Sunday, July 10, 2011 at 11:09AM A Wave of Defending Expectations While Watching 'Mindless Films'
We've all heard the comments, the stories and the arguments that arise between moviegoers and critics: What makes a good film?
Empire Online's Helen O'Hara recently published an interesting article: 'It's Just A Bit Of Fun: Why Defensive Fans Are Bad News For Movies, trying to go about this particular question while trying to not to seem holier-than-thou. Their movies reviews, as they are for any movie entertainment website (even us here at Get The Big Picture), have been getting very negative responses from readers and in particular being accused of over-thinking their movies and being stupid or unable to enjoy films for what they are.
Certainly that question comes down to story, aesthetics, editing, music and so on. Recently, there's been a wave of pushing back against those who criticize films as "mindless" or "just-plain-fun". Most recently with Transformers: Dark of the Moon, directed by Michael Bay, many have stated online and to myself that "it's supposed to be fun, stupid. You're supposed to turn your brain off." That got me thinking of why anyone would use that as a defense? Now, I'm also guilty of doing the same thing and all we can ever do is to try and change or improve our ways, but where does that need come from?
O'Hara states:
What the fans are essentially saying here is that critics have no right to find flaw with a movie that has low aspirations. Even assuming that that's the case with Michael Bay and his latest film - and I really don't think that he'd claim to be aiming low - shouldn't we demand certain minimum standards of all our films?
I'm not saying that one shouldn't consider what a film aims to be. Certainly, there's an element of judgment involved: an arthouse film might be criticised for a level of acting far above that acceptable in a certain sort of comedy; and a blockbuster can use stock characters with abandon if it uses them well, whereas a small-budget indie had better surprise us with original takes on those same characters to hold our attention.
But to suggest that criticisms of acting, plot and pacing have no place in a movie about giant robots is, with respect, demented and potentially damaging to all future films.
The purpose of criticism, as well should know by now, is to provide context on the faults/merits fo a film in hope that those filmmakers/studios/actor/etc. will improve or keep that quality level up, holding themselves to a certain standard. For example, Michael Bay, a director who's been criticized to death's door, certainly has made some improvements, as I would say and so does O'Hara, in Transformers: Dark of the Moon by removing all the truly horrid parts to its predecessor Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
To quickly summarize what I thought of Transformers 3: Plenty of loose thread; unexciting action sequences; terrible "comedy" and even worse caricatures from paycheck performances. The pacing and overall "creative" choices are a staple of Bay's films (not that it's a good thing), but I will say one thing: 3D was used effectively throughout the film (i.e. did not induce major headache or suffer from cardboard-popup-itus).
O'Hara goes on to say:
These people who are dismissing our reviews and others like them in these terms are essentially affirming a belief that these films are "critic-proof", that they plan to see the film anyway and that bad reviews will be no bar to a huge opening weekend. That's fine: whatever you may believe, we don't actually expect everyone to take our word as gospel and agree with us in every case. But for those who have not yet bought a ticket, and there are some, reviews still serve a purpose and still give you an idea what you're in for. If we lower your expectations sufficiently that you end up pleasantly surprised, well, you're welcome. But equally we might help someone decide to see a different film that they'll enjoy more.
Even I can appreciate the fortunate aspects of writing for Get The Big Picture, as I've written two reviews and my defense for seeing Transformers: Dark of the Moon, besides the obvious I'm a movie critic/film buff, is that I wanted to see if Michael Bay had made any improvements to the Transformers franchise. when i first saw this still (to the left), I was in awe. Finally, I said, the scale of the film represents the damage/effect that these bots have over humanity. I appreciated the Chicago setting and the motivation behind [SPOILER ALERT] Sentinel Prime's betrayal of the Autobots, even though it lacked any true motivation once to rebuild Cybertron with a slave human race [END SPOILER]. I'm still disappointed, because it's still an insufferable experience and waiting for Bay's "style" to change would take a long time, if ever.
