You know what I liked about the olden days when movie reviews were really and truly embargoed until opening day? First, I miss the civility of the arrangement: OK, studios, you're going to show us the movie when it's done and we'll publish our reviews when it's available for real people to see it. That seemed to work fine for many years. I also liked not knowing what my fellow critics were going to say about the movie until all our reviews came out at once (or at least after my Friday arts section deadline, even in the case of alt-weeklies that used to hit the stands on Wednesdays). It was fun -- part of the challenge of being among the first to engage with a movie -- to see who would say what about the picture, and how it would compare to your own take. Sometimes it was uncanny how two critical minds would synch up -- or perceive entirely different qualities in the same film.
Now, of course, you simply have to Avoid All Media (or have a memory like a sieve, like Guy Pearce in "Memento") if you want to keep from tainting your impressions before opening day. So, because I rarely attend press screenings anymore (I'd rather buy a ticket that gives me some choice about where and when I see the movie), I guess I'm going to have to make it to a Friday matinee of Christopher Nolan's "Inception."
I'm looking forward to it (though I haven't much liked anything Nolan's done since "Memento," "Insomnia," I don't dismiss his potential) and I don't want to know any more than I already do -- which is probably less than you. (I know the names of a few of the actors, though I've forgotten most of the cast; and the story has something to do with dreams and corporate espionage, I think, though I intentionally didn't pay attention to the trailer.) Warner Bros. recently made it clear in no uncertain terms that absolutely no early reviews of "Inception" would be tolerated... until Thursday, that is, because public screenings would actually begin at midnight Thursday/Friday. Then a few days ago they backed down and informed critics that their online reviews could appear as early as, well, Wednesday afternoon. Oh boy. More reasons to stay off the Internets.
But, of course, the reviews and other comments have been appearing online for more than a week now, eliciting the usual spectrum of responses to a Nolan movie (this one being his first since a little number called "The Dark Knight"). I've seen blurbs in which it's been hailed as one of the greatest movies of all time or (at least "one of the year's best")... and heard tell of other notices dismissing it as a somewhat ineptly constructed piece of mechanical junk that emphasizes expository dialog (as in: "This is what this means!") over filmmaking.
What, you're surprised at the range? No, and I'm not, either -- but I haven't actually read any of them, either. I just know there's a (not-so) new game in town and it's about criticizing, interpreting and projecting the returns as they come in -- like election night TV: Never mind the issues -- just tell us how many are red states and how many are blue states.
So (as I like to quote the giant in "Twin Peaks"), "It is happening... again."
Bill Ryan at The Kind of Face You Hate ("The Right Way to Like a Movie")* writes:
With the release date of Christopher Nolan's "Inception" fast approaching, the time has apparently come to fight about him again. The last time this happened was in 2008, when "The Dark Knight" was released, to howls of both approval and derision. It is not my intention to rehash, or recap, or re-ignite that particular internet-only foofaraw, and even if it was, I've already been beaten to the punch.
Bill R. recounts the story of The Hot Blog's David Poland, who did not attend a recent screening of "Inception" and then tweeted a premonition: "I'm sure that Inception will be THE studio movie for adults this summer... but when everyone starts drooling like this, I get nervous." Although Poland said he was not instigating, or participating in, any sort of "backlash" against "Inception," his comment evidently provoked a "backlash" against him (Poland).
Bill takes this to mean that...
the backlash against "Inception" has apparently started already, with record speed: before anybody except a handful of critics have even been able to see the thing. And according to Poland, because they all liked it with varying degrees of enthusiasm, it's probably not that good. Not bad, Poland is quick to point out -- he expects to like it! He even said so! It's just that a large number of positive reviews means the movie he thinks he's going to like will probably be bad. But only a little bit bad. But still bad.
But not everyone agrees! You see, there may, in fact, already be (or have been) a backlash against the backlash even before there was evidence of a backlash to begin with. The evidence? Well, on July 6 Patrick Goldstein wrote in his LA Times Big Picture blog ("Will there be an 'Inception' backlash before the movie even opens?") that he "thought it would be fun to start keeping track of the most wildly overblown, hilariously highbrow claims for the film."
When the critics start building a film up like this, it only inspires other critics to assert their independence from the overwhelming groupthink by taking pot shots at the movie sooner rather than later. At this rate, the "Inception" backlash could begin before the film even plays Peoria.
