BAD MOVIE REVIEWS

I rarely go to see movies in the theater because in my estimation not many are worth the $15 for ticket and candy, soda, etc. But I went to see “Zodiac” this weekend for two reasons: 1) It chronicles some very interesting and pertinent subject matter in America’s history; and 2) It features a slew of good actors (Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey, Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Elias Coteas, and Brian Cox). It documents, in dramatic form, the debacle of the Zodiac killings of the late 60s and 70s. He killed people at random and sent many letters and coded ciphers to Police personnel and newspapers.

But the real purpose of this post is to express my concern for the advertisement of movies in modern America and the inaccurate reviews of movies by incompetent movie critics. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of good critics out there, but, with the boom of the internet over the past ten years there has been a exponential increase in people who review movies who think that movies like “Freaky Friday” or “Big Mama’s House” are the “best friggin’ movies of all time, dude!”

Often I take what is the popular opinion on a movie and take the opposite stance. For the most part, it doesn’t let me down. Of course there are movies that are terrible in almost anyone’s opinion. These are the exception.

But the hubbub with “Zodiac” was that it isn’t Hollywood enough, it’s too real, it doesn’t have a happy ending, etc. . . Hello, retard critics, this movie is about true events! This isn’t “Die Hard.” The fact of the matter is the Zodiac killer terrorized California for nearly ten years and, in the end, not a single person was arrested or charged with a crime in connection with the Zodiac killings [this makes it interesting and pertinent and not the unrealistic Hollywood movie with the typical I-love-you-kill-the-bad-guy-happily-ever-after ending].

But of course when people from the “Now” (I just made that up) generation see the trailer, they expect a “Silence of the Lambs”-type movie. They want that type of movie. They want an hour and a half of video entertainment; they don’t want realism, or creativeness, or god forbid — art! Sadly, movies started as a business, then were artful for a period from about 1950 to 1980, then turned back into a business. Yes, occasionally a good movie slips through, but not often enough. Foreign movie-makers refuse to conform much more than the American market. Just watch a French, Italian, or Japanese movie and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

But a lot of people who think they know movies only know the swill that the 90s and 00s have thrown at them. They know nothing else and don’t want to know anything else. I doubt you could get them to sit down and watch a movie like “Barry Lyndon” or “Strangers on a Train” in their entirety. “Dude, this is black and white, man?” they’d say.

But enough bitterness. Just ignore these idiots. Would you go to a doctor who’s hasn’t been to medical school? No. Then why read the movie criticism of a amateur movie fan? A wise man once said, “Unsupported answers have no validity.” That’s a pretty hard statement to refute.