’t know when to stop digging because he is almost dysfunctional when doing anything else. Renko’s turf is, of course, Russia. And a reading of the five Renko novels set in and around there (which means excluding his odd little excursion to Cuba in “Havana Bay”) offers an incisive encapsulation of Soviet and post-Soviet travails over the last few decades.

Oh, I see. The whole time he was giving us a behind-the-scenes look not only at Soviet Russia, but post-Soviet Russia. Yawn. Nice try, Mr. O'Brien, but I noticed the "post" you added. And yes, we all know that "post" implies, in this case, "post-fun Russia."

Anyway, Mr. O'Brien redeems himself later in the review. Well, almost:

About two-thirds of the way through “Stalin’s Ghost” Renko encounters a lovely, graceful harpist at the Metropole Hotel in Moscow. She later flirts with him before managing to lasso a garrote around his neck, nearly choking him to death. We have encountered her in different shapes and sizes in earlier books. She is Renko’s Russia: brimming with talent, lyrical and entrancing, corrupt and murderous.

No, actually "she" is Mr. Cruz Smith, strangling the life out of a concept that he's ceaselessly exploited for two decades, even when the history stopped facilitating the story. (I hope "she" doesn't come after me for saying that -- she sounds like kind of an ass).

Item 2:

On the heels of my suggestions for the third film in the National Treasure franchise, Disney has released an extended trailer which fills us in on some more bits of the plot. Apparently, one of Nicholas Cage's ancestors was part of the conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln. In order to clear his family's name, he chases down the "President's Book of Secrets" which, in Cage's words "contains all of our nation's secrets."

First of all, why would you store all of the nation's secrets in a single book? I mean, seriously, can that really be very intelligent? If that's the case, then the greatest secret of all is that this country has been run by dumbasses for 200 years.

Second, let me run this by you again. He's going to all this trouble IN ORDER TO CLEAR HIS FAMILY'S NAME. Are you kidding me? He kidnaps the damn president in this movie just to prove his great great grandfather didn't plot to kill Lincoln. Look, you got your health, your wealth and your German wife who works at the National Archives, what else do you need? If this revelation doesn't place anything but Cage's ego in danger, I don't know why he doesn't just let sleeping dogs lie. Sometimes, scurrilous ancestors are better left forgotten or ignored. Redemption isn't an option for everyone. (That goes for you, too, Ted Hitler of Fremont, California, Bob Zedong of Branson, Missouri, and Ralph Stalin of Little Rock, Arkansas).