We live in a world of film criticism in which your opinion is immediately spread across the world the second you hit “Enter”. We have websites such as Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic which tell us all what everyone “thinks” about a movie. It is no longer about what someone writes specifically about a movie, but it is instead about which of the following symbols are next to a critic’s name:
I am guilty of following Rotten Tomatoes, as are most of us. It’s okay, because that’s the culture we’re in. It was not long after I wrote my previous post on Inception (including my opening blurb on rushing to critical judgment) that I read a brilliant post by Roger Ebert about the negative reviews of the film, and the internet witch hunt which follows all those who speak ill of popular movies (including his own hatred of Transformers 2, which the fanboys did not like).
READ THE POST HERE. PLEASE. IT’S IMPORTANT.
Back in the 70’s when Ebert was establishing himself there was no Rotten Tomatoes for the world to flock to, thus people merely had their local critics, or, God forbid, themselves. People would go to the movies with little or no expectation and come out with their own opinions. Nowadays people see these meters rise and fall and go into movies with ideas as to what to expect. I am no exception, and perhaps some of my opinions on certain films have been altered by what I’ve seen on websites such as this. I like to think not, but I’d be ignorant to discount it.
However, Ebert is not entirely removed from this system. His own At the Movies television show began the now famous “thumbs up” vs. “thumbs down” critiquing system. All the movie ads of the time would scream “Siskel and Ebert say TWO THUMBS UP!”, later of course Ebert and Roeper. This is something he admitted when he responded to a comment I made on this post, but to a point:
Me: I agree with a lot of what you say here, but was it not your show that began the "thumbs up" vs. "thumbs down" society we live in today?
I know you did not mean for it to become like this, but do you think we'd have "rotten" vs. "fresh" if there was no "up" vs. "down"? It is certainly not all your fault, but do you think that might have been a contributing factor?
Ebert: No doubt. But you had to watch the show. Nobody was much interested in simply consulting a chart of our thumb positions.
I have and do watch the show. I began when it was Ebert and Roeper. I watched when it was Roeper and Critic of the Week. I watch now with A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips. I even suffered through the godforsaken Ben & Ben era.
My response to him was that while he may not have intended it, there are many people who very well may have only wanted a chart of thumb positions. But you know what? It’s a testament to how great and influential the show was that it influenced all the “like” or “dislike” rating systems we seen on the internet. He has yet to respond, and I will add an edit to this post if he does.
In the article he looks at two different negative reviews of Inception, one being David Edelstein’s and the other by Armond White. I’ve made it clear in posts such as my Toy Story 3 review that I despise Armond White with the passion of a thousand burning suns. Ebert makes it clear that he holds no high esteem for White himself, in the past calling him “a troll”. (That's a bit our of context, but you get the idea.) White is a critic that, perhaps, USES the Tomatometer to attract attention. He does not critique the films he sees, but instead insults those who like the films he pans, and dislike the films he praises. He agrees with the Rotten Tomatoes consensus (I just don't know how to quit you, Tomatometer) a mere 52% of the time. Just look at this list and be baffled.
Ebert defends David Edelstein’s review, which is understandable enough. He rightly then contrasts it to White’s, with the overall message being that at least Edelstein was critiquing Inception, while Armond White was busy throwing big words on his computer screen to insult all who might have enjoyed Inception. White has no consistency in his reviews, and seems to have no overall tastes except to be a pretentious contrarian. David Edelstein is not nearly as condescending to the reader. I disagree with what he wrote, as I’ve made clear, but that doesn’t mean he’s a joke of a critic. That honor belongs to the likes of Armond White. At least Ben Lyons isn’t as mean-spirited, he’s just not, what's the word? Oh, yeah. Qualified. White is intelligent, and that makes him all the more annoying. He can’t possibly believe the film Jonah Hex “reexamines assumptions of good and evil—morality tale vs, trite entertainment—by confronting the hideous compromises people make with social conventions and their own desperation.” Basically he’s calling you an idiot for not understanding the subtext of a movie in which Megan Fox plays a prostitute with a southern accent.
Roger Ebert has never been afraid to go against the consensus, even though it does not happen often. In fact, of late he has not given many bad reviews at all. He hated The Last Airbender as did anyone else with a functioning left brain, but he had not written a review of a film so scathing in a long time. Other than that he’s been pretty mild. However, in the last few years he has written reviews which go against the consensus. He gave the Nicolas Cage film Knowing four stars and called it “among the best science fiction films I’ve seen”. As I stated in my in-depth Inception post, this is not a phrase one should be handing out lightly. Roger Ebert never does, and he often hesitates to even call a film “one of the year’s best”. He strongly dislikes composing end-of-the-year “best of” lists. To see him begin a review with such a definitive statement was rather shocking, and it was even more so when I saw Knowing and pretty much hated it.
However, you read his review of a film like Knowing and you UNDERSTAND it. You know where he is coming from. He named Synecdoche, New York his favorite film of the previous decade while almost no one else even included it on a list. Right in the middle of this post he hits the nail on the head: when you say you like or dislike a movie, you are never wrong. When you begin to describe WHY, that might get a little more interesting. I make no secret of the fact that The Departed is one of my favorite movies, while some of my friends have called it a “basic cop movie”. That a statement I disagree with in every way, and I could tell you why, but this is already a bit overlong. Meanwhile, a large amount of young men my age worship Troy Duffy’s The Boondock Saints, a movie I dislike a great deal. However, I understand the basic services it provides to those who enjoy it. Unlike Armond White, I do not find these people lowly serfs bathing in their wretched filth as I sit in my ivory tower, but instead I agree to disagree.
Ebert also references the films 2001 and Bonnie and Clyde, both films more divisive in their time, but today hailed as masterpieces. The thing about Inception is that its initial response is actually better than many movies we consider classics today. The thing is, back then we didn’t have a Tomatometer to document it all.
It is what it is. I will continue to follow Rotten Tomatoes because I’m interested in what critics are saying about the new movies coming out. One just has to remember that it is not the last word on how movies will be seen in ten years, maybe even a couple months. The best way to render a verdict is to just go see the movie yourself. That’s what movies were made for, isn’t it?
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