You see, Goldstein was reacting to what he saw as strained seriousness in the early reviews, such as... well, the only one he actually cites is Justin Chang's Variety review, in which Chang compares dreams (a subject of the film) to moviemaking ("If movies are shared dreams, then Christopher Nolan is surely one of Hollywood's most inventive dreamers...") and calls "Inception" "a fiendishly intricate yarn set in the labyrinth of the subconscious... a heist thriller for surrealists, a Jungian's 'Rififi,' that challenges viewers to sift through multiple layers of (un)reality."
This was all too much for Goldstein, who may or may not have seen the movie when he wrote:
Hey, isn't that just what you'd tell your friends to get them to see a movie? Come on, guys -- this one's not a Freudian's "Topkapi"! This one's a real Jungian's 'Rififi'!" I don't know about you, but I may have almost thrown out my back trying to bear the weight of all those pretentious references in a single sentence.
So, since when is it pretentious to mention Jung in a review of a movie about dreams, or to cite "Rififi" in a review of a heist picture? (Heck, Nolan's Joker was into Nietzche and "The Prestige" summoned the services of Nikola Tesla as a fictionalized character who turned magic into science into metaphysical mumbo-jumbo.) Nolan is college-educated, studied English Literature in London, wrote fiction and started making shorts while in the school film society. He's hardly ignorant of Jung, Western civilization, or the prototype for the modern heist movie. And even if he were, it's the critic's job to draw these associations, not just to tell his friends if the movie's cool or not. Which makes it even more odd that Goldstein claims Chang's motive for writing his review in an industry trade paper review was to convince his friends to see the movie. Perhaps the word "Philistine" is too pretentious to invoke here... but I don't think so.
Anyway, as Dennis Cozzalio observes, that was last week. More recently, Goldstein has taken on David Edelstein's pan of "Inception" for "officially" beginning the backlash he so accurately predicted last week (Chris Nolan's 'Inception' gets its first critical sucker punch").
Why is Edelstein's a "critical sucker punch"? I'll leave that to Dennis, who dismantles Goldstein's appraisal of Edelstein's review and reader comments in a piece called "Sucker Punched: Is it Not Okay to Dislike 'Inception'? -- mostly by quoting what Edelstein actually wrote, rather than what Goldstein claims he wrote, or what his readers said about what he wrote.
What it comes down to is that Goldstein does not think it's OK to criticize other critics who liked the film before the commenters have had an opportunity to see it. Or something like that. But hasn't Goldstein been writing about the critical reaction for a couple weeks now?
Wait a minute. Why am even I telling you all this? Sometimes I forget (see "mind like a sieve," above -- though sometimes I just succeed in putting certain nonsense out of my head). Oh yes: to remind you that scorekeeping, of the kind RottenTomatoes and Metacritic do, has nothing to do with film criticism. If you want some kind of demographic majority to guide your moviegoing decisions, you may as well read the box-office reports like everyone else does. (Oh, that's another thing: Did you know that until "Entertainment Tonight" started reporting them in the early 1980s, most people outside the business had no idea how movies were doing at the box office? Sure, everybody knew that "Jaws" was a monster hit because everybody we knew saw it and it ran for months. But the concept of a "weekend gross" was unheard of in popular conversation.)
Why should we care if a majority of critics like or dislike a film? Who are those critics? I don't care what they like; I want to know what they make of what they saw. That's the only way to tell if an opinion is worth anything or not. (Which is another way of saying that if somebody has nothing to say about the movie other than to express an opinion, then that opinion is worthless.)
As a former exhibitor and festival programmer, I'm always interested in the perceptions people form of movies they haven't yet seen -- the perceptions that help them decide whether to sit down and watch a movie (even travel to a theater!) or to avoid it. Lore has it that audiences have a nose for what stinks and what doesn't, that they can sense something no amount of market research can predict. I think that's a load of superstitious nonsense (like M. Night Shyamalan's insistence that "everything happens for a reason"), but it's true that the economics of the biz make certain that movies don't have a chance to "find their audience" after opening weekend -- at least not until they're available on home video. So, how do people decide which movies to see, which to avoid, and which to let slide until a more convenient opportunity comes along?
Just remember this: Whatever it is, it's only tangentially related to film criticism.
- - - -
* Be sure to read the swell discussion in the comments. Participants include Bill R. himself, Greg Ferrara, Ed Howard, Steven Santos, Tony Dayoub, Jason Bellamy, Ryan Kelly, Neil Sarver, Kevin J. Olson, Adam Zanzie, That Fuzzy Bastard and more!
31 Comments
What?
This is why I just stick with Roger, you, and A O Scott.
