The line is long today at the Complaint Desk. Up first, a man standing by his friend and fellow artist. (Update: This is now, of course, squeaking forth from the letters section of the Valentine's Day issue.)

Owen Wilson has lashed out at a New York film critic, for lambasting his movie pal Ben Stiller "tiresome" screen presence and for being the "crudest, version of the urban Jewish male on the make."

New Yorker magazine reporter David Denby wrote a scathing review of Stiller's latest film Meet The Fockers last month, saying: "Stiller is not a natural comic. He's not effortlessly funny. There's nothing wrong with the features, but they don't quite go together."

In response to Denby's critique, American gossip site PageSix.com reports Wilson has leapt to the defence of his Zoolander and The Royal Tenenbaums co-star.

Owen writes: "I read David Denby's piece on Ben Stiller with great interest. Not because it was good or fair toward my friend, but exactly because it wasn't.

"I've acted in 237 buddy movies and, with that experience, I've developed an almost preternatural feel for the beats that any good buddy movie must have.

"And maybe the most crucial audience-rewarding beat is where one buddy comes to the aid of the other guy to help defeat a villain. Or bully. Or jerk. Someone the audience can really root against. How could an audience not be dying for a real 'Billy Jack' moment of reckoning for Denby after he dismisses or diminishes or just plain insults practically everything Stiller has ever worked on?

"And not letting it rest there, in true bully fashion Denby moves on to take some shots at the way Ben looks and even his Jewish-ness, describing him as the 'latest, and crudest, version of the urban Jewish male on the make.'

"The audience is practically howling for blood! I really wish I could deliver for them—but that's Jackie Chan's role."

Would it not be fair to say that a film critic has some business making notes about actors' looks? As for Jewishness, Denby's interest is in the movies' shaping of that urban Jewish male on the make, and Stiller's willing part in it. If Wilson is really interested in knocking down stereotypes, he'll do his best to take out Denby himself, and see who's the real drunken master. After all, Wilson may have acted in 237 buddy movies (or 13, by my count), but I have a funny feeling Denby may have seen even more.

Wilson isn't the only actor-comedian whose tummy is in a knot about critical injustice:

American comic Rob Schneider has furiously labeled movie critic Patrick Goldstein "unfunny" and "pompous" for his attack on his contribution to cinema. The former Saturday Night Live star has taken out a full-page advertisement in the Hollywood Reporter attacking Goldstein's article on January 26, in which he blasted movie studios for making lackluster sequels like Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo.... Schneider writes of Goldstein, "Most of the world (has) no idea of your existence. Maybe you didn't win a Pulitzer Prize because they haven't invented a category for 'Best Third-Rate, Unfunny Pompous Reporter.' I can honestly say that if I sat with your colleagues at a luncheon, afterwards they'd say, 'You know, that Rob Schneider is a pretty intelligent guy' ... whereas, if you sat with my colleagues, after lunch, you would just be beaten beyond recognition." On gossip website Pagesix.com, Goldstein responds, "I haven't received so many congratulatory phone calls since Billy Crystal wrote a letter to the editor comparing me to Roy Cohn."

In both cases, it seems more effective (and cheaper) to do a better movie and make Denby and Goldstein eat their words. No doubt a little more focused concern could also accomplish more than a blow to the thorax. In The Joy of Worry, occasional New Yorker writer Ellis Weiner endorses, as a reviewer puts it, unleashing the full power of all your misgivings:

"To harness this powerful force, the student of worrying must learn to worry deliberately, consciously, and in a targeted and direct manner," [Weiner] writes. "Free-floating anxiety, spontaneous hand-wringing, general and uncontrolled not-knowing-what-to-do—these are for the unenlightened."

With help from cartoonist Roz Chast, Weiner puts readers on a path to angst mastery. He reveals the secrets of worrying to lose weight, to parent effectively, to survive in traffic (become "The Road Worrier") and to travel well.

"The more we worry and pay attention to it," says Weiner, "the more self-realized we become."

The paparazzi have cleared and the Complaint Desk clerk is tired, but someone else is upset about something. Seymour Hersh again—when will he stop grousing? He has a clip from his recent talk in Salt Lake City with him:

My parents came from the old country, and they came to America to get away from that stuff. In America, the same values we hold so dearly in our families—honor, trust, respect—we don't ask that of our leadership.... We're just sort of at the mercy, we in the press, of these people running a war.... You're cut off if you disagree. You either drink the Kool-Aid or you don't get to go to the meetings.

Those in question might reply with the tagline from Bottle Rocket: They're not really criminals, but everybody's got to have a dream.

Ben's Co-Star Takes on Critic [Yahoo!]
Schneider Blasts "Pompous" Movie Critic [IMDb]
Jackie Chan's top fights [Fightingmaster]
Discover the humor in worry, facts of life [Indystar]
Hersh harps on Bush policies [Salt Lake Tribune]

Categories: NYer, Denby, Movies, Books, Weiner, Hersh