Fooled you.

These people did write me love letters, but in a past life, and I was unfortunately and unnecessarily cruel in return—in fact downright rotten. Some I beat. Some I left. Some I ignored. Sometimes it was just circumstances that they didn’t understand. TB. Wars. Social climbing.

To apologise, I put their present-life responses here to celebrate something (I’m not sure what) and to show anybody out there who is paralyzed at the thought of doing whatever they dream of doing for fear of negative criticism, that your fear is probably justified, but you should keep going anyway.

So follow what moves you, laugh a lot, do something beautiful for somebody else (see poetry essay), and never forget that things like mucous, feces and bacteria actually keep us alive...

“…Pete McCormack's low-budget Vancouver film becomes as cluttered as its lead character's tormented mind…”
—Georgia Straight

“….its huge, searching themes, clumsy dialogue about religion and philosophy and disturbed protagonist are the stuff of leaden Hollywood drama…” (this is actually a good review)
—eye Weekly, Toronto

“…it fails to get its brightest idea off the ground…”

“…Making a movie about the people no one really wants to see is a delicate art, and one that few directors are capable of pulling off without getting stuck in saccharine melodrama or high-minded preachiness. See Grace Fly falls prey to both…”
—Katherine Monk, Vancouver Sun

And I know Katherine. Imagine if I didn’t know her: Unknown Canadian writer was shot last night by critic Katherine Monk. She was quoted as saying: “The prick had it coming—did you see that second act…?”

“…tough to watch…”
—Toronto Star

“The actors themselves are less at fault than the clumsy script, which seems to be aiming for off-beat self-consciousness, but comes across as simply weak and unpolished.”
—Vanessa Farquharson, National Post

By unpolished I think she means raw and sexy.

“…misguided…”

“Too often, the ever-present sound of a grinding agenda becomes distracting.”
—Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail

Right back atcha.

“…Some of the clunkier observations bring on brain freeze…”

“See Grace Fly suffers from First Screenplay Syndrome, with on-the-nose dialogue and undigested side-plots…”
—Ron Reed, Christianity Today

“…the film fails…”
Don’t sugar coat it on my account.

And here’s a few more about films I didn’t direct, but wrote:

“The patronizing, gratuitous sentimentality undermines what could and should have been a simple story of courage and beauty…”
—Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

That’s what I tried to write, alas…

“Feels as forced as one of those disease-of-the-week melodramas that were once the mainstay of U.S. television…”
—Stephen Cole, Globe and Mail

“…powerfully dull stuff…”
—eye Weekly

And a fitting finale, back to my stuff. This review could refer to any number (or maybe all) of the pieces on this website:

“…obsessed with philosophizing about the existence of God.”

Can they blame me? So hang in there, gang, because if we really are somehow all mysteriously connected in some sort of unified field, we all got these reviews. And if that’s true, we're all losers together, and that's not so bad.