It helps to let go of preconceptions about what a movie is supposed to be and how they're supposed to go about affecting the viewer. Unlike with painting, sculpture, etc., the conventions of film are pretty much hardwired into most of our brains from years of exposure to Hollywood product, so appreciating work that…

The culinary analogy to make is that most movies are hamburgers. Some are shitty hamburgers. Some are the platonic ideal of hamburgers. They all accomplish the same thing. Occasionally, there's the odd chef who has the stones to think some customers might actually want something other than a hamburger. But because a…

They're not doing anyone any favors, except for all those people that sincerely appreciate and enjoy what they're doing. This idea that the way you like movies (or music or books or whatever) is the only way to like them, and anybody who likes them for other reasons is trying to pull a fast one on the world, is…

Oh, horsepucky. There are movies which put plot on the backburner that aren't especially rewarding, but they aren't rewarding because whatever's there in place of plot isn't rich enough to sustain the length of a feature, not because the whole idea of making a movie where the main emphasis is on other matters than…

Except there are plenty of critics who both understand film is a visual medium and hate this movie.

Maybe I just have a higher irritation threshold than some, but God Wants Us To Wait, Your Girlfriend's Face, I've Run Away to Join the Fairies, My Husband's Pied-a-Terre, Quick!, and All She Cares About is Mariachi are all some variety of catchy and/or amusing, even if the production is less than ideal.
Merritt's…

*something snarky that evinces a complete lack of self-examination re: my own aesthetic prejudices*

*something snarky that evinces a complete lack of self-examination re: my own aesthetic prejudices*

And The Wayward Bus, Holiday, Charm of the Highway Strip, Get Lost, and Distortion are no small accomplishment, either.

And The Wayward Bus, Holiday, Charm of the Highway Strip, Get Lost, and Distortion are no small accomplishment, either.

"As for Jean-Luc Godard, who accused Spielberg of 'reconstructing Auschwitz,' his antipathy for the chosen people is a matter of record."
Whoever wrote this reductive ad hominem bullshit is my new least favorite AV Club writer. I don't think it's possible to watch Histoire(S) Du Cinema and not grasp that the Holocaust…

"As for Jean-Luc Godard, who accused Spielberg of 'reconstructing Auschwitz,' his antipathy for the chosen people is a matter of record."
Whoever wrote this reductive ad hominem bullshit is my new least favorite AV Club writer. I don't think it's possible to watch Histoire(S) Du Cinema and not grasp that the Holocaust…

Yeah, fuck this guy with his idiosyncratic take on the horror genre. Why would anybody watch them when there's all these found footage movies about people being haunted by loud noises out there.
I acknowledge that there's some stuff he's pretty bad at, but even the relentless vulgarity and hit-or-miss digressions add…

Yeah, fuck this guy with his idiosyncratic take on the horror genre. Why would anybody watch them when there's all these found footage movies about people being haunted by loud noises out there.
I acknowledge that there's some stuff he's pretty bad at, but even the relentless vulgarity and hit-or-miss digressions add…

His prose is rarely ever very good, is my problem with him. I really love City of Glass, but even there he isn't capable of mustering half the linguistic muscle found in pretty much any other major postmodern novel. He's described his writing as being of the "potato" school, i.e. work that reads equally well in any…

His prose is rarely ever very good, is my problem with him. I really love City of Glass, but even there he isn't capable of mustering half the linguistic muscle found in pretty much any other major postmodern novel. He's described his writing as being of the "potato" school, i.e. work that reads equally well in any…

Usually "If critic X doesn't care for it, it must be awesome" comments are stupid, but if the C Phipps gave to Margaret is any thing to go by, then Cosmopolis must be one of the best movies of the decade. Which is still a stupid comment, I guess, but at least it's a stupid comment chastising Phipps for giving Margaret…

Usually "If critic X doesn't care for it, it must be awesome" comments are stupid, but if the C Phipps gave to Margaret is any thing to go by, then Cosmopolis must be one of the best movies of the decade. Which is still a stupid comment, I guess, but at least it's a stupid comment chastising Phipps for giving Margaret…

He didn't even know about the Tosh incident when he sent that tweet. Get your head out from under the rock in your ass.

He didn't even know about the Tosh incident when he sent that tweet. Get your head out from under the rock in your ass.