I'm a twentysomething white male with ambitions to be a professional film critic and generally spend my days getting paid to watch movies and write about it. A compulsive reader and stubborn cineaste, I take an often contrary stance to my more fundamentalist peers and upbringing by celebrating the pursuit of the good, and the Good, in life, love, art and film. If you watched enough episodes of certain TV shows — for starters, "The Hungry and the Hunted," "The Cut Man Cometh," "The Body," "The Zeppo," "Waiting in the Wings," "Out of Gas," "April Is the Cruelest Month," "20 Hours in America," "Colonial Day," "An Echolls Family Christmas," "Look Who's Stalking," "The Garage Door," "Charlie Gets Crippled," "Wind Sprints," and "Corner Boys" — you would understand me completely, and you'd also realize that much of my worldview and philosophical insights are heavily influenced by fictional works/programs, and many of the good things I've said in my life are just a regurgitation of someone else's imaginings, or at any rate a heartfelt attempt to interpret them. I guess I was made to be a film critic.
Last night's "The Office" was flat and boring and not nearly as good as the preceding episodes of "Community" and "Parks and Recreation." It reminded me of how Jim and Pam were jerks for a while a couple seasons back. Here's hoping the show gets its groove back soon:
"Lost" is back for its final season, and I'll be recapping it for Pajiba, because I'm just that obsessive.
This week wraps the major audition phase (it's hard to think of the season as just one very long audition), and as such, there's a kind of finals week sense of boredom and waiting for something to happen.
A nice little place with some good beer:
It's not even to the first round of real cuts yet. We're still in cattle calls.
Over at the Houston Press, I finish my two-part look at the Conan-Jay showdown and what it really means.
And for those who missed it, here's his farewell speech:
I waited a month for a new episode of "The Office" and got a clip show. Meh.
This season of "American Idol" kept on rolling with more bad singers, good singers, and seriously deluded people. (Also, in re: the art for this post: You're welcome.)
Over at the Houston Press, I've got a blog post that tries to pin down what's happening with the late-night wars and where the wheels came off the wagon. It's mainly a chance to work through stuff I'll explore more with a follow-up post next week, after (if rumors are to be believed) Conan O'Brien leaves "The Tonight Show" this Friday.
This week's 29-95 assignment took me to my first gay bar in Houston:
I've started blogging about "American Idol" for the Houston Press. I'd thought my time covering "Dancing With the Stars" was a long stretch, but "Idol" runs into May, by which point I'm sure I'll be half-mad from immersion in America's biggest and maybe weirdest TV show. But for now, on with the recaps:
For a year and a half now, I've been replaying a conversation I had with my friend's father at the friend's wedding. We (the wedding party) had been pressed into service to set up tables and chairs and place settings for the rehearsal dinner, and though I can speak for no one else, I did my level best to do as little as possible. Once we were done, though, the father chatted me up briefly about my career, knowing that I was a copy editor by day and a freelance film and TV critic on nights and weekends. He decided to ask me about the disparity between critical consensus and box-office tallies; basically, he wanted to know how I could presume to act as if I was in the know when I'd expressed displeasure for a movie that had grossed billions.
I can't reconstruct the dialogue with much accuracy, but I do remember being surprised at his casual glee in asserting that I probably wasn't tuned into the right frequency if something I trashed could make so much money. I didn't know what to say just then, and honestly wasn't in any position to begin to wrap my mind around an actual discussion of the issue; I still had a full weekend ahead of me. But I've been thinking it about it ever since, and I finally figured out what I should have said to him:
I know what I'm talking about.
Does that mean, though, that I know all I need to know, or will ever know, or want to know? No. I am constantly trying to learn more, read more, understand more, etc. Does it mean that I was born with the ability to understand art in a way he never could? Of course not. That'd be ludicrous to suggest and against the whole idea of being a critic, which is to get people interested in and excited about movies they might not know about or might have dismissed the first time around.
But I do know what I'm talking about, and it's falsely modest to pretend otherwise. If I'd had my wits about me then, I'd probably have talked to him about communities of informed judgment, the groups of educated doers in a given field that pass down knowledge and skill through generations. It's similar to an academic field, like mathematics: Every new student isn't reinventing formulas, but being ushered into the world of learning that's been there for thousands of years. Movies are the same way. You start out reaching for anything and everything, and you learn and read and study and analyze and eventually understand, and then that becomes the foundation for the next phase of your learning. The things I bring to the table now are things I wouldn't have known to do five years ago, and they'll seem childish in another five. You're constantly growing, but that doesn't make you ignorant.
I'd also have liked to point out that he's the same, and everyone is. He's a minister, and if I asked him for his opinion on a spiritual matter or scriptural passage, one for which he'd be able to bring his life and study to bear to help me — if I asked him that, and then ignored him because five friends with no training said the opposite, he'd likely be frustrated with the fact that I chose to let a crowd dissuade me from something counseled by a more learned individual. I'd be right to want to get multiple opinions, but misguided to count his as less than or equal to that of someone who lacked the depth of understanding really required by the situation.
That's one of the reasons why I trust some people's analysis of movies more than others. It has nothing to do with personal relationships and everything to do with the fact that they know more than most people (certainly more than me). Quality has nothing to do with reception. A good work of art is a good work of art, whether it's seen by millions of people or just a dozen. And because I trust people who have studied, who have clawed their way to a position of education and reason, and because I am on that path myself, I have to put more faith in their analyses than box-office returns. It's not because I discount the will of the people (at least, not wholly); it's because I know what I'm doing. I ask you to trust me, and see what you think.
What a great little joint:
Questions? Comments? Complaints?
Drop 'em in the mailbag.
"The critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising."
— Pauline Kael
"Film lovers are sick people."
— Francois Truffaut
"I hope I strike a blow for chubby bald men everywhere. I hope they rise like an army."
— Paul Giamatti, quoted in the Los Angeles Times, 12/14/04
"Let others praise ancient times, I am glad I was born in these."
— Ovid
Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where? When?
O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again.
— Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe
Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.
— John Stuart Mill
We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget.
— G.K. Chesterton
We were, for the briefest of moments, something greater than the sum of our uncertain parts; we were youth itself, in all its painful glory and sharp joy.
— Me, Fall 2003
Los Angeles, give me some of you! Los Angeles come to me the way I came to you, my feet over your streets, you pretty town I loved you so much, you sad flower in the sand, you pretty town.
— Ask the Dust, John Fante
