Over the course of my nearly twenty-three years now, I have been characterized on several occasions as a "film snob." Shocking, I know. I suppose that's what I get for unintentionally offering some, um, patronizing opinions on the cinematic habits of my friends.
Well, here's the thing: I've decided that I don't care about being a snob. In fact, I kind of relish it. I have a film degree; shouldn't that afford me a certain degree of snobbery? But in an effort to ameliorate some of the frustration in my general direction, the first post of the new year will be an homage to the bad - bad directing, bad acting, and most of all, bad movies. Be forewarned: this post is entirely my opinion, and does not necessarily reflect the view of anyone else. If you disagree, by all means, comment, as profanely as possible, so that I can mock you for being offended at something you read on the internet.
Contrary to popular belief, and due to a failing of the English language, being a bad movie is not always such a bad thing. Let's take a look, for example, at the two highest-grossing movies of the young year: the entirely predictable success of the emo-romance twaddle that is The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 and the completely unexpected, but still ridiculous The Devil Inside. Let's not sugarcoat this here: these movies are both pieces of metaphorical crap. I haven't even seen them, and I know this. How do I know this? Well, I have a highly sophisticated system: I read reviews and I watch trailers. And I have a few other tricks, which I'll get to.
First off, I read reviews. Like in every other part of news, it is important to identify the credibility of a reviewer. Credibility is established through education, experience, and reputation, in unequal measure. I would love to say that I have enough of all of these to call myself credible, but of course I really only have part of one - a B.A. that includes a film emphasis. So who to read? Well, think about the source's purpose. What does People magazine, for instance, try to do? Sell magazines. Who do they sell to? Generally, from my research, dentist's offices, where they lie abandoned on lobby end-tables. So for someone like myself, who wants to read film criticism for the sake of film criticism (rather than for profit), where should I turn? Well, there are a couple of critics that I have grown to really like and respect: A. O. Scott, of The New York Times, and Roger Ebert, of the Chicago Sun-Times. Remember, these are people who have seen many, many more films than you and I, and can therefore offer a great deal of perspective. And believe it or not, neither are really that pretentious. If you have doubts, please read Ebert's review of Freddy Got Fingered. It's totally worth it: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20010420/REVIEWS/104200304/1023
The other useful source of criticism that I use is meta-evaluation of films. In this, I use three websites: IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, and MetaCritic. Again, however, it is important to use the evaluative tools correctly. MetaCritic, for instance, allows viewers quite simply to compare the scores given to films by professional critics against the reviews given by, for lack of a better word, amateur moviegoers like you and me. Rotten Tomatoes allows for the same comparison, with one additional mouse click. IMDb's rating system actually allows for a great deal of differentiation, but makes no distinction between professional critics and amateurs. LISTEN TO ME BECAUSE THIS IS IMPORTANT: None of these rating tools will tell you if a movie is bad or good! But it will help you understand a little bit more about whether it will appeal to your tastes. Think about it: if the critics love it and the Proletariat hates it, it's probably not Twilight. Let's take a look:
Breaking Dawn, Part 1:
http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-twilight-saga-breaking-dawn---part-1
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1324999/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/twilight_saga_breaking_dawn/
In all of those review sites, the film received between a 4.4 and a 4.9 aggregate score out of 10. So this is a quality check: will you like this movie? Maybe, but not if you're looking for a technically sound movie. As for myself, I have no interest in sparkly vampires, or really, more or less any kind of vampires (with a couple exceptions), so I have not, and will not, pay money to see the movie in theaters. Boom. Done. Decision made.
So why do I bring all this up? It's because I do, in fact, believe that there is a lot we can learn from so-called "bad movies." Take a look at the photo I chose to preface this post with: Randal Graves, debating the existence of an, um, mythical being called "Pillowpants." This scene, from Clerks II (originally titled The Passion of the Clerks), can hardly be called great cinema. But for those of us who know what the scene is designed to imitate - the kitchen from the Overlook Hotel in The Shining - this conversation develops a great and ironic three-dimensionality. Does that make it a classic movie moment? Hell no. But it does help us understand how we define "good" and "bad" in a relatively objective manner. This evaluation has two parts; the quality of film depends on our ability to both objectively compare films to each other, and also to accurately assess the efficacy of the intellectual and emotional responses that a film evokes.
...to be continued...
