Nordling here.
I'm an unabashed fan of Devin Faraci, and I don't care who knows it. I think he has a really great prose style, and even when I don't agree with him I always know how he came to his conclusions. That said, if you don't know him socially he can come off as caustic and abrasive. Passionate people often are.
Last night, Devin challenged Joe Swanberg, the "King of Mumblecore", to a very dry, reasoned debate on the quality of the genre. Oh, who am I kidding - the Fantastic Debates are never about the intelligentsia calmly discussing in a rational manner about their intellectual prowess. There's insults, impassioned discusion, more insults, and then they beat the shit out of each other. Devin holds the strongly held opinion that mumblecore as a style of filmmaking is essentially worthless, and Swanberg, of course takes the opposite view. I admire Devin's wit here, but I also think Swanberg raised some good points and spoke from the heart.
Did they settle the debate? Judge for yourself... but the fighting was pretty decisive. Swanberg, to put it mildly, cleaned Devin's fucking clock.
Personally, I can take or leave mumblecore, depending on how well each particular movie works. But judging from this fight, the decision has been taken out of our hands - mumblecore will be here to stay.
