I don’t read reviews. Mostly because I think people are
stupid.
But, I recently went to the Redbox website to see when Birdman was going to be available. I glanced down at the bottom of the screen to find that nearly every reviewer gave it less than one star. Again, I believe that most people aren’t smart, and that
dumb people are ten times more likely to write something negative on the
Internet than something positive, but I was just so curious that so many people would “Thumbs Down” the winner for Best Picture.
This review was my personal favorite: “I watch a lot of
movies, and not many I don't like. This was a bomb! Did not care for it from
beginning to end, but suffered though it.”
Let us just lay it out there – If someone starts out a
sentence with “I watch [listen to, read] a lot of movies [music, books], and
not many [much] I don’t like,” you can be sure that whatever comes next is a load of crap.
I sound cruel, don’t I? Closed-minded? Rude? I know. That’s
because when it comes to art and literature, and particularly television and
film, I’m a complete snob.
There’s this great moment in Modern Family when Cam
accuses Mitchell of being a snob (he’d never been to Costco), and Mitchell
responds with:
This is how I feel about how I feel about film. I’m
discerning. I’ve probably been this way all of my life (favorite childhood
films: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate
Factory, The Point, The Wizard of Oz, The [Original] Parent Trap), but it got
significantly worse in Mr. Timmons' English class my junior year of high school
when I was introduced to Paper Moon
and The Graduate. He essentially
taught us how to watch movies. They stopped being a source of entertainment and
became art. I learned that there was so much more behind the story and the script. The director had to make so many seemingly mundane decisions: what color to make
the couch, where to place a picture frame, what type of glasses the main character should wear, how a character should be standing, etc. And many of
these decisions are deliberate to make an audience feel a certain way about
what’s happening or what people are saying or not saying or to hint at
something that’s going to happen later. It’s all a little overwhelming to think
about actually. But now, when I watch a film, it’s all I think about.
Let’s take the Jared and Jerusha Hess 2004 cult
phenomenon, Napoleon Dynamite. I remember when it was released in only
a few theaters. I had seen previews on MTV and was so excited that a bunch of
Mormons got together and made a movie. I went with a friend to see it, the
theater was sparsely occupied, and I was in awe. It ended and I looked over to
see what my friend thought - the look on his face said, “That was the weirdest,
stupidest movie I’ve ever seen.” It took months before the hype really started,
but I like to think that I was on to something really special before anyone
else had it figured out. And this was before “hipster” was a thing.
Yes, Napoleon Dynamite was mostly plotless, extremely
low budget, and sometimes painfully awkward to sit through. But it was
beautiful. The colors were vintage and saturated, the soundtrack was perfect,
the relationships between Napoleon and Deb and Pedro were sweet, and when
people describe the movie as “stupid” or simply, “funny,” I think, “they just
don’t get it.”
Here’s another Birdman review: “WOW - CAN I GET MY MONEY
BACK!!!! One of the worst movies I have ever watched. No story, does nothing to
make you want to continue watching. They went all artsy fartsy with no
entertainment value what so ever. Picture of the year, you have to be kidding
me. I knew I should have passed on this 1.” (I'm biting my tongue to avoid also discussing his use of the numeral '1').
Birdman was stunning. Completely deserving of the Oscar
for Best Picture. Anyone who disagrees will also disagree with this entire
post. And that’s okay. But, to quote my parents quoting someone else, “In my
humble, but correct, opinion,” movies and films are two different things. You
want entertainment? Go watch a movie, enjoy it for a moment, and forget about it
tomorrow. For me, let's watch a film and bring on the farts.
