Daddy, when I grow up, can I be… a film critic?
By Burbanked on Dec 1, 2006 in Blogging, Movies, Views and Reviews | 21,831 views |
Well of course you can, son – but let me tell you a little story first.
(hey, did you know that there’s a Film Criticism Blog-a-Thon going on all this weekend at Andy Horbal’s No More Marriages! site? It’s simply Critic-tastic!)
I’m going to say something pretty amazing, kid. When I was young there weren’t that many film critics. No, really, there weren’t. And they were found mostly at newspapers and television studios and free weeklies published by crazy hippies.
Well, ha ha, the fact is that there was no Internet, son. No, there weren’t any blogs, either. No, that means there was no Technorati. Actually, that pretty much counts for Google, too. No, you’re not hearing me – Ain’t It Cool News wasn’t there, either. Listen, THERE WAS NO –
Never mind. No, that’s okay. I know it’s hard to believe.
But the fact is, film critics were once a rare and strange breed. They held positions of tremendous weight and influence. It was said that even the presence of a critic’s thumb could signal the success or failure of a movie. On a film’s opening weekend, audiences would wait and watch for their favorite film critics to legitimize or destroy their own opinions.
And these film critics became a sorry lot, believe me. Smug, self-important bastards with egos the size of our newest Hummer, son. And while we respected them, listened to them, allowed them to shape and mold us, and yes even came to love them – a part of us feared them as well. And, perhaps, secretly wished for their destruction.
And you know what? Something amazing happened. Everyone became a film critic.
Oh, it was a wondrous thing! Film criticism could be found anywhere, everywhere, all the time, constantly new and exciting! Everyone was able to critique films – yes, everyone – and it didn’t matter if they knew anything or could even put a coherent sentence together.
There were film critics for every kind of film you could imagine. There were critics who could tell you an opinion in four words, others who would spoil the end of the movie for you and still others who would even tell you what your opinion was likely to be! And film critics became so ubiquitous that many people came to consult them after they had seen movies, in order to share discussions and open their minds to diverse people, attitudes and opinions.
What’s that you say? You think that, with an overabundance of film criticism at our fingertips that it somehow cheapens the art itself? That legitimacy has suffered? And what’s that? You say that Oscar Wilde observed that the opinions of the uneducated keep us in touch with the ignorance of our community? Well, that’s a good point, son; who taught you to be such a showoff?
Here’s my point, kid. Go ahead and be a film critic – but be a great one. Learn everything you can about film and watch every movie you can get your hands on. Watch the old stuff so that you can figure out where everything came from; watch the new stuff and see how they’ve taken the old stuff and ripped it off – or made it new again. Rise above the crowd, son, and lend your voice to those you find who are saying something a bit deeper, a little more compelling. Find the people who love what you love, watch what you watch, laugh at what you laugh at and cry when you cry – and then engage those people at every chance you get.
Oh, and Michael Bay is Satan himself. Remember that because it could save your life someday.
My son the film critic. I’m proud of you, boy. You’ve made your old man happy today.
Excuse me? You’ve changed your mind and now you’re going to be a football player?
Oh. Well.
That’s nice, too.
(remember to swing on by the Film Criticism Blog-a-Thon going on this weekend at Andy Horbal’s excellent and Pittsburghy No More Marriages! site. It’s filled with lots of brilliant and insightful posts from the kinds of writers that make their dads proud. Enjoy!)
© Copyright
Damian | Dec 1, 2006 | Reply
Oh, and Michael Bay is Satan himself. Remember that because it could save your life someday.
Actually I probably would’ve said that Jerry Bruckheimer was the Prince of Darkness himself and Michael Bay his son, the Anti-Christ.
Anyway, great blog.
Burbanked | Dec 2, 2006 | Reply
I think you’re probably right, although the difference is that there are just a few Bruckheimer movies that I can watch without the overediting and swirling camera causing my eyeballs to jiggle until I reach my vomit reflex.
Damian | Dec 2, 2006 | Reply
Well, I guess that, even as a broken clock is right twice a day, Bruckheimer will by accident produce a good movie on occasion. I’m thinking particularly of Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down.
Bay, on the other hand, I don’t think has made a good movie yet. He is without exaggeration, my least favorite director. In fact, I recently wrote a very long diatribe on him because someone on the IMDB dared to compare him to Steven Spielberg (my favorite director) and actually likened Schindler’s List to Pearl Harbor.