Terrific column, Jim. I think this film has highlighted an interesting phenomenon that's hardly new, but typically goes unnoticed because (most of the time) it's rightly ignored: Even critics don't pay attention to what's written, just what's the reaction. And moreover, that an unappealing critic (or even just an unfamiliar name) is equivalent to an opinion that shouldn't be taken seriously.
Most of the above articles were written in reaction to the initial reaction as a whole to Inception, not what people were saying in their individual analyses, except maybe for dropping two or three words in pull-quotes that allowed the rest of their reviews to be ignored or oversimplified. I saw someone point out that there wasn't one "recognizable" name among the people who initially reviewed the film and liked it, as if that meant what those reviewers had to say was therefore irrelevant.
God knows if anyone recognizes me or my writing (I got momentarily excited when one of the commenters on Poland's post started castigating three early reviewers he hated, but later discovered I wasn't one of them, despite having the second or third review on RT). But I certainly hope that anyone who reads my work actually pays attention to what I write, not just what I say in that little blurb that gets attached in a link to my review - and in the same way I wouldn't dismiss an opinion out of hand because it disagrees with mine. As a matter of fact, I'd been actively searching through the pans for something that was well-argued, and perhaps more importantly, was about the movie and not the reaction of that writer's colleagues to the movie. And there certainly are several, even if I still disagree with their assessment of the movie.
Sadly, however, so much of this navelgazing (in general about film criticism) is about announcing one's own integrity and infallibility, but at the expense or dismissal of everyone else's. "What could have motivated those people to like this movie? I was certainly only swayed by the merits, or lack therof, of the artistic achievement." The truth is that the vast majority of the people who saw that film early and wrote paragraph after paragraph about it as soon as possible are not the easy sell-outs or folks who can be relied upon for easy quotes or superficial praise. I know many of them, and they're people, regardless of their normal responsibility (or disposition) to cover populist or genre material, who loved the movie, and loved just as much the chance to turn over and analyze and deconstruct something that excited and invigorated them. And to suggest that at any level their reaction is untrustworthy because of its unilateral positivity (or in the case of something else, negativity) reflects poorly on the respectfulness, consideration and quite frankly intellectual (much less professional) curiosity of the people who are denouncing or dismissing them.
There are and certainly will be plenty of poorly-written or even misguided positive reviews of Inception, just as there might be brilliantly-articulated negative ones, but to suggest that these reactions really have anything to do with more than an individual's opinion, especially if no one bothered to read that individual's opinion in full, is as unreliable and short-sighted as they consider the work they are condemning.
Well put.
In my mind, criticism would be better appreciated if “review” and “response” could be kept separate from each other. Review I would define as evaluating a film based solely on its own merits, and response is the analysis of another’s review. I think response has an important place in criticism, but when the two are mixed together it basically compromises both. Critics that insist on evaluating film based on other’s opinions are, as you say, really only announcing their own infallibility, not enriching understanding of film.
I was mentioned in Jim's post.
This. Is. Awesome.
This is a strange coincidence; last month, when I had vaguely heard of Inception but had no idea when it was coming out, I wrote a piece about why I disliked TDK, and I got exactly this. People disagreed with me, and attacked my review countering any reason they came up with (one or two actually understood my position and addressed specific points, but after five or so, I posted an angry comment asking people to read the piece first).
And, even more recently, I had a long argument with a guy who did a similar gutting of China Mieville's rather nuanced position on Tolkien.
I do kind of browse through the rottentomatoes for movies that I know are going to be bad to just check to see if it's REALLY bad. The only time I was kind of swayed was with the new Ashton Kutcher romantic comedy. I was pretty much already set on not watching it for that reason, and then I looked at rottentomatoes and thought, "Well, I better not, if the writing is bad." Rottentomatoes has that little consensus opinion at the top where most of the critics say the same thing about the movie. Most of the movies at the multi-plexes are probably going to be pretty bad, I assume as well. I kind of already know what kind of movie I want to see and most movies are not it, but I watch most of them anyway.
Your opinion has swayed me a bit. I was going to see "Avatar", and then read what you wrote and thought I probably should wait for another time. I was going to see "Cyrus" and then there was that whole zoom lens thing, and if I see it, I'm probably going to make that my last one at the theater that plays independent movies; I saw "Girl who plays with fire" and "Solitary man."
The type of movies I hope to see are ones that are just interesting or intriguing; and there's just about none of that at the multi-plexes.
This next one sounds interesting although a bit like one of those subconscious things a lot of directors are doing nowadays; with Mamet "Edmond"; Charlie Kaufman's even more so than usual with "Synechdoche, New York"; I suppose you could call Mike Judge's "Idiocracy". It seems this is Christopher Nolan's subconscious saga: although, I don't really know anything about it and I'm going to keep it that way until I see it.
