Rex Reed

Rex Taylor Reed (born October 2, 1938) is an American film critic, journalist, and media personality.

He is known for his blunt style and contrarian tastes, and some of his writing has been criticized for containing factual errors or disparaging remarks about actors.

[2][3] In an interview with The New York Times, Reed stated: "My mother came from a family of 10 in Oklahoma, her second cousins were the Dalton Gang.

In 1966, the year in which the Herald Tribune folded, he was hired as one of the music critics for HiFi/Stereo Review (now Sound & Vision), a position at which he remained until early 1973.

[1] Reed additionally served on the jury at the 21st Berlin International Film Festival in 1971,[9] and guest-voiced as himself on the animated series The Critic.

On October 24, 1974, reviewing Frank Sinatra's performance at Madison Square Garden, Reed called him "a Woolworth rhinestone" and wrote that "his public image is uglier than a first-degree burn, his appearance is sloppier than Porky Pig; his manners are more appalling than a subway sandhog's and his ego bigger than the Sahara (the desert, not the hotel in Las Vegas, although either comparison applies).

[16] When it was pointed out that the card had only one name on it, Reed changed his theory to say that Palance had read the wrong name off the Teleprompter, and claimed the Academy went along with it because they would have been embarrassed to admit that mistake in front of a huge viewing audience.

Reed was publicly rebutted by the accounting firm Price Waterhouse, who said that if a presenter ever announced the wrong winner, a PwC representative would go on stage and state that the wrong result had been announced, before either stating the correct result or giving the information to someone on stage to correct it.

[19][note 1] In a 2005 review of the South Korean movie Oldboy, Reed wrote, "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?"

The Village Voice, which reported that "online forums erupted in protest" at the review, then mocked Reed by imagining him applying similar logic to films from other countries.

[27] Reed stood by his comments and stated his objection to the use of serious health problems such as obesity as comedy talking points.

[29] Reed's 2012 review for The Cabin in the Woods[30] contained significant factual inaccuracies in his summary of the film, and exhibited a dismissive attitude towards anyone who disagreed with his negative opinion.

His professionalism was also called into question when, in addition to the factual inaccuracies, some felt he was needlessly insulting and mean-spirited towards those who enjoyed the film.

[1] In February 2000, Reed was arrested for shoplifting after leaving a Tower Records in Manhattan with compact discs by Mel Tormé, Peggy Lee, and Carmen McRae in his jacket pockets.