A funny thing happened on the way … er, in the movie theater the other day.
I was sitting there, eagerly watching “American Gangster” (eagerly because I was in one of the very front rows and had to keep my eyes open wide to catch everything on the screen too close to me), and I suddenly noticed a previously unrecognized personal bias. After reading A&E writer Frank Shyong’s four-paw review in the Bruin last Friday, I was unconsciously picking out what he had liked and disliked about the film.
I remembered he preferred the story of bad-guy heroin kingpin Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) over the story of good-guy narcotics detective Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) and found myself clearly more focused on the former character than the latter. I also recalled his praise for supporting actors Carla Gugino and Cuba Gooding Jr. and cued into their respective performances to see if I agreed (which I did), rather than give each actor in the complicated yet interesting story line the same attention. Maybe I would have discovered a knockout performance by other gifted actors featured in the film, such as Chiwetel Ejiofor or Common.
Bias-inducing or not, I always find myself flipping back to the review section of Entertainment Weekly to see what grade the latest crop of new releases received. I strongly value movie reviews as a good way to figure out which film to see on a Saturday night, especially since I have different cinematic tastes from those of most of my friends. Therefore, for me, the whole point is to read a review before heading to the theater. But unfortunately, this many times goes hand in hand with spoiling or at least slightly ruining the moviegoing experience with this previous knowledge of plot turns and standout performances.
Even Hollywood itself has put the once all-powerful film review into question this past year, as critical bombs such as “Wild Hogs” and “Pirates of the Caribbean 3″ still slipped by with great opening weekends and are among 2007’s biggest grossers thus far. So if people aren’t heeding the expert advice of film critics, what good is a film review at all? My colleague Alex LaRue wrote his music column a few weeks back questioning the need to put paws, stars and other quantifiers on a review when the critique itself is so much more complex than just a simple four paws out of five, but I’m starting to wonder what we are really trying to get out of these reviews.
Waiting to read a review after already seeing the film, like some friends of mine tend to do, seems pointless because at this point in the process, the review could either serve as strong fodder for an interesting debate or just as easily wind up an empty justification or delegitimization for one’s personal feelings on a film. However, once I’ve already heard, or in this case seen, the punch line, who cares what a stranger in a magazine or newspaper thinks? The money spent on the parking, tickets and refreshments are already long gone, and you’ll never get those precious hours back again no matter how hard you try.
For example, the other week I reviewed “Dan in Real Life” for The Bruin and did not find it completely awful and unbearable, but at the same time, it was nothing truly spectacular. After giving the film a three out of five paws rating and labeling it “mediocre,” I saw Entertainment Weekly and Variety reviews praising the film. EW even gave it a rare A- and put the film on top of its weekly Must List this weekend. I knew I had written the review honestly, but seeing how much the other critics, whose only similarity to me is the fact that we all really enjoy films, praised the film almost made me feel somehow inadequate or bad at my job.
But, if you really think about it, how can I be bad at reviewing films? There is really, technically, no right way to review films. There is no class to take or specific example to follow; no film critic is distinctly better than another. Exalted critics like Roger Ebert or A.O. Scott are just much better at putting their cheers and jeers into words and have managed to see many, many, many more movies than most of us will get through in a lifetime just because they have based their entire profession on seeing lots of films.
As my sociology professor confessed in one of his online lectures, most people don’t know what really makes a movie a great movie.
So at the end of the day, while it may drive someone like me crazy to go into a film with a review stuck in my head word for word, film critiques are still a powerful part of the moviegoing experience and won’t be going away anytime soon.
Sometimes they can be our foe, pushing us in the direction of a film that ends up too serious or confusing for our taste, but more often than not, they not only help us avoid a disastrous romantic comedy or action movie, they help us make sense of this constantly growing industry. There are too many hyped new releases every weekend for us to make a connection with a specific new film on a regular basis and too many Hollywood copycats and remakes being produced for the masses to differentiate between them all on our own. So whether you read the review before or not, the next time you find yourself in a movie theater, just remember to bring an open mind to go with that large tub of popcorn.
If Denzel Washington totally rocked your socks, too, e-mail Stanhope at kstanhope@media.ucla.edu. She would love to read your critique of the film.