This is getting tiresome and, worse, it is becoming so predictable. I saw this coming from months back. While looking forward to "Inception", I also had absolutely no faith that the critical debate over it would not involve the same childish nonsense from two years ago. But here we go again! And, as you can see with my comments on Bill Ryan's blog, I blame everyone equally, as it seems critics would rather take sides in a debate rather than provide any illuminating or original thoughts about the film. They have become the gangs at the beginning of "Gangs of New York" or, actually more like the parody version in "Anchorman".
You see, what this produced two years ago with "The Dark Knight" and now with "Inception" were a vast number of useless reviews with its supporters doing things like comparing Nolan, who I generally think is a fine director though I have issues with his work including considering "The Prestige" a complete misfire, to Kubrick (Give me a break!) to detractors proclaiming Nolan a fascist and an antichrist while devoting large portions of their review to their own phony self-delusional martyrdom that they, and only they, possess the facilities to see Nolan for the kind of director he really is. I generally do not get much out of any of these reviews. (It is the mixed reviews that tend to be more nuanced and, um, not so insane or self-aggrandizing.) The only thing I take away from these pieces is often insights to the critics themselves that I find rather ugly and dispiriting.
The funny thing is that I read Edelstein's review before I knew there was an uproar over it. While Patrick Goldstein is clearly an idiot (Why is anyone listening to what he says anyway?), I found Edelstein's review to be rather hollow. I know we're only supposed to point how shallow the positive reviews for Nolan's films are, but I got little from it. If you take out the plot description and the space dedicated to countering the self-invented notion that "inception" has been declared a masterpiece by every breathing critic in North America, did anyone actually gain any insight about the movie from reading that review beyond a few declarations not very well supported? It is what Bill Ryan brings up in his piece. Are the negative reviews of Nolan's work (which often employed cheap shots rather than insights) beyond being called out for the same nastiness that comes from those who think everything Nolan does is beyond criticism? I lost count of how many times I was accused of being a non-thinking comic book geek for liking "The Dark Knight" when I don't even read or care much about comic books.
The critical community has basically let themselves be dominated by Rotten Tomatoes. Even those rail against it seem almost bizarrely obsessed with it when it is so easy to just ignore. I mean, critics do have to submit themselves via application to be included on the site, so why doesn't everyone just withdraw from it if they want to maintain their integrity? There are endless complaints about the comments directed at them for daring to have an alternative opinion, but is it really that much of a surprise that most internet commenters are stupid, illiterate, looking for a fight and should be completely ignored? Is there not any comment moderation like those of us writing on our small blogs have? Although I never had to use mine except for spam because I don't get these kind of comments. If stupid people made comments on my blog, I will still write whatever I feel like writing. I am not going to complain that my freedom of speech is being taken away because it isn't unless the internet has become a police state. I will try not to paint everyone who disagrees with me with the same broad brush (though I have been guilty of that, as everyone has) just to create the narrative of Us vs. Them and turning the debate over a movie into the ugliness of the 2008 presidential campaign.
And creating a narrative is what a lot of this is about. How can a critic spin the debate to portray oneself as righteous and the voice of reason? Like politics, you start by demonizing the other side and try to win a public relations battle. It helps more if they resort to self-victimization to paint the other side as being oppressive and mean. To do that, it helps to boil it down to two sides of groupthink, i.e., Christopher Nolan is the greatest director in the history of cinema or Christopher Nolan just raped me via celluloid. Basically, two sides that I absolutely do not want to be a part of and not much different from that Team Whomever nonsense that teenage girls say about which vapid guy they like most in "Twilight". Meanwhile, some of us out there were hoping this crazy internet thing would actually provide a variety of different perspectives and voices about movies, considering how we never seem to appreciate how not only are personal reaction to a film is unique but also respect how others may have a completely different reaction. Crazy idea, right? Having an actual curiosity about those who think differently than us and perhaps learning from that (though that doesn't mean agreeing with it) rather than making half-baked, if that, assumptions about the character of those with a different point of view.
Sorry if this is a long rant, but this whole thing is getting me steamed and I genuinely believe it has little to do with the movie itself. And, yes, a pox on both houses.