I’m just glad that I heard those things over the internet and not in person or the police would still be looking for the body.
Burbanked | Dec 2, 2006 | Reply
Keep up that attitude and you might become my newest blog-pal, Damian. If you’re interested, click on this link for a quick primer on how we feel here at Burbanked about Bay and next year’s Dopey Filmfest Transformers.
And, in the interest of full disclosure, I’ll say that I at least can watch The Rock without vomiting (three times), despite its many cringe-worthy parts.
Andy Horbal | Dec 2, 2006 | Reply
Oh, y’all leave that poor, rich man alone! I feel compelled to reiterate something I said about Mr. Bay in a review of X3:
One thing that I’ve always liked about Michael Bay (the one thing?) is his willingness to own up to the consequences of his oversized vision. He realizes that if he wants to dream of collapsing buildings, car chases, and asteroids hurtling into New York City, then he’s also going to have to confront massive property damage and the loss of innocent life. It’s not much, but to a certain extent I admire a director who’s willing to dispense with hollow assurances that no one was hurt and let a little vengeance into his adolescent God-fantasy.
Now, of course, he devalues these things to the point where I fear he’s breeding a nation of young things with no regard for massive property damage and the loss of innocent life with politicians or the media to tell them that they’re sad/angry/whatever…
Thanks for participating in the blog-a-thon! Your writing is, as ever, far more polished, stylish, funny, and entertaining than anything my limited attention span allows me to put together!
Andy Horbal | Dec 2, 2006 | Reply
Er… without politicians or the media, etc.
Burbanked | Dec 3, 2006 | Reply
Thanks for the kind comments, Andy. You’re no slouch in the writing department either, and your prose and insights keep me returning to your site with a consistency that has already caused the department in my company that monitors our “no personal Internet use” policy to hire on new full-time employees.
Briefly (I hope, although we’ll see how it goes), to address your thoughts about Mr. Bay:
I agree that a part of me does admire his ability and willingness to lay waste to countless untold millions of lives, entire city blocks and cars that flip over multiple times. The skills are there, no doubt about it.
But the problem is that those are skills in the service of only superficial stuff. There’s no connection, no human drama to be found there. It’s one thing when we’re dealing with asteroids or fake terrorists, but watch the attack scenes in Pearl Harbor – in what should be important, heart-wrenching, emotionally devastating sequences, what we get instead is a numbing, dizzying series of great special effects with nearly zero context to it.
Although he does show that stupid dog getting rescued after the attacks are over. Does that count?
Bay thinks that a slow motion shot of a flag waving conveys emotion. He thinks that close-ups of actors with carefully-dirtied faces looking anguished equates drama. He is wrong on both of these counts, and a whole lot of other ones.
It’s not that every filmmaker has to be Truffant. But Bay’s movies are ultimately empty experiences of so-called style over…well, over anything else. He’s certainly got the right to get richer and richer “shooting for the edit“, but he’s done more harm than good to the overall aesthetic and impact of filmmaking because he’s fostered generations of young imitators at the expense, no doubt, of other more intelligent directors.
And that’s a bigger shame than seeing Affleck crying his own brand of dopey actor-tears in another bad movie.
Bob | Dec 4, 2006 | Reply
My personal hatred of Michael Bay can be summed up best in about two words.: “cheek bones.” The level of my relief on learning that he was definitely not related to John Frankenheimer cannot be underestimated.
Having said that, I should say that I didn’t mind “The Rock”, though one viewing was probably enough. Actually, I’ve mostly avoided Bay’s stuff including (especially?) “Pearl Harbor” because, well, life is too short.
Very nice writing by the way…and no typos that I could spot. How do you do that? Also, I laughed.
Burbanked | Dec 4, 2006 | Reply
Welcome to the party, Bob. All who harbor a personal hatred of Bay are welcome here. But please to explain the “cheek bones” and “Frankenheimer” references for those in our small and frequently confused audience.
You know, like me.
I’ve only seen Pearl Harbor on TNT, this past weekend, and only – ONLY – with frequent and venomous armchair quarterbacking along with a co-conspirator. Good times.
Thanks for the compliment. Look hard enough and you’ll find a few typos but hopefully not many. I’m a bit obsessive like that and my “real” job has beaten it into me.
Tell you what: feel free to click on every single one of my posts and let me know which errors you find. I’ll be happy to correct each one.