A lot of times, critics/reviewers get a bad rap. And it seems to be for the wrong reasons. The response thrown against them is that "criticism" is innately destructive, it tears things apart, reviewers are too negative. Which- I'm not a fan of constructive criticism of my work. And it's true that a lot of reviewers are fucking dumb, have bad taste, or just miss the point a lot of times.

But that's not my problem.

My problem is the tendency of reviews to be too positive. Music criticism is different, what I'm talking about is mainly film/comic book reviewers. Ones who all too readily give out the half-assed recommendation. Partly it's done just out of a sense of boosterism, but I think a lot of it has to do with thinking you have a weird audience. Like- the Ebert thumbs up/thumbs down thing. He gives out so many goddamn thumbs up out. They're not even recommendations, they're just awards for general competence. I guess it's for an audience that sees a lot of movies. I try to limit my recommendations to stuff that was actually really good, that actually impressed me, as opposed to just "it wasn't bad." I don't even think I've ever recommended Boogie Nights to anyone, in terms of "you should see Boogie Nights!" Boogie Nights is pretty good.

This is of interest to no one, really, but I was thinking about it tonight instead of falling asleep. It wasn't keeping me awake, but it occupied my thoughts.

The blog thing pretty much just covers movies I've seen, so the idea of recommendation there is blurry. There are movies I've liked so much I've told people I don't know that well to see. Which seems to be what reviewers should limit themselves too. This is my point. I'm amazed that reviewers aren't more cynical. Or maybe they're so cynical that their standards are just really low. Like "yeah, go see The School Of Rock. It's as effective a way to waste time as anything else. Better than suicide."

I don't recommend things half-assed, at least not to the general public. There are times when I'll like a movie and say to someone in particular that I think they will enjoy it, that's an option that critics aren't afforded. Which I guess is why I don't recommend things in this blog, just log my thoughts and tell certain people in particular that I think they'll like something.

But yeah, the last three movies I watched.

Army Of Darkness: I think that Richard Rodriguez does this type of thing way better than Sam Raimi. Rodriguez does it with more glee, less tongue-in-cheek cliches. Shit: I never talked about Once Upon A Time In Mexico, which is surprising, because I had a review for it: I expected RETARDED. and it delivered. I liked it.

Casablanca- I have heard the "maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life" throughout my entire life. This movie was fine. It's a classic. Didn't really speak to me at all.

The Grand Illusion- by Jean Renoir. I think I liked Rules Of The Game more. What I liked about Rules Of The Game was the beginning, where the pilot gets on the radio and just expresses disappointment that the woman he made the flight for wasn't there. That was my high point. It just seemed real to me. Anyway, The Grand Illusion has a weird structure. Another classic, but less of a classic than Casablanca. No one's really obligated to see this one.

The dumb philistine in me just really connects more to modern movies. There are some exceptions to this rule. Dr. Strangelove holds up really well, especially as a comedy. I have no idea how that happened.

Did I ever talk about how I watched The Third Man and got it confused in my mind with Touch Of Evil, which is probably way better? The Third Man had its moments. I remember at the beginning, thinking it was cool, even though it had this really fast timing- People talk about movies now being all fast and shit, but seriously, a lot of older stuff just has this rapid-fire timing, (like The Producers, which is all vaudeville and as such didn't work for me, except for the Springtime For Hitler performance) and Orson Welles was good in it. I guess The Third Man was okay.

I watched 12 Angry Men too, when I was researching the fifties paper. Another one I'm not sure I talked about, but I liked it. Not recommending it though. Not recommending any of these movies on the merits of me liking them, just because they're classics.

In the realms of dumbshit- bidded on stuff on Ebay. Thought it was like half.com and the debit card would reduce paperwork, but no. I'll have to use the mail. Hoping I lose the bid for Brainiac's Bonsai Superstar. The seller lost the liner notes, and I'm still kind of sure I could find a copy of Bonsai Superstar in Philadelphia.

I've decided to stop buying things over the internet altogether. My original idea was I'd do it to build up my credit, but for some crazy reason it all just automatically comes out of debit, which is nice in that it stops me from the paperwork bit of buying stamps and envelopes and all that bullshit, but leaves me with no credit history.

Ebay was a fucking dumb idea on my part. I didn't bid much, or on anything that I don't really want. But Ebay- it's me realizing I'm dumb. No more buying things over the internet. The McSweeney's subscription can only be bought online, so that's OK, and that was the most expensive thing- actually more expensive than all the other shit combined, and it was 55 dollars. So I'm not really doing anything that retarded. But still- time to stop.