The Dangerous Lives of Movie Critics

So I, like Lauren, also read the article criticizing film critics, and at the risk of poaching her subject have a little to add, because this phenomenon of people discussing the worthlessness of critics was actually a factor in our decision to start a film blog. I think we might run into it more than most because of our frequent explorations in the venerable halls of the IMDb message boards, but the vitriol aimed at film critics is most of the time even more snobbish than a New Yorker review of a Michael Bay film. So often these people like to think of themselves as David tackling the Goliath of elitism, but in the end they just come across as playground bullies teasing the nerd because he wears glasses.

The fact is that most of the people that complain about film criticism don’t get that they’re not the audience for it anymore than Manohla Dargis of the New York Times is the audience for “X-Men 3: The Last Stand.” “X-Men 3,” like “Spiderman 3” and “Pirates of the Caribbean 3,” was going to make money no matter what the fraternity of movie critics said about it (people also seem to forget that actually the first incarnations of “X-men,” “Spiderman,” and “Pirates of the Caribbean” were generally liked by the critics). Quite frankly I find it hard to pity “Spiderman 3” for its poor reviews when it went to the bank with $336,530,303, and “The Lives of Others,” which I think is the best movie that has come out of this decade, made $11,284,657. When Joe Morgenstern of the Wall Street Journal gets attacked by hoards of crazy Batfans for giving a mixed review to “The Dark Knight,” which was almost universally praised and is the second highest grossing film of all time, one begins to think that these fanboys’ attentions are a little misguided. What do they want? The whole world to agree with them? It basically does, allow Joe Morgenstern to prefer “Tell No One,” “The Dark Knight” doesn’t need him, but a French thriller in limited release does. The same weekend that “The Dark Knight” made a record breaking $151,411,483 “Tell No One” made $400,947. Do you still feel like you’re David fighting the unjust Goliath of film snobbery?

I read articles on the internet tracking the weekend box office results and gleefully reporting that in spite of poor reviews a movie did spectacularly, or that the critics were wrong again. Well let me tell you the critics aren’t there to tell you whether or not a movie will be a success, they’re there to tell you if a movie is going to have anything to add to the medium of cinema. The remake of “Prom Night” might have opened at the top of the box office with more money than “The Lives of Others” made in its entire run, but who cares about that film now? It was a throw away piece of PG-13 horror that I doubt even the director cared about beyond using it as a stepping-stone from TV to movies. But if you can’t decide the quality of a movie democratically by how many people see it what are we left with? Is everyone’s opinion equal, or can we say that Anthony Lane of the New Yorker, who is educated in the history of film and has seen probably more movies than Quentin Tarantino (certainly he’s seen a broader range of movies than Tarantino), is a better judge of whether or not a movie should be added to the canon than Batdude666 who states that a movie sucked because it had character development instead of a knife wielding maniac in it? People who say that film criticism is obsolete in this age of blogs and podcasts don’t understand that reviews maybe dispensable for the likes of “Superman Returns,” but for a small movie like “The Lives of Others” or “Little Miss Sunshine” they can be the difference between a sleeper and a bomb. When was this golden age that people keep talking about where critics had the power to torpedo a blockbuster? It never happened; people will go to those movies anyway, be it 1948 or 2008, but movies that have little or no money for advertising need reviews or they will fail. “The Visitor” was a very fine movie, but I never would have given it a second glance to if it hadn’t been for a positive review from A.O. Scott.

I’m going to be lazy and finish with two quotes, which basically sum up everything I have to say. The first is probably familiar to you as it was intoned to perfection by Peter O’Toole in “Ratatouille,” and the second is by my favorite critic, Anthony Lane of the New Yorker.

“In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends.”

“At a time when, for many viewers, the value of a motion picture is indicated by the rotation of a chubby thumb through 180 degrees, one should remind them that, of all the duties required of the professional critic, perhaps the least important – certainly the least enduring – is the delivery of a verdict. I am always sorry to hear that readers were personally offended, even scandalized, that my opinion of a film diverged from theirs. I wish I could convince them that I am merely starting an argument, as everyone does over dinner, or in a crowded bar, after going to see a film, and that their freedom to disagree is part of the fun.”