It's become popular to make fun of Hayden Christensen. And why not? He killed Anakin Skywalker. With brow furrowed in angst and lightsaber blazing as blue as his poster-blue eyes, he destroyed the Anakin we once knew and replaced him with Darth Emo.

For those of you unfamiliar with his performances in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, I will summarize some notable comments by critics:

"Christensen plays Anakin as if he were a brooding, whining brat forever on the verge of a teary-eyed tantrum." –Christopher Smith, WeekInRewind.com

"Anakin, as embodied by Christensen, is the kind of needlessly moody kid you might see getting punched out in a Dairy Queen parking lot." –Paul Tatara, CNN.com

"Part of the problem is Christensen, whose breakout role was playing the young Anakin Skywalker in the recent execrable 'Star Wars' installments, and who has never managed to project anything but a sullen air of lazy entitlement." –Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

Before I talk about Stop-Loss, I have to talk just a bit about Hayden Christensen. First of all, let me be fair. The problem with Star Wars was the lack of directing and writing talent, not the lack of acting talent–poor Hayden wasn't the only one George Lucas humiliated onscreen. Nevertheless, for some reason Hayden continued his misunderstood writhing in other films, like Jumper, which was best described by Andrew Pulver of the Guardian as being a series of "tortured love scenes for Hayden to glower through." You know how Michael Jackson is the guy who started everyone moonwalking? How Marlon Brando is the guy who introduced believable performances into film? Well, Hayden Christensen is the guy who brought emo to Hollywood.

It may well be that you can't fully understand Stop-Loss until you understand this. It may be different for you, but for my own part, if it hadn't been for Hayden, I might not have seen why Stop-Loss was such a terrible movie. I would have hated it without the important step of knowing why. Fortunately, I do know why, and I'm gonna tell you.

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I decided to apply for a $20,000 Commissioning Grant for the new screenplay I've been working on. I've been doing round-the-clock web-design work to afford food; this grant would free me up to take a break and finish writing. It could be a hell of a movie if I could concentrate on the damn thing for more than an hour a week. So I asked a Hollywood producer who's seen and liked my work to write me a recommendation letter.

Today he wrote back and said, "Please send me the letter you'd like. I'll sign it and return it to you on my letterhead."

Am I right to feel vaguely dirty about this, or should I be falling all over myself with gratitude?

I mean, the guy likes what I've done. He's trying to help. But this just feels downright fucked up.

Maybe I should stop being so creeped out by the way they do things out there and just write myself the most glowing recommendation letter in the history of the planet.

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