Thanks to my buddy Ben for hipping me to "Rex Reed Bangs a Gong on the Mediocrity of Modern Life." The URL for that piece is mysteriously: who-is-rex-reed.html.

I love Rex (meaning I almost always agree with him). He's the last honest movie critic. He has balls, the way only a gay man born in the American South in the 1930's can have balls. And he writes well.

A few excerpts to whet your appetite:

"Mr. Reed bought his apartment in the Dakota for $30,000 in 1970." [nice timing]

"... one of the reasons that movies are so profoundly screwed up today is because the last person who gets any credit for anything is the writer."

"All [neighbor John Lennon] did was lie around stoned watching television."