Movie Quality Exaggeration
Anybody remember 2011? You should. It was last year. It shouldn’t be entirely forgotten yet. It’s not like it’s 2010, the year of...what happened in 2010? It doesn’t matter. We’re remembering 2011 right now. Here is why I want you to remember last year. I heard a certain phrase tossed about far too much during 2011 and I want to make sure we were just extrapolating things way out of hand. The phrase was this: “This movie is the worst movie ever made.”
I heard that phrase far too much last year. Some examples include: “Battle: LA looked good, but it was actually the worst movie ever made,” “Sucker Punch is another Zack Snyder failure. Except it’s more than that. It’s the worst movie ever made,” “Taylor Lautner helped to make Abduction the worst movie ever made.” Each time, the phrase was followed by something even worse. “This is the end of cinema.”
A bad movie is not the end of cinema, especially when the audience is blowing the quality out of proportion. None of these movies are anywhere near the worst movie ever made. And cinema lived on. Just this past weekend, The Hunger Games was released to some of the highest box office opening numbers ever. I can’t speak for how good or bad it is, but on the money side of things, cinema still seems to be alive and kicking.
Going back to the “worst movie ever” part of this issue though...what makes the worst movie ever? Battle:LA was derivative and was a mess to look at. Does that make it the worst movie ever? No. Don’t try and tell me you didn’t enjoy it at least the smallest bit. It’s not the end of the world that it was made out to be. I don’t necessarily like it, but I can appreciate that some good came out of it. Sucker Punch time. I had fun with that movie. Did Zack Snyder over indulge in his own stylistic techniques? Sure. Was the soundtrack offputting to some people? They always are. Did the story make sense? Somewhat, but not completely. It was still a fun ride. Having a fun ride makes the worst movie ever? Abduction. Would it have been better with a different lead? Yeah. The rest of it was decent though, so let’s not put it near the bottom of the spectrum.
All of this is my opinion, mind you. I can say no more than you about whether or not a movie is the worst movie ever made. You can surely find good in any movie that you see if you look for it. These notions that not liking something means that it is the worst thing ever, need to come to an end. We can’t act like our own preference to something is life or death. It’s not. Life goes on, whether you like or dislike a show. And it’s not up to us to decide if it’s the worst thing ever. It’s a form of art. There is never a perfect, and never an opposite of perfect. Everything is in between.
This is another long-winded rant from me. But it needed to be said. The people who keep complaining when a movie or even a tv show come out that it is the biggest abomination to ever grace our viewing peripheries need to get their heads out of their asses. Have they seen everything in existence? No they have not. Are they the deciding factor on what people like or dislike? Not really. They can have influence but they can’t decide for the people. What makes any person the perfect judge of a movie’s quality and whether or not it is the best thing ever or the worst thing ever? These generalizations need to come to an end.
Did I come full circle on this whole thing? I’m not sure. But I’m cutting myself off from this complaining. It’s gone on long enough. I’m sorry for wasting your time. This is the worst blog entry ever made and will be the end of all blogs on the internet.
"Long-winded"? Ha! I wish I could be as succinct and to-the-point as this dead-on little rant. And yes, I agree 100% with the thesis in question. Never mind that I kinda-liked Battle LA and loved Sucker Punch, what you're describing is a long-gestating problem that can best be described as the 'even/or' phenomenon. No movie can be pretty good or mediocre. It's either the best film of the year or the worst film of the year. What's lost is the real nuance that comes with discussing the pros and cons of films that fall in between, the solid 3-star films or the 2-star misses.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, I enjoy writing reviews for movies that I kinda like or somewhat dislike best of all. Super-raves tend to be repetitive declarations of 'awesomeness' (especially as I avoid discussing spoilers) while out-and-out take-downs tend to end up reading as petty and personal to the point of being vindictive even when I don't intend it.
My dislike for Battle LA aside, I agree with you on everything you wrote here. People tend to ignore the good parts and focus solely on the bad, or ignore the bad and focus solely on the good. It's hard to find people who can look at the movie as a whole instead of throwing it into a best or worst category.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of the in between films that have been declared either better or worse than they truly were. It's the hype machine doing its work. This is the reason I give every movie an equal chance when I watch it. Sure, I'll go in with expectations sometimes but I don't let people telling me that something is the worst or best ever influence my own opinion on the movie.
As to the part about reviews, I've kind of worked myself away from reviews that aren't part of my marathons. When I do get around to reviewing something, I've noticed that I sometimes do the repetitive thing. It's difficult to avoid sometimes. The mid-range movies tend to give a better openness to what a person can write as they can easily get both the pros and cons without it being personal, much like you said.
This is a long comment so I'm going to add just a little bit more then hang the typing up for a bit. Toting something as the best/worst ever will never be accurate, and will only show a persons own ignorance to the wide array of films that are out there. Nobody can claim a movie to be the best or worst ever, only the best or worst in their own experiences. That's how it will always be, and people should learn and know that.