thumbI’ll get to the WGA soon.

Right now, I want to talk about film critics–and where they are failing miserably.

First, let me say that this isn’t a revenge piece for bad reviews I’ve gotten.  Lord knows I’ve collected enough of them.  I’ve also gotten plenty of good reviews (shocking, to be sure).  Unfortunately, I have to lump them all into a big pile labelled “Irrelevant.”

The most popular sort of film criticism is really “film grading.”  In film grading, the reviewer briefly summarizes the movie and then gives it a grade.  I believe this kind of film criticism is absolutely useless.

Why?  Because any individual’s opinion on a film is a reflection of their individual taste, and even if you want to make the argument that some people have better taste than others (true), it’s all-too-easy to point out that people of equally impressive taste often disagree about films.  Violently, at that.

I directed a film called The Specials.  Variety labelled it “Grade Z entertainment.”  The LA Weekly named it one of the ten best films of the year.  Was it either?

No.

The truth is that grading critics are no more useful to me than my friends. Hell, less useful.  My friends are all pretty smart, many of them are filmmakers…so I actually feel more informed by their opinions than those of critics.  But let’s say you don’t have filmmaker friends.  Let’s say you’re just a guy in a small town somewhere.

It’s just as likely your taste will not intersect with those of the film critics as it will.

And since they often disagree with each other anyway, who needs ‘em?

You could use one of the grading aggregators like Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic, but again…what’s the real value there? For instance, some movies get a 50 on Metacritic because most critics find the film mediocre. But some movies get a 50 because half the critics loved the movie and half hated it. Different story.

Rotten Tomatoes just tells you what percentage of critics seemed to like a film.  Similar problem. Some movies are polarizing and end up with a big splat.

But let’s presume for the sake of argument that there’s a consensus.  The grading critics all love Slumdog Millionaire, and they all hate Meet The Spartans.

Who cares? Of what value is there when there’s a consensus among graders? I don’t think those consensuses really move filmgoers to movies.  Either they see ads and talk to friends and reach their own matching consensus…or they don’t.

The grading critics can serve a purpose by championing unreleased films.  I grant this.  But once a studio has decided to distribute Slumdog Millionaire, you know how they’re going to get people to see Slumdog Millionaire?

By advertising Slumdog Millionaire.

There’s a reason studios read all those wonderful reviews and still spend 30 million dollars on marketing.

Patrick Goldstein fell into a grading trap this week. He wrote an opinion piece about “Knowing,” and the basic gist of it was: “All the critics think Knowing is a piece of crap, so let’s try and unravel why audiences were stupid enough to see it.”

Couple of problems.

First, not all critics thought it was a piece of crap.  Roger Ebert thought it was one of the greatest sci-fi films he’d ever seen.  But more importantly, Patrick assumes that the general consensus of the grading critics is actually meaningful.

It is not. Just as the IQ test famously measures the ability to do well on an IQ test, the consensus of the grading critics is at best a vaguely relevant insight into the actual Quality of the film, and at worst is a distortion resulting from a flawed sample.

In the age of blogging and Facebooking and twittering, the grading critic will become more and more irrelevant.

What sort of film criticism should take its place?

Well, maybe instead of the “consumer reporting” model of film criticism, replete with calorically empty snark, film critics could actually spend more time on film analysis.  Sure, it’s easier to just squat and poop, but then how are the reviews any better or less lazy than some of the movies they rip to shreds?

Or applaud, for that matter?

I don’t say this as a filmmaker (which ought to relieve some critics, who must be thinking, “Really? I’m getting lectured by the Scary Movie 7 guy?”). I say this as an audience member. As a filmgoer.

As a guy who has completely stopped reading criticism of films.

Well, not all of it.

A screenwriter pal of mine sent me a link to an article that represented a lovely ray of hope.

Here’s a bit of film criticism that I found intriguing and smart and insightful.  Does it grade Marley & Me?  No.  Because honestly, who cares?

What it does do is talk about that film and its counter-relationship to a predominant theme in filmed entertainment:  the belief that if we dream, anything is possible.

That’s a smart piece of film criticism. And while it’s as arguable as anything else, it’s about IDEAS, not nonsense.  I don’t need the critics to tell me they hate the latest Adam Sandler movie.  We know.  We get it.  And obviously, the audience disagrees and doesn’t care, so why keep bothering?

Instead, film critics, read that piece on Marley & Me, and ask yourselves this:  could you write something as interesting and thoughtful as that about why Adam Sandler movies fail for you?

Eh, don’t bother answering.  We know you can’t.  And there are so many of you, we don’t even bothering listening to your individual points of view.  We run you all through a duck press, shrug at the result…and then see whatever damn movies we want to see anyway.

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