Kirby Dick's new documentary Outrage is about "the politics of the closet"--specifically, the plight, and the damage done to gay rights legislation, by closeted politicians who align themselves with the religious right and the "family values" set to deflect suspicions about their own sexual orientation. In its hard line against hypocrisy, the movie is on the side of those, such as blogger Michael Rogers, who are working to "out" closeted politicians. It's a position that's designed to antagonize those who regard outing itself strictly as an unjustifiable intrusion into others' personal lives--including those in the media, which Dick specifically takes to task for what he sees as its eagerness to avoid dealing with gay issues. (In our own interview with the director, Dick describes a run-in with a reporter who told him that he couldn't write about the movie because it would violate his paper's policy against outing. ""Do you mean to say," Dick replied, "that your company's policy on outing trumps your company's policy on reporting!?" That kind of compartmentalized thinking has begun to affect the kind of coverage the movie is getting. Last Friday, the NPR website ran a review of the movie by Nathan Lee that, because of NPR's policy on outing, was subsequently "edited" to remove the names of former Senator Larry Craig, former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, and Florida governor Charlie Crist. The movie itself makes an elaborate case that Crist is living a strategically dishonest life that includes a recent marriage and support for his an anti-gay marriage amendment that voters have added to the state constitution. Lee subsequently asked that his name be removed from the review and added a comment to the site, lest anyone think that it was his idea to reject using Crist's name in favor of the pithy phrase "one major swing-state governor ... with aspirations to be the 2012 Republican presidential candidate."

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When film critic Nathan Lee signed on at The Village Voice in October 2006, he said, in reaction to the staff cuts and other problems then plaguing the paper (even as it was patting itself on the back on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary): "I came into this at a point where the Voice had been bought," he said. "The change was done; it had happened. I'm coming into it afterwards and my sense is, 'What is still valuable here; what can we still do? How can the Voice continue to have a strong, lively, influential and really smart sense of film coverage?' That's what I'm really invested in at this point." The paper turned out to be invested in other things, and now, eighteen months after claiming his first-ever regular staff position ("I've never had health benefits in my entire adult life"), Lee has been let go, from the Voice. Lee's own announcement of the unhappy news reads as follows: "In great Village Voice tradition, I was abruptly laid off today for 'economic reasons.' My employment at the paper ends immediately: someone else, alas, will be tasked with specifying the precise shade of periwinkle frosting atop the cupcakes in My Blueberry Nights. And so I am, as they say, 'looking for work,' though presumably not as a staff film critic as such jobs no longer appear to exist."

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Just when we think we’re completely burned out on year-end critic’s awards, list-making and assorted summations of What It All Means, along comes another installment of the Slate Movie Club to remind us how much fun it is to argue about this stuff. The annual roundtable of film pundits is always at its most entertaining when the gloves come off. The 2004 edition was particularly juicy, with original ringmaster David Edelstein and guests including A.O. Scott of the New York Times and Salon regular Stephanie Zacharek gleefully taking their shots at everyone’s favorite infuriating contrarian Armond White. (White’s style is accurately characterized by the Village Voice’s Dennis Lim as “entertainingly predicated on a bullying, unpredictable subjectivity.”)

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