Going to college, I learned that conformity is much
appreciated. Not mainstream conformity, but the even worse, canonical arts
conformity, where classical works are intermingled with a few contemporary, self-righteous,
scholarly narcissists, who won some crap shoot to be added to the list. Are
they good? Probably. Should they be remembered? Probably not. This doesn’t
really have anything to do with movie critics, which is my main point.
Why the hell do all movie critics lead off with a paragraph
that doesn’t have anything to do with the movie? I’m reading your critique
because I want to know if the movie is good enough to watch, and not because I
am interested in some bullshit experience you had as a youth that you somehow
think is a good segue into a film which overshadows your entire existence, that
you’re probably going to misinterpret and give nothing but negative feedback
on, simply because it doesn’t measure up to some oft-hailed masterpiece it didn’t
try to be in the first place.
Your job is about movies, not small glimpses into your own
life that you feel makes you an even greater expert on a subject you have
self-proclaimed expertise in. Sure, background info on yourself is fine, and
can often explain why you may have liked or disliked something, but I’m not
here to read your memoirs, and you’re probably not that interesting to begin
with if you spend the majority of your time bashing everything the majority of
people enjoyed.
Now there is a difference between someone who reviews movies
and a movie critic, despite these terms often being used interchangeably. People
who review movies do so because they enjoy films, enjoy writing about them, and
usually love sharing their experiences with others, to encourage or discourage
other viewers. They often form strong bonds of friendship out of their
passionate hobby. Movie critics are snobs who like to point out the obvious,
and sometimes the irrelevant, and like to rate the smallest detail against the
greatest. They usually just want praise and to be more important than their
subject of ridicule.
I have several friends who review movies, and no friends who
are movie critics, because movie critics have no friends and have never been
laid. They live miserable lives and try to suck everyone into their misery. You
either like something, or you don’t, so avoid letting movie critics make that
decision for you.