I appreciate what you're saying. Because (as I like to say) movies are neither made nor exhibited in a vacuum, an evaluation of a given film may take into consideration the claims that others have made for it. I mean, how could anyone pretend they didn't notice the hysteria that built up around "The Dark Knight," even before it was released? A friend of mine who has been a film critic for 40+ years said he'd never seen anything like it (although i think it was quite similar to the "Batman" craze of 1989). In that sense, I understand the criticism (directed at me by some fans of "TDK" in 2008) that I was either harder on the movie than I would normally have been, or that I wouldn't be writing about it so much, if it were not enormously popular and acclaimed. (Some said the same kinds of things about my posts on "Avatar.") To which I can only say: Of course! If the movie had simply opened and closed without much fuss, then there would be little reason to keep coming back to it, to keep examining it, if only to try to better understand the claims others were making for it. But, again, that's my main point here: It's one thing to dig deeper into a movie, to try to see what it's doing and why it affects some people so strongly; it's another to just keep hurling insults (or praise) at it.
The Prestige was a masterpiece.
"You see, there may, in fact, already be (or have been) a backlash against the backlash even before there was evidence of a backlash to begin with."
To quote the great Stephen Colbert, "That has to be the craziest f***ing thing I ever saw." Jesus Christ. It's like a frickin' matryoshka doll of insecurity and paranoia from people who don't even have a personal stake in the movie to begin with.
I'm proud to say, though, that I've also successfully managed to avoid learning much at all about Inception by avoiding all reviews completely...although I admit I have browsed the pull-quotes on Rotten Tomatoes. I agree that the "scorekeeping" on sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic have nothing to do with criticism, but I still value those sites (at least RT, anyway, although I honestly never visit Metacritic) simply for accumulating reviews in one easy to find place. I'm actually looking forward to watching Inception so I can finally dig in to some of the reviews I've barred myself from reading.
And while that pull-quote from Justin Chang's review did stand out to me, I must say my favorite so far comes from none other than the maniac Armond White:
"Like Grand Theft Auto's quasi-cinematic extension of noir and action-flick plots, Inception manipulates the digital audience's delectation for relentless subterfuge."
I swear the man's sentences are like Escher paintings. They're made out of parts that exist in a world based on rules and physical integrity, but are put together in ways that baffle the frickin' mind. It might even be impressive if that was actually the affect he was going for.
I feel like you’re partially defeating your own argument here, Jim. You claim that the RottenTomatoes brand of scorekeeping has nothing to do with film criticism, and are furthermore poor tools for our decision whether to see a movie or not. But you lament about not knowing what critics were going to say about the films until you saw them opening night. If we want that blank slate while viewing a movie (as I do), does that mean we have absolutely no tool to decide which one would more likely spark our interest?
RottenTomatoes and Metacritic are, indeed, poor tools for better appreciating film art, but that doesn’t mean they are completely without use. The “fresh/rotten” percentage score I concede is fairly meaningless, but the ability to scan the reviews and at a glance see who’s were favorable and whose not is a great tool for deciding where to spend one’s time, if indeed you want to form your own opinions about a film before exposing yourself to others’. It is surely better than using box office gross, which has a higher correlation to advertising budget than film worth.
Tomorrow night I will have a choice before me. By default, I would crack open a beer, settle into my favorite couch, and put in my Netflix copy of “The Gay Divorcee”. But, because I have been informed that certain critics I respect (Roger Ebert, Michael Phillips, Richard Roeper) have responded favorably to “Inception”, maybe I’ll pay my local Megascreen a visit.
You're right -- I am partially defeating my own argument because I feel such ambivalence about it. I didn't say RT and Metacritic were "without use," though; obviously they are tools that can provide guidance. I said they had nothing to do with the practice of film criticism, because they are simply numerical aggregates. They (and MRQE, the grandaddy of them all) provide useful indexes to reviews on the web. I often cite film festivals as examples of the ideal ways to see movies: All you know in advance are a few of the credits and maybe what you've read in the catalog description. Other than that, you make your decision (to see it or not) on your own, depending on how it fits into your schedule. It's harder to do that in everyday life, but it's still possible, more or less.
The challenge of writing theatrical-release reviews of newly distributed movies is to give readers something to consider before AND after they've seen the film (if they choose to do so), without ruining the experience for them. You want to be able to use specific examples from the film without spoiling the reader's ability to discover the movie for him/herself. It's a delicate balance of the specific (so the reader can understand exactly why you're saying what you're saying) and the deliberately vague (describing something in a way that doesn't reveal too much about other aspects of the movie). You might describe a shot or quote a line without actually naming the characters involved, for example; or set up a situation (or the movie's premise) while still withholding (or disguising) information the viewer wouldn't know at that point in the movie, so as not to give away "what happens next." Often the most interesting things about movies are the possibilities you find yourself considering -- those moments it creates for you to contemplate where it might go -- and to suggest those in a review, you don't always need to come out and say where it does go. Or the atmosphere, or the structure, or the construction of a given scene -- all of which can be examined without giving too much away.
