Poor Taylor Swift!

Taylor Swift, who i considered before watching her in the movie "Valentine's Day" just an average country singer with a winning packaging and successful formulaic country/pop songs, is being skewered by several heartless critics.

Blame her success for all the negative press she's getting. I thought her debut was terrific (to borrow director Garry Marshall's own description) and she doesn't deserve all these rather harsh, derisive criticisms she's getting.

It's cruel because she is absolutely adorable. Cast against type, she was able to keep up with the rest of the star-studded cast and her turn, though brief and admittedly overly sacharrine, i thought, was quite fun.

When i read fellow blogger Alison Rosen's compilation of the negative write-ups Taylor Swift, i couldn't help but just shake my head in disappointment. Roger Ebert, even though he didn't like the movie, he still singled out Taylor's turn... If only the rest of the haters look past the singer's succesfull musical career and consider this her first break in the movies, maybe they'll be able to find some good and feel some love for the character.

Here's a clip from what Alison wrote:

"Some teen viewers may be drawn by the lure of the two Taylors, but their time onscreen together arguably reps the film's low point," writes Variety's Todd McCarthy regarding Swift's performance alongside onetime boyfriend Taylor Lautner. "Swift, especially, seems entirely undirected, as she jumps around, makes faces and jabbers on inanely. If she's to have a film career, she needs to find a skilled director to tamp her down and channel her obviously abundant energy."

The Observer film critic, Rex Reed, is even more dismissive of Swift's "Valentine's Day" performance than he is of the movie itself: "This labored artifice strings together an 'all-star cast' (by today's dubious definition, anyway)," Reed writes in his review of the Garry Marshall-directed movie, "that runs the gamut from tone-deaf Flavor of the Moment Taylor Swift and movie werewolf Taylor Lautner to veteran Oscar winner Shirley MacLaine."

Even OK! Magazine, which spills endless ink charting Swift's every move, goes for the blond starlet's jugular. OK!'s movie critic, Phil Villarreal, dismisses Taylor as "not an actress," adding that Swift proves such a criticism by putting in a "regrettable" performance. "The movie isn't awful, and nor is it an award winner," Villarreal declares, "unless you count Swift's frontrunner status to add a worst supporting actress Razzie to her shelf full of Grammys." Ouch.

The lone holdout seems to be Time Out New York critic, Joshua Rothkopf, who lauds Swift for, get this, convincingly appearing vacant: "Blond awards-magnet Taylor Swift reveals an unexpected gift for self-deprecating sunniness, chattering vacantly in an elevator to a stranger."

Looks like Swift could really use another sympathy-grabbing interruption. Paging Kanye West!"