"It's film-tastic!"
A warm-up for this weekend's Contrarianism Blog-a-Thon -- from Manohla Dargis's piece on the Film Comment Selects series, in today's New York Times:
Film criticism, as it has been observed, is the rationalization of taste into theory. No matter how involved the argument, writing about the movies almost always comes down to a question of personal taste, to that web of influence through which we filter each new film. In this respect there are no good or bad movies, just good and bad arguments, a thought that serves as a useful introduction to the latest edition of "Film Comment Selects," a giddily idiosyncratic annual series that could only have sprung from feverishly partisan minds. [...]For serious critics, and the critics who write for Film Comment are nothing if not serious (and at times self-serious), the second-best thing to perfection is often the near-miss, the disreputable and even the despised. Next to discovering a new director, planting a flag in an uncharted national cinema or sitting next to Zooey Deschanel at an event, few things please a critic more than polishing a tarnished career or taking on a dubious cause, particularly if everyone else really hated it.
If I may quote Stephen Furst in National Lampoon's Animal House, "Oh, boy, this is gonna be great!"
Wait, how can I get a seat next to Zooey Deschanel?
Hotchi Motchi! It stinks!
Hah, Film Comment is one I read when it hits the stands, and it's always bothered me when the critic becomes more enamored with how he/she talks about the film and ends up disregarding the film itself - this is something they do fall into every now and then.
I know though that when I like a film that everyone hates it does make me feel special somehow... nothing wrong with that.
Oh how I wish I was more involved with blogging back when Andy Horbal ran the Film Criticism blog-a-thon. But I think this one will be equally interesting and may spur some very provoking discussion. I'll definitely be contributing.
Manohla strikes again! I'm with Andy: I've got a nerd-crush on her assemblage of words (writing).
I'm also with chris: how do I get a seat with Zooey Deschanel?
It's Friday in Holland:
http://peet.wordpress.com/2007/02/15/negative-space-7-au-contraire/
But the sophomoric relativism that grounds this article is simply untrue. Of course there are good and bad movies. Although the arguments do indeed come down to questions of "taste," there just so happens to be such a thing as good and bad taste. Not, of course, in the simplistic black and white style that sophomoric relativism delights in making its foil, but in the sense of degree, of better and worse.
Those who say otherwise do so in bad faith, as part of a pragmatic social contract in which I graciously grant you your own private You've-Got-Mail's so that you, in return, will grant my own egregious lapses in taste an equal amount of tolerance.
Let's underline this: it's precisely because we are so convinced--against all rational evidence and argument to the contrary--in the objective truth of our belief that our own private You've-Got-Mail's are Truly Good Movies, that we play the "it's all a matter of taste" card in the first place.