P.S. As for "The Gay Divorcee": I hope I won't be revealing too much to say that Eric Blore, Alice Brady, Edward Everett Horton and Erik Rhodes never fail to crack me up: "Give me a name for chance and I am a fool."
Having now seen both I can only hope for many more Fridays with a win/win choice.
You liked nothing of his after Insomnia? I found Batman Begins to be mindblowing. It's a lot like you and Fight Club--no one seems to get the movie like I do and it's as if it was aimed exactly at ME!
What bothers me most about the whole "Dark Knight"/"Inception"/Christopher Nolan debate is the constant use of ad hominem attacks. Specifically, if you don't like "The Dark Knight", you're some kind of snob. And if you like "The Dark Knight", you're just some kid who doesn't know anything about film.
I love "The Dark Knight." I think it's a great film. I see something new every time I watch it. If I'm watching TV and "The Dark Knight" is on, I'll watch it right to the end no matter what point I came in at. But that doesn't mean that I have a problem with people who don't like it. I disagree with them, but that's fine.
What I have a problem with is the implication that I'm just some teenager with no knowledge of films that came out before "The Matrix" just because I love "The Dark Knight." Yes, I'm a teenager. Yes, I love "The Dark Knight." Yes, I think Christopher Nolan is a terrific filmmaker. But I also love the works of Kurosawa, Orson Welles, John Ford, Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, Truffaut, Scorsese, Wes Anderson, Robert Altman, and others that are far too many to mention. I still have many more movies to see (and I hope I always have more movies to see), but I do have knowledge of the cinema.
Of course, I'm looking forward to "Inception." I must admit that I've been monitoring Rotten Tomatoes, but I haven't actually read any reviews. It's been really hard to keep myself from reading Ebert's review (I couldn't stop from reading the first paragraph). Is it going to be the greatest movie of all time? I don't know. I'll have to find out. But I'm also looking forward to the time when we can look back on these movies from a hype-free and backlash-free environment and just discuss them as films without trying to figure out everyone else's reasoning for liking/disliking them. Maybe in 10, 20 years, "The Dark Knight" will be like "Apocalypse Now", a movie that some people see as a masterpiece and others see as flawed and incomplete. But we can still discuss "Apocalypse Now" without resorting to ad hominem attacks, right?
These days I find that in many cases, I am much more interested in the critical reaction to a film than the film itself, and that's certainly the case with Nolan whose undeniable appeal to young viewers baffles me. Not that he isn't widely acclaimed by older viewers/reviewers too, but I hazard a guess that if you were to poll a group of under-30 film lovers, Nolan might well rate out as the top director.
One thing I particularly enjoy is the complete inability of critics to agree on even the most basic elements. For some critics, both in the pro and con camp, "Inception" was either "mind-bending" or "confusing." For others (and I am certainly in this camp), it was so overburdened with exposition that it played like its own press notes. For some the visuals were, well, "mind-bending" again, evidence of Nolan's visionary status. For others (and I'm here again), they were leaden and unimaginative, evidence that Nolan is literal-minded and doesn't think particularly well in visual terms.
I find this total disconnect fascinating, though I don't necessarily know what to make of it. It reminds me of the old debate about whether any two of us are actually seeing the same color when we see something we call "blue." It may be blue to me, but is it the same blue for you?
I think context always matter, and critical reception is part of that context. I think of reviews as coming in waves, and I think it's perfectly valid for the second or third wave to react to the first one. I tend to enjoy that part of the discussion most of all.
I fear my comment has been lost to the ether!
JE: I fear you are correct! I looked in the spam filter and it was not to be found. Please try again, if you have the patience!
I will, although it'll probably be a tad different now. Right now I've been distracted by David Poland showing up at my sight and leaving comments, which was unexpected.
I have no faith in Hollywood anymore, and the only way I will be moved to go the theater is a tsunami of critical approval. Still, I probably won't see "Inception" until it's out on DVD.
Keep in mind that I last saw a film on the big screen back in January, Herzog's "Bad Lieutenant", and the experience was so disheartening I wonder if I'll ever go back. (It was probably the only 35mm projector still in use by a Birmingham multiplex, with projection so dim I could barely make out the black people. I demanded my money back after 15 minutes.)
a review of a review of a review of a film containing a dream within a dream within a dream within a dream...
It's all Pauline Kael's fault - starting with her advance review of the workprint (!) of NASHVILLE.
