Critic BARRY NORMAN...hurry up and DROP DEAD so I can write YOUR obit

Who the fuck is Barry Norman?

Not anyone normal. A provocateur? Just a windy asshole?

When a celebrity dies, you don't expect any real journalist or critic to rub his hands and say, "NOW, I can get some attention..."

But that's what Barry Norman apparently wanted, as he chose to write an "honest" tribute that was, of course, just an excuse to be a cunt.

Do I object to this nobody being "honest?" No, but I question his timing. I question his taste. In other words, I don't even think Piers Morgan would've been so vulgar and self-serving. What's with this senile wretch? Hasn't anyone paid attention to him recently? Is he still grumbling because Jonathan Woss weplaced him somewhere?

You'd think that any kind of critic would understand that actors can't always be faulted for how a movie turns out. The script might seem good and the director might fuck it up...including demands that the star "tone it down" or "get more outrageous" or say a line again and again and use the worst possible take.

Actors often have to take movies because they NEED THE MONEY.

A lot of what this goon had to say was simply unfair to Williams under any circumstance.

That said, I think we ALL know the faults of Robin Williams. I remember years ago, a critic (of some sort) complaining that Williams had "squinchy" eyes and was "sickening" when he tried to be cute.

Many have commented that he was undisciplined in stand-up, stole jokes (part of his nervous energy of needing to ad-lib SOMETHING) and as a talk-show guest was just a big pain in the butt. He'd jump out of his seat and race around doing mock-Shakespeare and his shitty impression of George Jessel (whom almost nobody even cared about or remembered).

As an actor Williams was far from perfection, but he took commercial roles because that's what he was given. In a world where sentimental movies are the norm rather than the exception, and "action" films and obvious comedies get the big bucks, he did everything from "Popeye" to "Mrs. Doubtfire" and was lucky if anything gave him a chance to really show his stuff. "The Fisher King," I recall as being one of his best works. His loud and abrasive edge suited "Good Morning Vietnam" and I don't think you can fault the Academy Award that he got...or claim he was such a bad actor!

But Jesus fucking CHRIST, I'd never be Rufus Griswold about it (the "friend" of Poe who wrote an anonymous, scathing obit), or write a review of his career just to take such cheap shots. It might be one thing to mutter a few lines on a blog that is read only by your friends...but if you're supposed to be a respectable and balanced and fair critic of ANY kind...you don't use a man's suicide as a time to be snarky and snotty.

You can bet this Barry Norman guy was snickering when he clubbed Williams for "tooth-rotting sentimentality," a line so corny of itself that Williams wouldn't have stooped to stealing it as an ad-lib.

I'm glad that this creepy old prune is getting complaints...except I have a feeling that like Piers Morgan and so many others...the whole point of writing is just to get attention...that as far as this Philip Norman is concerned, as long as people are looking at him, it doesn't matter if it's stares of disgust and outright hatred. It's attention. And, so far, nobody's is punching him in the nose.