You know a review’s going to be a doozy when it approvingly asserts in its second sentence that Slate‘s humorless killjoy of a film critic Dana Stevens “spoke for many” about, well, anything. Calling the review “Beowulf: War Porn Wrapped in a Chippendale Dancer’s Body” is probably a tip-off too. And the straight-faced inclusion of the sentence “The three beasts in the film in fact line up pretty well as stand-ins for Iraq, North Korea and Iran” would be exhibit C.
But what really perplexes me about Alexander Zaitchik’s Alternet piece on Beowulf is that it seems to argue that a movie whose main point is that warriors are about 60% bullshit and bluster, 30% greed, lust, and sloth, and MAYBE 10% bravery tops is some sort of paean to the glory of war, then goes on to support this argument, incomprehensibly enough, by calling attention to the film’s anti-Christian strain–only to completely reverse itself in the final paragraph and wonder if the point of the movie is in fact that war is not all it’s cracked up to be.
It’s a real head-scratcher.
(Via The House Next Door’s Links for the Day, which are all pretty great today.)
This is what I hate about most movie critics (I’m looking at you Lisa Swartzbaum) just tell me if you liked it or not, touch on if it’s well made and well acted and stop shoe-horning tons of your personal bullshit and blah blah blah crap meant to show off how smart you are into your little review.
A review should state if you liked it or not, and if the movie is good or not (sure there’s a ton of subjective latitude there) AND THAT’S IT. Every movie isn’t an analogy for your political cause du jour. Sometimes a movie is just a movie.
The three monsters are Korea, Iran and Iraq? Last time I checked, when Beowulf was “written” (or recited orally) in the 9th century, these countries didn’t exist… stretch much?
I’m pretty sure the review was supposed to be humorous–i.e. it was mocking the notion of reading deep political/psychosexual “subtexts” into special-effects driven action movies. I mean really, do you think the author sincerely believes that the movie “should have 15-year-olds around the country screaming for a sword and a trip to the nearest Blackwater recruitment office”? And the parts lovingly highlighting all the campy homoeroticism sound like something from MST3K.
Hyperbole doesn’t equal irony…
I think it’s straightforward, though it pulls its punches at the last minute.
Bill:
Your ideal review is exactly the kind of one I avoid.
When I’m reading a favorite critic, what they think of a movie (and whether or not I agree with them) is just about the least important part. It’s about the journey, not the destination; I can just glimpse at (accursed) star ratings if all I want is thumbs up/thumbs down. I get the impression that when the “JUST SHUT UP AND REVIEW” argument is pressed, it’s only when the person’s personal viewpoints have been challenged.
I prefer this kind of conversation, which I came to this blog specifically to link Sean to. The post and initial comments are fine, but about halfway down it veers into a discussion of The Mist that is awfully fine. Very few sweeping value judgments there, just several people discussing a movie through their own personal matrices. It’s an actual discussion that encourages the exchange of ideas, rather than a review intended to stifle that.
Ken,
You’re right. Actuall discussion is great and letter grades or star ratings are too simple, and I didn’t express that earlier.
But discussion of BS unrelated to the movie being discussed is a waste of everyone’s time. That’s what I should have said.
If i can further clarify, when a reviewer draggs irrellivant things into a review, insisting on allegories that simply are not supported, it’s just silly and irritating.
Quote of the day
What is behind this popular and patently false critical suspicion that a “well-crafted” movie is automatically phony or inauthentic, while a film that is “unpolished” is considered genuine — automatically real or truthful?–Jim Emerson Great question….
Ah, okay, then I am 100% in lockstep with you. There was a blow-up about that recently on Scanners related to Rosenbaum’s review of NCFOM, actually. (Are we to the point yet where we can acronym that and everyone knows what it is? An exciting time for movies.)
You have now witnessed what happens when I don’t take the time to re-read before posting. 🙂
That might as well be my personal motto, Bill.
The mania for finding allegory in genre movies, basically insisting that they have no value if there isn’t any, is totally one of my pet peeves. But it’s not dragging something other than “I liked/didn’t like the movie” into the review that bothers me about that–it bothers me because it’s stupid. I don’t care what you say in your review as long as it’s not dumb!
It bothers the shit out of me whenever a surprisingly popular horror movie is immediately tied into whatever the current media-manufactured fear is (remember The Ring getting compared to anxieties over avian bird flu?), and I’ll rant about it whenever given even half a chance. It’s the implication that genre movies are transient at best, just hitching onto whatever the latest zeitgeist is, and are not.. you know.. tapping some much richer veins in the human brain, as they’ve been doing the entire history of storytelling.