/s Prestige fan
Jim, what an excellent essay. I am a staunch rottentomatoes addict and posted there frequently for a year, took a half year hiatus and recently began posting again. When I was first introduced to rottentomatoes, early in my univeristy career, I followed the tomatometer devotely and even took umbrage when I saw one of my favourite movies or directors receive a negative review (I was one of those-I know it's embarassing)because I felt as though a critical consensus was tantamount to the gospel truth. Yet, now that I am three years out of university and have, hopefully, matured I now view rottentomatoes as primarily beneficial for exposing myself to a wide variety of (hopefully) educated opinions on film. My opinion of a film and it's tmeter score have been disparate. I like to think of it as a step forward in my personal growth, realizing that even though someones critical view of art may diverge from your own, a differing opinion can provide insights which would have never occurred to you and deepen your understanding of not only the film, but of how others view the world and the medium. A prime example is your blogging about the dark knight. Boy was I pissed anyone would dare question a film that in retrospect contains many narrative flaws as well as questionable techniques (such as the 360 spinning camera you took issue with). Reading a well thought out critique about the Dark Knight made me inspect it closer, admit it has flaws and really bettered my understanding of what critical thought is all about. Do I think DK is valueless now? No. Is it flawed? Of course virtually no work of art is flawless (well except King Lear and 2001). I think it comes down to one of the fundamental goals of any art (criticism assuredly being an art) which is to use the artistic medium to deepen our understanding of the world around us, and, to do so we must build upon the understandings and knowledge of the others who we share this world with, even if we might disagree entirely.
Well those are my two cents. Got my ticket for the 12 o clock show tonight and I'm uber stoked. Let us know what you think!
Thank you for this piece Jim. It has come at the exact moment I have decided to give up trying to keep up with the Joneseseses.....
I am an amateur film critic and I cross post reviews on several sites, but it is mainly a passionate hobby.
Until recently I simply saw the films that interested me and wrote what I wanted, when I wanted. I post them and then discuss with people.
Last week a buddy wanted to see A-Team and Predators, two films that I would normally skip. So we went and I posted mini-reviews (I'm not sure they can properly warrant more) and within minutes I was basically attacked for my slightly negative thoughts on A-Team, especially since I had not seen it as soon as it came out.
It now just feels so forced. If I don't see the midnight showing of Inception or at least the first available viewing Friday then everyone who is in my general audience as readers will find something elsewhere to read, and by the time I post something they will have already made up minds or, worse, will simply ignore my post since they have already seen so many.
So I am making a pledge to myself to go back to the way it was when I started and just see a movie whenever I want and hope the people who care about my writing and thoughts will continue to read.
I LOVED this piece. It sums up what is wrong with the anticipatory freak out that happens anytime a new piece of commercial art is about to land. We just can't seem to wait. We are so impatient. And to have a backlash set in before an audience is even able to take in this new art!?!? REALLY! I blame the internet, TV, and coffee. And Porn.
I'm sorry but WAY too many words from everyone here about nothing. Do you all write and write then spend your time re-reading yourselves over and over congratulating yourselves on your pseudo brilliance while you sip your quad lattes.. pausing only to update your status on Twitter and Facebook and do a little online banking? Editing is your friend..or maybe put down the laptop and go actually see a movie.
Indeed, an excellent essay, Jim.
I must admit that having loathed TDK, a mean-spirited part of me was hoping that Inception would do poorly in the reviewing game. Part of me still chortles with glee as I see its initial 100% on RT drop down to 84% (as of this writing). Yet, I do take time to read reviews from critics I trust, such as you and Roger and A.O. Scott, and they've persuaded me that the film is probably not without merit. So far, I've decided that it's a movie for the mind rather than the soul--which is something that bothers me about Nolan's work in general.
But Nolan is not Kubrick. First of all, Kubrick's films were not about rapid-fire cuts and a lightning pace. Secondly, Kubrick's films DO engage the soul--at least, my soul.
That digression aside, I will probably view Inception on DVD, and I'll try to keep an open mind.
"It's the critic's job to draw these associations, not just to tell his friends if the movie's cool or not" - best thing you wrote. On the other hand, there are friends whose opinions as to whether they like a film or not are quite valid to me, even those friends who think "Rififi" is a pasta you can get at the Olive Garden. (In my case, this is true in the negatory as well; I have a dear friend whose "I liked this movie!" is the kiss of death for it; she considers Talladega Nights the funniest movie of all time, and it surprised me not a whit that she liked that Airbender thing.)
