FilmFestivus: Movies for the Rest of Us

Aka, Criticizing the Critics

I had a wonderful, warm, elderly, well-respected, much-journeyed South Asian history professor who used to say "thank God the world isn't really like what the economists think it's like."

I would also like to thank goodness that movies aren't really what the critics say they are. It does me in every time--a movie intrigues me, so I read reviews for a better understanding of it. For a long time, it wasn't a problem--I mostly agreed with the critics, and knowing plots and spoilers beforehand only enhanced my understanding of the film versus detracting from it.

However, for about the past 2 years or so, I've been astounded by the mediocrity, cynicism, and sycophantism I see in many reviews. I expect the professionals to help me decide whether I want to see a given movie--but I need to cease the practice, at least until after I've seen the film. Yes, I am breaking with the critics until further notice.

I can pinpoint the time that I started disagreeing with mainstream reviews: it was in 2006, when The Illusionist and The Prestige both came out at the same time. Two movies about magicians, both amazing and memorable films. I daresay The Prestige holds up a little better on subsequent viewings, yet The Illusionist got the lion's share of accolades (Paul Giamatti and Ed Norton being more of the "it" actors at the time than Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman, who were more of the new kids on the block). Not to mention, The Prestige is based on an adult English fantasy/sci-fi novel, which made it more prone to niche film than the universal love story of The Illusionist.

The same year, Lady in the Water came out. Unique and ethereal, yet skewered in near totality by film critics. It was not a coincidence that M. Night Shyamalan, darling child who also did Sixth Sense, fell out of good favor with critics after not only getting on Disney's bad side over the film, but blatantly poking fun at them in Lady in the Water.

Unfortunately, Shyamalan has not been able to work his way back into their good graces yet. His latest US film, The Happening, did not receive many reviewers' blessings. Yet, being a Shyamalan fan, I saw The Happening with an open mind and was thoroughly chilled and thrilled by the possibility of eco-terror (not those who spraypaint SUVs mind you--no, this movie is about Mother Nature herself using her army of foliage to drive humankind to mass suicide). The movie struck a fear nerve in me more than most traditional ghost-and-slash horror movies can. Horror is all about finding new possibilities and avenues of fear--and the very timely The Happening, released in the middle of global climate change debate, certainly makes on think about the full range and wrath of environmental rebellion.

2007 was a rather unremarkable year for movies (with Juno garnering the bulk of praise--while a reasonably good movie, it is telling that no others stand out from that year), so fast-forward to 2008, the year of Slumdog Millionaire. I wasn't in a hurry to see it, knowing I would probably find it a turn-off, but you would've thought its cinematic mastery was on par with Citizen Kane according to the reviews. Yet, when I finally saw it, my worst fears about it came true--it was just another movie juxtaposing the immense poverty of India's slums with the fabulous wealth of the nouveau riche there...it was horrifically graphic, and showed the poor as brutish, brutal people prone to criminalism.

Now up to the present--2009 releases. We saw 2 movies based on sheer acclaim--Where the Wild Things Are and Paranormal Activity. Both soul-crushingly boring. In fact, I was incredulous that the movie that got lower marks than the previous two, Julie Julia, turned out to be my favorite in-theater film of the year. It is still hard to understand the unconvincing criticism of Julie Julia--how could anyone fail to be won over by Julia Child's beautiful success story? Fail to empathize with Julie's cubicle angst and quarter-life crisis?

Let's not forget the candy-colored nightmare that was Up. I mean, really--has no one seen the Czech movie Autumn Spring that deals with the problems of aging, and involves an elderly man flying away in a hot air balloon for one last adventure?! Up was Pixar's ingration to its new owner, Disney, in order to atone for its more original, early movies like Monsters, Inc. Unfortunately, Up had all the tilt-a-whirl sickeningly feel that screams "Disney," complete with the obligatory slams on diversity and contemporary society. Existing in a vacuum as much as any Disney film (did the old man not have any friends, family, social interaction, etc?!--the movie led you to believe this man lived a completely solitary existence, with the young boy conveniently walking in to his wide-open life), it screeched over those heart strings in unabashedly maudlin manipulation as only Disney can. Up was not even tailored towards children--its ridiculously false nostalgia was obviously subtly aimed at the parents of the poor tykes who got dragged along to it. Yet Up is hailed by most critics as one of the best, if not the best, movies of the year. Why? Because it is safe...no reviewer risk-taking needed.

