On Sunday night, a mutual on Twitter sent me a link to a review I had written twelve years ago. The review was part of “Bad Movies Done Right,” a column I used to write for the website InsidePulse.com. The conceit of the column was that I would watch films that were rated below 50 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and try and find at least one redeeming factor in each movie.
As part of this column, I watched a lot of really bad movies and, to entertain myself, I learned to embrace the snark. The messy secret of film criticism - at least the flavor I participated in - was that writing bad reviews was more fun than writing positive notices. It was also easier for an untalented hack, like myself.
I found it more work - work that I was unwilling to do - to try and find new ways to compliment a movie. Instead, I discovered I could take the easier route and trick myself into thinking I was being more creative when I tore a movie to shreds. I could write a really entertaining bad review - it would be funny, clever and easy to read but it would offer absolutely zero critical insight of any kind. This was, of course, because I was a pretty good writer but I did not possess any great insight into movie-making. I was just a fan - admittedly, more a fan of my own writing and perceived wit than the movies themselves.
The review - which I will not link - was really, really mean. Reading it, I was shocked with just how personal and ugly it got - not just with the film but the filmmakers who made the movie.
Today, I finished listening to the audiobook for Quentin Tarantino’s CINEMA SPECULATION. I wasn’t really sure what the book was going to be before I began listening to it but I quickly discovered that the book is almost entirely a collection of reviews and essays by the filmmaker as he tackles some of his favorite - and not-so-favorite - films of the ‘70s and ‘80s. The book is rambling, full of tangents and deep-dive asides and somebody really should have advised Tarantino that he should not have done specific “voices” while reading quotes from some of the black men his mother used to date but, all that said, CINEMA SPECULATION is really, really good.
Tarantino effortlessly digs deep into the movies he’s talking about, showing a tremendous understanding of both cinematic language and narrative structure. Big surprise, right? Even if I don’t agree with his assessments of certain movies, Tarantino backs up his opinions with such deep knowledge and insight that it’s impossible for me to not, at the very least, consider his perspective. More often than not, he had me seriously reconsidering my own opinions. That’s the work of a great critic, at least in my book.
Tarantino, who refers to himself as a critic several times in the book, is a true film critic. He dissects a movie from tail to snout - digging into what makes a film work and what elements fail to hit their mark. He treats every movie he talks about with utmost respect and understanding, regardless of whether it was made for the art house circuit or a grindhouse theater. Tarantino has said he’s planning to retire from filmmaking after his next film and this makes me very sad because I love all of Quentin Tarantino’s films but I’m slightly less sad after reading CINEMA SPECULATION if it means that he’ll have more time to release books like this on a regular basis. Reading Tarantino’s book also drove home just how out of place I was during the years I tried to make a go at being a film critic.
The internet has done a great job democratizing opinion. Anybody with access to WIFI can now call themselves a critic of film, food, retail experiences, life, whatever. I do think this “critic as a hobby” generation - raised on Yelp and IMDB forums - has led to a consumer that mistakes nit-picking for critical insight. Everybody has an opinion but not everybody’s opinion is worth posting online - including my own. Sometimes people mistake their passion for entertainment as a desire to be a part of that entertainment and - when you’re living in a fly-over state and Hollywood feels like another country - posting reviews on a blog is the closest most of us will ever come to feeling like we’re a part of the same world as our favorite filmmakers.
I get why folks - myself included - are drawn to the desire to write about movies. I can only speak for myself, though, when I say that making peace with the fact that I was not a film critic was the best thing that could ever happen to my enjoyment of movies. Once I stopped trying to act like I was above the movies I was watching, I started just being able to enjoy them for what they were - two hours’ worth of entertainment meant to pass the time. And the movies that did transcend the art of time-wasting? The ones that were truly art? They were that much more meaningful to me when I realized I didn’t have to try and bottle that impact into a fumbling for words - that I could just let the movie’s relationship with my soul exist in the private, unspoken realm of existence where exists things like beautiful sunsets or tasty homecooked meals or TikTok videos of puppies tripping over their own wagging tails.
Now, I want to make it clear that I have nothing wrong with critics - including critics who write as a hobby. Especially critics who write as a hobby, I guess, as the sad truth of the current state of media is that it is next to impossible to make a living as a professional critic. I have just personally made peace with the fact that I was a movie fan more than a movie critic. I love films and, once I stopped putting a pressure on myself to try and step beyond my own limitations regarding critical insight and just try and enjoy whatever movie I was watching, I discovered that I enjoyed most movies that I watch.
I just don’t know why I would want to sacrifice this “gee, most movies are pretty good” outlook on cinema for some desire to write 500 words about a movie I don’t really care about for an audience of fifty people who stumbled upon my link on social media.
I’ll let people who know what they’re talking about - people like Quentin Tarantino - write about movies and I’ll stick to putting my comedy where it belongs - in Tweets nobody reads and in Group Chats where my friends are forced to read my strained attempts at humor, long ago realizing that they no longer need to pretend to use a “laughing face” emoji because I’m doing enough laughing at my own jokes for the both of us.