My own website reviews try to straddle the line between pontificating about associations and just saying whether the damn movie's any good or not, which is what my readers want to know, after all.
That's why I stick with you, Matt Zoller Seitz, Raven Simone, Glenn Kenny, Ebert and um...
That's so Ebert.
Anyway, I think the critical discourse across the board in mass media has been reduced to a playground popularity contest. So devoid are we of content, or the ability to perceive or venture to have a defensible point of view, that we must resort to ramblings about opening weekends as we trip over ourselves trying to predict something only in order to be right about something. The something in this case is utterly pointless. And who do I blame for this...
Nerds.
Gentlemen. The nerds of our childhood are gone. No longer are they the gentle loner, the introverted reader, the misunderstood genius. No. Now, nerds are morons. A guy wearing glasses with his shirt tucked in and a pocket protector is being ironic about his entire ensemble. His closet is ironic. Perhaps he remembers that irony is another word for smart. Perhaps he picked this up watching MTV in the mid-90's, but I digress. Nerds have been dumbed down by their own nerdish instance on devouring everything. Stan Lee is to blame as well. His instance on not dumbing it down for the kiddies gave them a slight advantage on vocabulary words a grade or two above where they were. This distillation of information, this pop culture osmosis, is responsible, in my stupid opinion, for most of the professed knowledge of today's nerd. They learn about the Kennedy assassination by watching Mad Men and the fact that they feel a connection to the characters means they feel they have absorbed not only the factual information but also an understanding of what it was like to be there. This is perhaps not the best example, but providing examples is dead. Get on the gravy train fellas, we no longer need cite our sources. And I will participate in this as well. So, The Dark Knight is the Greatest film ever made, oh wait, Avatar made more money so it's the greatest film ever made, wait, adjusted for inflation Gone with the Wind made the most money, but that's stupid old money, mine's got purple 5's on it, so Avatar is the best, uh...pwned?
So nerds are to blame. When I was young I could not imagine there being an Iron Man movie. Now there are two. I'm just waiting for the He-Man movie that finally GETS IT RIGHT! Because exacting recreation has replaced interpretation and it's all being applied to shit cartoons and non-sense. There will be a reckoning, hopefully. And nerds will get their act together and be the ones we will route for again. Now, I'm beginning to see the dumb jock's perspective and it's making more and more sense to me by the day. Stupid nerds.
for all your ranting about nerds, you forgot the words you were apparently trying to type were 'insistence' (not instance), and 'root' as in, "i'm rooting for the home team." if you were to route the nerds, that would be something different altogether.
and really, you couldn't imagine an iron man movie twenty years ago? you mean when flash gordon, back to the future, and tons of other science fiction, superhero and fantasy films were flooding theaters? weird. you have a limited view of cinema history.
i don't think nerds are to blame for anything. idiots, yes, but nerds, not really. in fact, without nerds, we'd not have movies at all.
Ugh, listen nerd, you understood what I meant despite my poor spelling right? Good then.
And no, I think if you were to mention the name Iron Man to the average Joe in 1986 they would first think of the song rather than a 2nd or 3rd tier comic book character, one who would be known and loved by nerds. And also you may forget that the state of comic book films oh so long ago was pretty grim, there was Batman, there was Superman and both were investing heavily in the law of diminishing returns. For those of us stupid nerds who suffered through Punisher, with Dolph of course, the made for tv Marvel movies from the 70's, failed attempts at franchising The Shadow, The Phantom, Captain America, etc. The Rocketeer may be the only successful one, in my opinion, that didn't look and feel like a cheap knock-off. And now, Superheroes are top tier entertainment, find me a comic book and we got a movie. The time for injecting serious dollars into attempting to build franchises off of disposable entertainments, nothing new but specifically in this case, on nerdy things, I feel, is the deign of grown-up nerds. And there is a difference between a nerd and a genius, or a nerd and an artist, one obsessed by minutiae for minutiae's sake, the other also obsessed but for the purpose of creation. So without them we would still have cinema. And Edison was no nerd, he gave swirly's in outhouses, that's just how they rolled in the late 1800's.
This is becoming so petty...why don't they just go see the damn movie then " enlighten" the poor masses with their critiques afterwards?
Listen, if I had gone to the movies only because X and Y told me so, I would have wasted a lot of money, time and Alka Seltzer...I'd rather read about what hundred regular Joes collectively think about what they've just seen than read the musings of a pseudo-intellectual trying to beat, another pseudo-intellectual (possibly) with an agenda, to the punch.
Funny you should mention "Jaws". I miss that Hollywood era in more ways than one...
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