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'I Got Death Threats For Writing a Bad Review of Aquaman' (huffingtonpost.com)

The Huffington Post recently published a post by one of the 300 members of the Broadcast Film Critics Association -- and a contributing writer to Variety: I saw "Aquaman" on a brisk Monday morning in December. Though I appreciated that star Jason Momoa didn't take himself too seriously while playing an underwater superhero, the glut of CGI effects distracted me from the story. Which was hollow and nonsensical anyway. As with every movie I watch -- up to four a week, hundreds a year -- I expressed my opinion in print and online for Us Weekly, as well as my own site, MaraMovies.com. The review was also linked on Rotten Tomatoes, where I'm a Top Critic.

Since I had a lot of films on my busy holiday schedule, I quickly moved on. Hundreds of men who read my review did not.... [Example comment: "I will kill your mom, dad and friends Bcoz I want [you] to regret for what u did. I have your address and details about your family members."] I reported the messages to Instagram and was rebuffed because, per the automated response, the vitriol didn't "violate community guidelines." Didn't matter. They found me on Facebook and Twitter, too.... Nearly 2,000 people "liked" a post in which some guy made a collage of my face and a few negative reviews.... I wasn't scared by the threats as I much as I was disheartened. One guy summed it up when he messaged me: "How many of us are you going to block? There are thousands of us."

Ironically, the review wasn't all negative. It called Aquaman "the first live-action D.C. Comics movie in which a superhero actually appears to be having fun. Batman, Superman, the Suicide Squad, even our beloved Wonder Woman tend to behave as if they just lost their 401(k) savings during the apocalypse." Yet rifing on the critic's last name, one commenter still wrote "hope another Holocaust happens."

Instead of "thousands" of angry fans, it could just be hundreds who are using multiple accounts. But there's a larger issue. "I worry that reading volumes of hate mail is starting to get in my head and cause me to consider the potential angry male ramifications while I'm writing my reviews, thereby compromising my integrity."

4 of 384 comments (clear)

  1. Welcome by JBMcB · · Score: 5, Funny

    to the internet. You seem to be new here...

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    My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
  2. A negative review, not a bad review by Atmchicago · · Score: 4, Funny

    You mean to say that you wrote a negative review of the movie. Not that writing a bad review is ever justification to receive death threats, but now you're at risk of getting hate mail from the grammar Nazis too.

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    You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.

  3. Re:I seem to aggree with the review by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 3, Funny

    Aquaman was probably one of the better DC movies.

    Perhaps, I haven't seen it yet, but after hearing Pitbull's cover of "Africa" for the film, and then very desperately wishing I could un-hear it, I'll probably wait to see Aquaman after I'm dead, if I end up in Hell -- or if I become deaf between now and then.

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    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  4. Re:I seem to aggree with the review by Farmer+Tim · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...but which super hero movie has an ironclad plot.

    Iron Man, obviously.

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    Blank until /. makes another boneheaded UI decision.