BID mailbag: Movie reviews

Originally published June 20, 1997, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1231

Haven’t checked the mail in some time, so I thought we’d give it a look. This week’s missive comes from Michael G. in Paramus, New Jersey. Michael writes:

Dear Mr. David:

In CBG#1223 you declared that one of the things that drives you nuts is when bad movies become tolerable on TV. You cited examples Judge Dredd and Down Periscope–both movies you trashed in your column–you found them wanting on the big screen yet somehow watchable when transferred to cable. How can this be?

Could it simply be that you were wrong about them the first time you saw them?

Perhaps you spent too much time looking at your watch in an effort to ascertain the elapsed time before the first appearance of a Coke can. Maybe you were distracted in while in search of nits to pick; seeming incongruities to which you could apply your acerbic wit. Is it possible that when you watch a movie for the second time on television, you are simply less obsessed with finding fault? Under such circumstances, you just might sit back, watch and enjoy. I suspect that you feel that you get a more entertaining column out of trashing a movie–something I’ve found disconcerting when it’s a movie I’ve seen and enjoyed. In fact, I can remember only one movie that you actually enjoyed although I believe you lamented its obvious failure at the box office.

Dare I suggest that you are overly critical of any piece of writing that is not your own?

I don’t think that a script needs to be technically perfect to be entertaining, an opinion you don’t seem to share; and I think it sad that you spend so much time fining fault that you can’t really let yourself enjoy any movie the first time you view it.

Lest you misconstrue, I don’t begrudge you your opinion. I only wish that you didn’t imply that those who do not share your view possess the intelligence of a gnat. Although you’ve chosen to blame some imagined mind numbing effect produced by cable television, it would appear to me that you’ve experienced a lessening of your strength of conviction and an obvious inability to admit you might have been wrong…

You know, I can feel a lot of love in this room.

It should be noted that, after accusing me of being so out-of-control jealous that I was incapable of providing a critically neutral eye to anything I see, Michael at least signed the letter “respectfully.”

I responded to Michael individually (as I do these days to all letters sent to this column) but, with the hot movie season coming up, I figured I’d toss the matter open for discussion and incorporate some of my reply to into the body of this column.

I tried to approach Michael’s comments with an open mind and, in that spirit, have checked the handiest reference source I could think of in terms of my track record regarding movies. I pulled out the trade paperback collection of But I Digress and turned to the movie section to see how my views on various movies tracked. In reviewing my commentary on films, I discovered that I wrote about Return to Oz and raved about it; wrote about Darkman and, although I had problems with the basic silliness of the film, found it tremendously entertaining; raved about Edward Scissorhands; knocked Alien 3, although I think I had a good deal of company within the community of film critics; and gave tremendous support to a movie called Hero which was uniformly reviled by critics… unfairly, I think.

Not only that, but I double-checked recent movie reviews I’ve written as well. I’d love to tell you that I’m so organized that I referenced them via subject, but the fact is that I simply eyeballed my computer files to–as they say–see what I could see.

Well, I did find Independence Day derivative and hole-laden. However I wrote very positively about Star Trek: First Contact, complained that critics had been unfair and nasty to the harmless and enjoyable Schwarzenegger vehicle Jingle All the Way, and gave an unqualified rave to The Phantom.

Wow. I’m the butcher of Krause.

I am hardly the only person to notice that some films which do not seem “worthy” of the big screen somehow are more tolerable when they appear on television. “How can this be?” you ask. To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure. That was, to a certain degree, the point of the column. My suspicion is that, as a country, we have simply come to be less demanding of what we see on the small screen (which we see in the privacy of our living rooms for nothing…and can walk out on during the boring bits, or chat with someone, etc.), and are more demanding of what we see in the movie theater, where

we pay admission, sit down, and say to the silver screen, “Entertain us!”

By the same token, there are some films that work spectacularly on the big screen that are utterly inadequate when transferred to the small screen. These range, in my opinion, from Gone with the Wind to Lawrence of Arabia to A Hunt for Red October. It is simply, to my mind, the nature of the beast rather than a failure on my part to recognize previously unseen greatness in films. Need I point out in the cases of Judge Dredd and Down Periscope I had plenty of company among critics who felt that the movies were either inadequate or just flat out poor.

I do not cite this in order to try and belittle anyone’s perceptions: If you enjoyed the films in the theaters, more power to you. I pay admission, same as you. I would have loved to enjoy the films.

Like anyone else, my single overall desire is to feel that, at the very least, I’ve gotten my money’s worth.

