Rex Reed: Some of My Best Friends are Black

If you remember recently, Rex Reed of the New York Observer gave a bad review to the Korean film OLDBOY in which he described the film as "sewage" and went on to explain, "What else can you expect from a nation weaned on kimchi, a mixture of raw garlic and cabbage buried underground until it rots, dug up from the grave and then served in earthenware pots sold at the Seoul airport as souvenirs?"

Instead of tenderly wiping the drool from his chin, or getting him a home health care attendant or perhaps a gorgeous room in a retirement community, thin-skinned Asian film heads (like this one) wagged their fingers and huffed and puffed. Now, Reed has managed to show that he is truly a magnificent beast, by issuing an apology that is not only one of the most craven examples of pathetic namedropping to grace the internet in recent years, but also a piece of evidence that points out that Reed thinks it's still 1997 when "shock jocks" were thumbing their noses at the "politically correct" establishment and the "Where's your sense of humor?" defense carried the day. Hey, I liked 1997 as much as the next guy, but it's over already.

Courtesy of Twitch Film:

""Finally, a word about Korea. A few weeks ago, in my broadside against the gory Korean movie schlockfest Oldboy, I apparently raised the hackles of several readers who objected to the way I mentioned the Korean film industry and the fermented Korean national dish called kimchi in the same sentence. I’m not an admirer of political correctness in first-person byline opinion writing, but that doesn’t make me a racist, so if I inadvertently offended anyone who misinterpreted my humor, I apologize. I like Koreans. In truth, I have probably spent more time in Korea than any of the irate letter-writers currently bombarding me. I even lived there for several months while making a movie called Inchon! with Laurence Olivier, Jacqueline Bisset, Ben Gazzara, Richard Roundtree and Toshiro Mifune. We had many happy times, admired the lush landscape and liked the friendly people. We all hated the kimchi."

Ben Gazzara and Richard Roundtree? You're right, Rex, Koreans do suck.