An Open Letter to Jackie K. Cooper

Dear Jackie,

I've taken an interest in your reviews since your "Rotten" review of Fantastic Mr. Fox caught my eye.

After watching Fantastic Mr. Fox, I was so thoroughly entertained that I wanted to see what rating it received on RottenTomatoes.com. I noticed it had received a stunning 100% rating among "top critics" and an impressive 93% among all critics. You were one of the 7% who disliked the movie and your blurb "Another clunker from Clooney aided and abetted by Wes Anderson" grabbed my attention. The start to your actual written review (in which you give an incorrect title) seems like an attack on either Wes Anderson and George Clooney or their fans and perhaps all of the above. As a critic your job is to remain objective. Just because you might dislike most of the work from a particular actor or director does not mean their work should be dismissed entirely but that is exactly what this sounds like:

"Are there really fans out there waiting for the latest Wes Anderson film? And are there people clamoring for the mere sound of George Clooney’s voice? I don’t think so. So why do we have an animated film (stop/action animation) from Mr. Anderson that features the vocal work of Mr. Clooney? It is titled “The Talented Mr. Fox” and seems to be just another exercise in futility aimed at pleasing a very small and select group."

I was upset by your reviews when I thought you were just skewing the Tomatometer on RottenTomatoes.com and writing poorly written reviews for the random visitors of your website but when I saw your review posted on the Huffington Post website, I nearly fainted.

Today I went to see Rango and I personally loved it. This evening I stumbled upon your review of Rango and was shocked by not only your negative review but that in a review of just 430 words you could have multiple grammatical and factual errors. However, I would agree with your criticism that it is probably not a film for small children. I would go so far as to say that Rango is an animated film for adults that children might also enjoy and not the other way around.

Your review posted on your website has the headline "An Animated Lizard - So What!". Shouldn't that be a question mark instead of an exclamation point? Then your review that is linked to the Huffington Post website has the extremely clever headline "Rango: Depp Is Out of my Depth". You clearly have taken umbrage with Johnny Depp and I will clarify that not only am I not a Johnny Depp apologist but I think his recent movies have been poor.

There is a sentence in your review after detailing some of the major characters that states "There are various other characters but these are the main ones." as to explain that you did not list every single character. There is no reason to have that sentence in your review unless you are paid by the word. As a writer you should know that superfluous sentences or even words are detrimental to your work.

I might also recommend that you consult a Holt Handbook because there are several grammatical errors in your review. For example, your put the town name in quotes when there is no need and for some reason you put the rating G in quotes but not PG. You also wrote the following sentence "As the Mayor (Ned Beatty) of the town tells him..." when it should read "As the Mayor of the town (Ned Beatty) tells him..." and you actually don't have to capitalize mayor when there is no formal name or territory attached to it but since that is his character's name, you get a free pass.

As far as your factual errors; you wrote that there are no humans allowed in the town which is never stated or even implied. You also wrote that Rango declares himself the new sheriff when in reality it was the mayor who made him sheriff.

We obviously have some fundamental differences in our opinions on what makes a film good. You wrote on your website that 2007 was a bad year for movies and you listed There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men as two films that would have made your list for the worst movies of the year. Both time and respected film critics will back me up that those were two of the finest films released in the last decade. I respect your right to have an opinion (as wrong as it might be) because any art is subjective but I implore you to not go see the next film by George Clooney or Johnny Depp trying not to think of a clever headline to voice your displeasure but to watch the movie and judge it on the merits of that particular film.

P.S. For someone with your profile picture, you might not want to use the word "kiddies" multiple times in your review.

Sincerely,

Nolan