The Reel Critic - Farewell

This is my last Reel Critic column for the Campus. It is difficult for me to believe that there is anything more enjoyable than writing about film, as fun as it would be to be embedded in Afghanistan with the Navy Seals (a onetime dream of mine). As I look back on what I’ve written, I recall the pleasure that I derive from the movies. “Prepare to exit disappointed and deeply pessimistic about love,” I wrote about Blue Valentine, and about Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, I raved, “Her character might have been more likeable had Mia Wasikowska, who plays her, not looked as if she was consumptive throughout the film.”

I kid, but an informal survey of the films I’ve watched over the past few years does betray a depressing truth. More often than not, the movies that we grant the most attention to, willingly or unwillingly, are not just bad, but laughable, to the point where you wonder if the producers were conducting a social experiment on humankind to see what people would pay around $12 to see — for example, Fast Five (the fifth installment in the Fast and the Furious franchise), Hop, an animated film about talking Easter bunnies, Gnomeo and Juliet — I don’t even know — and Never Say Never, the Justin Bieber documentary. Incidentally, this is a list compiled from the past two months’ box office No. Ones. I did pick the most egregious examples, but what I left off wasn’t particularly impressive. I’m looking at you, ensemble romantic comedies.

Reviewers and serious, well-intentioned and sometimes overbearing cinephiles (I include myself among the latter) have been complaining about the decaying state of cinema for decades, from the days of Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut — who took it upon themselves to create good cinema, practicing what they preached — to the forlorn A.O. Scott and friends today. And yet, short of upending capitalism, which I have to say would probably be a net loss for the film industry, what else is there to do but what we do best: criticize. As Scott once tweeted (making this the second time I have quoted Twitter in an article — see you in the afterlife, print media), “Onward. There are movies out there that need reviewing! Bad ideas that need refuting. Criticism is not a job. It’s a way of life.” While I am far too cynical to believe that a combination of sharp analysis, clever quips and some good old-fashioned shaming would be enough to reform the tastes of the movie-going public, I do think it has the power to function as its own form of entertainment and, occasionally, edification.

Despite my curmudgeonly attitude, there are things to look forward to in cinema, and not just as objects of ridicule. Great directors and writers such as the Coen brothers, Aaron Sorkin, Charlie Kaufman and others continue to produce consistently fresh and interesting work. I expect exciting things from new filmmakers — Tom Ford, Derek Cianfrance — and old, such as Scorcese, Almodovar and Polanski. Terrence Malick’s latest film in six years, The Tree of Life, comes out this year; Tarantino has a Western going into production, and I will admit every year I hold out hope that the new Woody Allen film will contain some of the discreet offensiveness of the bourgeoisie that made him great. Finally, there is always the promise of new and undiscovered talent, as well as those two Osama bin Laden films that have already been greenlit.

Even if my current state of unemployment becomes permanent, I intend to comment on films as if it were my job, a quality I’m sure my parents will continue to find adorable. I will gladly deal with the occasional disappointment or fury — the latter is in specific reference to Sofia Coppola — by channeling it into a discussion, on paper or in person, with others who invest questionable amounts of time into arguing about that sort of thing (often on the internet). Speaking of which, my co-writer and friend Brad Becker-Parton will carry on the tradition of fine commentary, peppered with snarky asides, in these pages for another semester. Brad, after all, is the thinking man’s Jesse Eisenberg.

And, if cinema completely fails us, there is still a modicum of hope — television is pretty good these days.