There are so many writers in this country whose talents far outstrip mine that it would be the height of insanity (if not folly) to be overwhelmingly jealous of the talents of others. I appreciate their talents, enjoy their work, and look forward to being entertained.

In point of fact, no one is harder to entertain than a writer. Why? Because, like a roomful of magicians watching a David Copperfield performance, we already know how the trick is done, or we’re busy trying to figure it out. Seeing a magician requires the audience to suspend disbelief.

“Look! The woman is floating in the air!” No, she’s not. Don’t be ridiculous. It’s impossible. People just can’t float unaided. But you marvel at the illusion. Same thing with telling a story, and the storyteller has to work that much hard to bamboozle a fellow writer, just as the magician does to snow his peers.

Meaning that if a writer producers a screenplay that can entertain me, I applaud his talent and eagerly look forward to what else he has to produce.

Nor do I think that a film need to be technically perfect to be entertaining. For example, I found problems with First Contact: But my bottom line recommendation was that these minuses were worth overlooking in exchange for the many pluses the film brought with it. For that matter, I enjoy a good dumb movie just as much as anyone else. I blush to disclose that the utterly brainless Anaconda was a real fun way to spend an hour and forty five minutes (good date movie, if for no other reason.) I thought Volcano tripped easily from the preposterous to the ludicrous. That still didn’t stop me from watching the lava flow and saying, “Cool!” (A contradiction, I readily admit.) I didn’t write reviews of the latter two, however, simply because the material wasn’t really comic book or science fiction related.

So when Michael says, “I think; it is sad that you spend so much time finding fault; you can’t really let yourself enjoy any movie the first time you view it,” I humbly submit that it is his interpretation… to say nothing of being a sweeping and wholly inaccurate conclusion.

I appreciate that Michael doesn’t begrudge me my opinion. To be honest, it seems that he does. I have criticized movies that he likes, and that upsets him. He certainly has that right.

But I don’t think he, or anyone, should lose sight of the fact that I am simply espousing my opinion. An opinion that carries no more weight or accuracy or gravity than the opinions spouted by people hanging out around a water cooler at an office or around a dealer’s table at a comic book convention. It carries as much or as little weight as one chooses to attribute to it.

Now if Michael wants to get upset about it, as noted, that is certainly his right. But I don’t feel that it is especially constructive to ascribe all sorts of pernicious or jealous motives.

Unfortunately, for the purpose of my column, all too often these are comic book related movies. I suppose that comic-related movies are as subject to Sturgeon’s Law as any other form of entertainment: Namely that ninety percent of all comic book movies are going to be crap. Sorry. Not my fault. Sturgeon’s law is as immutable as that of gravy or action/reaction.

Indeed, I’m always fascinated by the school of thought or criticism which takes me to task simply because of the existence of the column. People who attack me by stating that I’ve presenting myself as some sort of know-it-all, or tried to elevate myself to some degree of authority, simply by dint of producing a weekly column.

I hope I don’t sound disingenuous or self-effacing or just flat out full of it when I say that I just don’t see it that way. I’ve never claimed to be tremendously wise or an endless expert in a variety of things. I’ve never claimed, in short, to be anything other than what I am: A Writer of Stuff. I write stuff. A variety of stuff. Some days I’m on my game more than others, just like anyone else who has a daily job. The difference is, you can have an off-day at work and start fresh the next day, the previous day forgotten. Me, my off-day at work hits the stands several months later and I get thousands of people yelling at me about it. Being a writer is, to me, an endlessly humbling experience. I can get words of praise from a thousand people, but it’s number one thousand and one who hates my work or attacks me personally for whatever reason that sticks with me while the others roll away.

That’s human nature, I guess.

In other words, despite what Michael or others may espouse, I see myself as nothing else than just one guy dancing as fast as he can, trying to keep people happy and entertained and maybe view the world in a slightly different manner than they usually do.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go watch The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, presently airing on cable. It’s one of my favorite films of all time. I loved it in the movie theaters and I love it on the small screen. Critics, for the most part, hated it.

I guess I can’t be imperfect all the time.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705. By the way: The power of trailers. My assessment of Batman and Robin, based on the first trailer, was guarded-to-negative. Now there’s a new trailer out, and it looks really sharp.  Interesting. By the way, just saw Addicted to Love, a movie that endeavors to make comedy out of stalkers. It succeeds largely on the strength of leads Matthew Broderick and Meg Ryan, who could play serial killers and still be adorable. And, just to keep Michael happy: We see a can of Coke and Diet Coke thirty minutes into the film.)