Criticizing the Critical

There is a film that exists right now called Birdman to which I am obligated as a true film fan to pay constant homage. It is a movie that delights itself in riffing on the real-life counterparts of all its characters. For example, there is a very snotty woman played by Lindsay Duncan whose play reviews for New York papers can make or break any Broadway production, or so we are told. And she has it out for the Michael Keaton character in the movie, on the grounds that he used to be a superhero movie star and therefore cannot possibly be an actor. How dare he invade the sacred ground of legitimate theater, is the gist of her big scene in which she tells Keaton that she will close his play in no time flat, a play that she has yet to actually see.

I have no idea if this critic character is based on anyone real, though I am aware of how protective Broadway people are, and who can blame them, especially when Hollywood gets involved. This kind of attitude also exists in all types of entertainment. It's a little unavoidable. When you see one actor doing certain kinds of work, it is hard to accept when the same person then goes and does something entirely different. It's like there's an unwritten rule that action stars can't do drama, which is one of my biggest hesitations as a critic, simply because it's been proven too many times.

The critic in Birdman flaunts other stereotypical flaws as well, like showing favoritism for certain individuals over and over again, while not giving newcomers a chance. She also demonstrates a certain inflexibility towards things outside of her judgmental expectations. She's a stubborn old meanie, is what I'm getting at.

I was amused by this portrayal that exemplifies the attitude that a lot of people have towards critics of all kinds, which is a questioning of their usefulness. Since I started this blog almost four years ago (Whoah!), I have been regularly accused of just this kind of stubbornness. Here are some recent examples.

"You're an old stick-in-the-mud! You only like weird, boring movies!" said a co-worker, angered by my refusal to watch both Hercules and Dumb and Dumber To.

"You only like one kind of movie! You can't say that just those movies are good and the rest are bad!" exclaimed my brother when I said Gone Girl and Nightcrawler were the only good movies playing at the time (Both of which he saw and liked, I might add.).

"You can't watch anything without over-analyzing it!" declared a good friend, after I explained why I didn't enjoy Interstellar.

"He doesn't watch movies to be entertained! He watches them to find problems!" fumed the father of the aforementioned friend as he disagreed with my opinion in general.

When these accusations are actually made, I usually respond by shrugging and changing the conversation. I do so hate confrontations, but I would like to over-analyze them now. No, seriously, I'm going to be quick. Don't go anywhere.

The first problem we have here is that too many people suffer from the delusion that movie critics exist to tell people what to like or dislike. Yeah, if you approach them that way, you're going to get upset when anyone thinks differently about something than you do. That's why you can't (CANNOT!!!) take these things personally. When I say, "I didn't enjoy Interstellar," that's all I meant. I didn't personally enjoy the movie and have reasons why. Yet, when I say this, everyone else hears, "Interstellar is a bad movie. I forbid you to enjoy it."

My not liking a movie has no bearing on whether anyone else will like it. You and I can have radically different opinions about a movie and neither of us is right or wrong. That's just the way we individually feel, which is great. I love it when people disagree with me, if they have actually come to such a conclusion with logical reasoning, because that means that the person is using critical thought, something not everyone is capable of doing.

There's the second point. I am a critic. Contrary to popualr belief, that does not mean I'm a greedy physician just itching to find cancer so I can charge more. I do go to movies to be entertained, it just happens that the movies that most entertain me are the ones with the least flaws. The best movies are the ones nobody would want to change. A critic and a commoner (As I call them) see the same flaws, except a critic points out the flaw and suggests what could have been an improvement, while the commoner ignores the flaw because it's "just a movie."

UGH!!!

I HATE that expression. I want to ask the person who uses it if they really wouldn't mind buying a sandwhich at a restaurant and finding that the meat is tough and the cheese is moldy and the lettuce is brown and dirt-like in flavor. What's the matter? It's just a sandwhich! Or how about if that person has a bicycling accident that causes all the skin on the left side of their face to be scraped off and they ask me to loan them money for an operation.

"Why bother?" I would reply. "It's just your face!"

Finally, we have the arguments that critics are "unfair" to movies they don't like, "one-minded" about movies they do like, they expect too much from movies, and that it's not right to always compare movies to each other. Whu?! To keep it short, I'll return to the sandwhich analogy.

It is not unfair to a roast beef sandwhich to not eat it if you don't like roast beef. So, if I have not enjoyed a great many intentionally stupid comedies in my life, why is it unfair to assume Dumb and Dumber To is not going to change my mind?

It is not one-minded and stubborn to try the roast beef sandwhich at several different restaurants if you know you love the taste of roast beef. It is therefore similarly understandable for me to enjoy movies that are similar in style, like Gone Girl and Nightcrawler, more than styles of movies I don't like as much. Though that's not to say that one shouldn't branch out and enjoy some other flavors too. (I loved The Boxtrolls, I thought John Wick was a lot of fun, and The Fault in Our Stars made me cry.) In other words, there's nothing wrong with getting roast beef often if it's your favorite, but it would be gross to eat nothing but roast beef.

Is it going too far to order a meal and expect it to taste good? If you and your friend get the same thing and your friend thinks it's delicious, while you just want that horrible taste out of your mouth, does it make you a boring stick-in-the-mud to say so? I argue that it does not.

Finally, of course if I try everything on a restaurant's menu, I'm going to compare each item based on the quality of the food and my enjoyment of it, even if the products are quite different. I may feel that the ham sandwhich wasn't quite as good as the potato soup, and that doesn't automatically mean I'm a ham-hating cronie. And even if I did flat-out hate the ham, who cares? Eat the blasted ham if you want it!

In closing, everyone is a critic whether they realize it or not, just typically about the things they actually care about. If you don't like something I write here, that's fine, and I'd even be happy to talk about our different opinions if you want (E-mail beauxmoviemail@gmail.com), but I'm not going to stop being a movie critic. It's the whole point of this blog, for heaven's sake! So grab your rotten fruit and get ready to throw!