Playing Nice

On the other hand, maybe Ruth Franklin just needs to give up on book criticism and read the movie pages, which regularly burst with awesomely savage prose like this line from Joe Morgenstern's WSJ review of Lady in the Water:

This cloying piece of claptrap sets a high-water mark for pomposity, condescension, false profundity and true turgidity -- no small accomplishment for the man whose last two features were the deadly duo "Signs" and "The Village."

No one could possibly confuse this bit of invective with "nice reviewing," and for that, I say thank goodness.