The article itself deftly summarizes the nature of critics and viewers defending "it's just a fun film", if not acting a little accusatory towards anonymous commentators:
By all means, go see the film, have a great time and come back and tell us you disagree with the criticisms levelled in our review. But don't tell us it's awesome when you're yet to see it, don't accuse us of demanding "Oscar-level acting" just because we question bad performances; don't accuse us of "overthinking" because we wish the plot were a little tighter and more propulsive...
I want to hear from you, readers at Get The Big Picture, on what you think of this issues and what position you take on defending films that are supposed to be "just a little fun"?
Source: Empire Online
Reader Comments (9)
In critics defense, some of my friends have called me a movie nazi before. I guess my expectations are unreasonable at times. I just try to separate the entertaining popcorn flicks from the good movies, which probably makes me sound like an asshole. That's not my intention of course.
"The purpose of criticism, as well should know by now, is to provide context on the faults/merits fo a film in hope that those filmmakers/studios/actor/etc. will improve or keep that quality level up, holding themselves to a certain standard."
"But for those who have not yet bought a ticket, and there are some, reviews still serve a purpose and still give you an idea what you're in for."
THIS is what we have a problem with. YOU don't decide what filmakers make. YOU don't influence whether people see it or not. All you do is watch it like the rest of us and we get your point-of-view to see what it looks like from your angle - because the audience has a point-of-view from their angle too! Your opinion is just a different decorated egg in the Easter basket. Too many times didactic wanabe critics - and the blogosphere is FULL of them - think they write reviews as though they are THE opinion of a movie (and I call them MOVIES because fewer and fewer of 'em are shot on film anymore - despite how cineastic didactic wanabes keep calling them "films").
Movies are a PRODUCT. Yes many over time come to be regarded as great art - but that's an exception. Their CONCEPTION, INCEPTION, PRODUCTION, DISTRIBUTION, EXHIBITION - ALL - are simply meant as a diversion of time for a mass working-class culture. If they succeed in pleasantly diverting and entertaining them, then they have succeeded in all they were created for. THAT mass group of people, however, will decide if that diversion and entertainment was effective, and the amount of money those movies make is the indicator of how many saw and were entertained by it. What relevance those exhibited shadows on the wall have beyond their diversionary purpose is something extraneous. Does this mean people of this era could be entertained by a shadow puppet display? No. They're still going to look for things in that exhibition and narative that is relevent to their experience or it challenges their experience in an entertaining way. But again THEY will decide that. All critics do, ideally, like a good security guard, is observe and report. What's happened is there are too many "star critics" over the last few decades who have emerged, who try to become some authoritative figure and try to TELL US what we should be thinking about the work - shoehorning their way between the filmaker and the audience. There have come to be SO MANY of those who want to be - or THINK they HAVE the same stature as these "star critics" just because THEY HAVE A BLOG! It has crowded the arena with far too many opinions, of far too many people with far too many varying degrees of insight, so much so that many think the purpose of a movie is to be seen and then commented on and then the next one is seen and commented on - and so on and so on compulsively, with no ther purpose than that repetitive process! Many don't even see the movies in an actual theater, they dowload them illegally or they get the opinion of someone else who has seen them and distribute that as their own. It's all in a vulgar attempt to become a "star critic blogger". The internet and mediasphere is saturated with self-importance and self-promotion that has NOTHING to do with the work at hand. I think this is why filmakers make and audiences see, support and defend works that have absolutely NO aesthetic aspirations whatsoever. The purpose is to completely free them of any mind other than the creator and the audience, allowing the viewer to discover ANYTHING of relevance ON THEIR OWN. In this way, perhaps, movies are going through a "zeroing out" period. Discarding ALL styles, formulas, genres, aesthetics EVERYTHING, creating a new relevance for a new century.
If a movie is deemed as a "fun" movie, it has to actually be fun. Transformers 1 was that, and got positive reviews for being fun. The point that gets lost is when a supposed "fun" movie is not fun. The Pirates of the Caribbean is another franchise built on fun. The first movie was actual fun, well reviewed and liked; however the sequels got bogged down and the response was "It is not suppose to make sense, it is suppose to be fun," but Pirates 2, 3, 4 (and eventually 5) are clearly not fun enough to justify them as "fun" movies
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