No I’m not.  I’d say the last non-revisionist Western we got was 2003's Open Range.  S

“It’s amazing to me, how often the reaction to a movie that might get 75% positive reviews and 25% bad ones is that most of that 25% ought to get with the program and stop judging movies for the wrong reasons!”

I think the real issue is that often the people who dominate the conversation online are the loud minority…

Of course it is.  Prayer is something associated with evangelicals, and thus conservatives.  The movie has an overtly Christian message, and thus a right-wing one in many peoples’ eyes 

“Can you really not conceive of a movie that’s beautifully made but morally reprehensible?”

Sure I can, but there are very few. I’ve never brought myself to watch Triumph of the Will, but I might well find it to be an example. But modern American conservatism, “family values,” failures of intersectionality, not enough…

I actually do think that reviewers are too cruel to Perry, who makes movies that actual black people in Middle America really enjoy watching but don’t do anything for critics. Was the gulf between Girls Trip and Tyler Perry that big? I don’t think so (Girls Trip has some good scenes but is a really shoddily…

Well actually I never demanded that he “like” anything. I said numerous times in my discussion with Jesse that this movie looks mediocre. I just questioned why this and Unplanned get D/F grade and literally everything else gets a C- as a floor.

No actually. My major belief could be summed up with the word “pluralism.” I want there to be a wide variety of accepted thoughts and then people can choose which one to subscribe to. So as I said to Jesse elsewhere in this dialogue, I am a strong lifelong believer in due process and the Bill of Rights. But I can…

I’m torn between whether I like Ben-Hur or Spartacus more but the real answer is that I don’t particularly like either.  I like your “sometimes thrilling, sometimes boring” point.  I’ll say that Ben-Hur gets the slight nod for me because nothing in either film can match the chariot race scene, which is legitimately…

So what? Embarrassingly left-wing movies get praised when they tell the audience what they want to hear.  Can’t there be room for embarrassingly right-wing movies? 

Ha! That’s funny that you disliked the very movie I picked as an example of how we give a pass to obvious movies on our own side (though worth pointing out that none of your criticisms involve its heavy-handed Leftism) because it was indeed too obvious.

Oh please let’s not get reductive. I don’t want to “own the libs.” I voted for Hillary last election. My political positions align probably 75% with the left. I just have problems with the growing hegemony of Accepted Thought on the internet. Like, for instance, that anything about Christianity or white middle America …

I saw Mary Queen of Scots and oh brother was that a lousy movie with nothing remotely interesting to say and nothing interesting in the presentation. Not to mention a slog to get through. And I think you largely agreed, but it’s not offensive to you in any way because it checks all the right boxes in How to Go About…

I’ve been an atheist all my life, and I have absolutely no dog in this fight, but it just seems that the AVC automatically trashes all faith-based movies. I’m not saying they’re high art, but D+? When things like Miss Bala, Mary Queen of Scots, and The Possession of Hannah Grace are in the C range?

And this brings me…

Because I’m a teacher in middle America who actually interacts with black people in the real world. My students, their parents, the community, etc. Most people who comment on racial politics are doing so from the perspective of either the internet, intellectual circles, or college campuses. Which give a skewed view.…

But Lloyd isn’t a Manic Pixie. He has his own motivation, and his own wants and needs, and the movie addresses them The point of the MPDG archetype isn’t that characters are quirky, the point is that their quirkiness exists solely to lift our sad, maladjusted young male out of his doldrums and get him to embrace…

I’m sorry could you perhaps clarify then? I said “Green Book was popular with audiences” and you said “White audiences*” And I have provided evidence that this isn’t true 

Here’s some more:

Well Three Billboards was interesting.  The initial reaction was indeed very high praise, but then there was a HUGE backlash to it.  Might have cost it Best Picture, I don’t know.  But it was significant enough that this very site felt compelled to film a Film Club basically saying “Were we right to praise this…

Well I’d say that I’m less influenced by Twitter because I don’t use it, but of course I’m influenced by what I read and others’ opinions. Even if (I try not to) I say “I’m going to stand up against the brainwashing rah rah rah!,”well I still enjoying reading articles on Quillette about said brainwashing, and I am no…

“Bill it’s a COMIC BOOK MOVIE. More teeth-gnashing!  More scenery chewing.  More MORE, if you will!”