I had been waiting for months to see Nine (which was released 2 days ago), yet our plans to see it yesterday were nearly derailed--not by the falling snow, but by poor reviews. We almost followed the herd to see Avatar instead, or worried that maybe we'd be more chic to see Sherlock Holmes. But, forming a new FilmFestivus resolution (see below), we stuck to our guns and saw Nine. Thank God--the critics were once again wrong, (although I must admit, even by the comments of the everyday moviegoer, we who liked Nine are still in the minority).

The old ladies tittering next to us complained ceaselessly about all the cigarette smoking (the movie took place in Rome in the mid-60's people!!!!), sex, and lingerie in the film, almost earning a seat-kicking from Esposo and me. Yet we loved it--it was over-the-top, outrageous, and utterly moving and honest and captured some interesting social mores of the time. The comments of the critics, once again, were so off-base that I wondered to myself about a few of the writers, "have these people lived at all?"

What can be said about those who critique for a living? After all, there is a fine line between critique and criticism, easily crossed when it's all too easy to leave the vision and creative process to others. Why is it so easy to descend into cynicism? My tentative hypothesis is that some critics are too timid to be honest with their own life experiences. Maybe they are so used to watching other people's lives on screen that they do not remember to summon their own. Maybe critics in general (not just of movies) are too comfortable with and accustomed to watching others pour their hearts, minds, and labor into works.

And with this, I declare the start of my own personal FilmFestivus: Movies for the Rest of Us.

Beautiful Disaster: Don Quixote's Thanksgiving

The nightmare before Christmas isn't Halloween afterall--it's Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving has always been my least favorite holiday. My memories of it are not exactly radiant--a cold, usually gray time of year in WI, but usually before the magical glow of first snow. As a child, I inwardly grumbled about how vastly inferior a holiday Thanksgiving was compared to the Christmas around the corner due to the glaring absence of presents. In my family, Thanksgiving was a tedious, quiet holiday.

Once I left home for college, I started contriving all sorts of ways to stop celebrating Thanksgiving with my family. I would see them in a month, anyway, and I resented aunts and uncles who came to holidays to get their family card punched and fall into silence for the rest of the year.

I started out by being overseas, and ultimately evolved into the tradition of celebrating the holidays with friends. In my mind, this made the event about people who wanted to be together, not who were obligated to be together.

Then, last year something happened: my son was due to have his second open-heart surgery the day before Thanksgiving, and we were to spend the holiday in the incredibly difficult immediate recovery period in the pediatric intensive care unit.

That event changed everything...I decided that never again would I feel sorry for myself on a holiday. I wouldn't take them, or any day, for granted anymore...if we were merely spending them outside the hospital, that was more than enough. And this year, an exceptional number of heart families I know were spending Thanksgiving in the hospital, some in dire circumstances, and I wondered how we could be so fortunate.

This year, I spent most of November reflecting on all there is in my life to be thankful for. It felt good--in fact, I can't recall a better November. But then, the day itself actually arrived, and I found myself and my son sick and running to the airport first thing in the morning on two hours of sleep. I almost got into an accident, my husband went out of state to visit his family, my son went to his grandparents' house, and my host ended up in the ER with her daughter...things were strained with my best friend, who'd just arrived from DC, and there was a meltdown of conflicting schedules and exhaustion. After 8 hours of driving, I ended up having to return home and completely missed out on Thanksgiving dinner.

I realized that I had measured having a "normal" Thanksgiving this year by whether we would be in the hospital or not. I thought I was returning to "normalcy," but how short memory is! There was never any normalcy to the holidays--not the ones I experienced anyway. Normalcy is actually what is abnormal for me.

Time and time again, I try to be something I'm not, live a life that is not mine, without remembering that I have been called to live an extraordinary experience. Why do I sometimes continue to try to reject was God has given me, and trade it for the mundane?

The holidays are the perfect time to allow oneself to be distracted from the prize by an iconic Rockwellian image, which makes us wish for what we think we should have versus the greater experience that God has given us.

This year, Thanksgiving was good preparatory training for Christmas. My eyes are set back on the goal, and my armor has been reinforced against drama.

What I can take away from this November, though, is the practice of lasting gratitude. In the coming years, it won't matter at all how we celebrate the actual day, because that's not that point of the holiday anyway. It is, afterall, just a gateway holiday to the coming winter celebrations.