A recall to common sense...

This is an old one. I wrote it Winter 2008 and never showed anyone. I recently posted it on facebook where it started the great comment battle of the decade. I'm reposting it here so anyone who didn't read it on facebook can and it's a good introduction into what my opinions are on things. So here we go!

A recall to common sense...

A warning may be appropriate here; if you’re reading this and I start baggin’ on something you’ve come to love, you may get offended. (Step Brothers is one of the most awful, stupid, and unfunny “comedy” movies I’ve ever seen.) See what I mean? Now I realize all the ideas I spout off in this and the following entries are my opinion. But I’ve put a lot of thought into these opinions so if you blatantly disagree, you have a 95% chance of being blatantly wrong (especially about Step Brothers.) But I’d love to hear your disagreement. Just make sure that your counter argument is well thought out and supported. Otherwise you’re in danger of being called an idiot in my head. Or, if I really mean it, out loud.

But, snide condescending comments aside, lets get this show on the road shall we? I’m writing this to dispel a common misconception. That misconception stems from the largely unrealized gap between opinion and quality. Opinion does not induce quality. In other words just because you like something, doesn’t mean it’s good. It means you like it. I’ll illustrate.

It is a overwhelming (false) belief that if a movie or show evokes the emotion implied by its genre, it is automatically a good movie or show. For example, if a comedy makes you laugh, it’s a good movie. WRONG! A comedy could make you laugh approximately zero time and still be a terrific movie. Take Boys Don’t Cry, an Oscar winning movie that doesn’t make you laugh once. “But Radcliff, that movie is a drama.” Is it? Boy’s don’t cry. Use common logic. If boys aren’t crying what are they doing? Laughing. See, I knew you’d catch up. So by definition, Boy’s Don’t Cry is a comedy, yet not one laugh, and yet still Oscar winning. The conclusion: Boy’s Don’t Cry is one damn good comedy.

Now that may be ridiculous, but even if it’s completely ludicrous (it is) it, at least, goes to show you the lengths I’ll go to prove my point. In this case obvious exaggeration is implemented. Yes a comedy should be funny but the funny should just be a simple additive to the story. Conclusions shouldn’t be drawn of about the quality of the film in question based on how many times you laugh. It’s much more extensive than that. Lets supplement this with a short quiz. Choose your answer before you scroll down.

SET UP: You save up your hard earned money all week just so that you can go see the new awesome-looking horror movie (we’ll call it Boo’s Revenge 2: Boo Too) that comes out on Friday. Finally the sun rises on that blessed Friday morning. You wake up, and get in line at the movie theater. Think I skipped some morning grooming steps there? Nope. You camped at the movie theater parking lot. That’s how excited you are. You buy your ticket, and thirty minutes later sit down in the theater with your Coke, nachos, hot dog, roasted almonds, and Juji Fruits. The greasy theater cleaner who looks like Severus Snape glares at you, but you don’t care that he still hasn’t finished cleaning up that baby’s diaper yet because you know he doesn’t understand how freaking stoked you are. The movie starts and ends is a whiz of screams and blood. You sit there shocked. Not because you’re in awe, but because that movie didn’t scare you once. Not even close. Once. At all.

QUESTION: Was Boo’s Revenge 2 a good movie?

A. Yes
B. No
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No Peeking!
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Don’t be a coward. Choose an answer and stick with it!
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ANSWER: C. Not enough information!

Ten bucks said you all got it wrong. Now did you notice that throughout the entire description of your trip to Boo’s Revenge 2 I did not once mention the writing, acting, directing, editing, cinemotography or any other aspect of film making process? Now with a name like Boo’s Revenge 2: Boo Too it’s kind of a foregone conclusion that it’s going to suck the big one. However the title is about as superfluous as the genre in this instance. And you can’t always tell a movie’s quality based on the title. Slumdog Millionaire (Whatdog Whoionaire?) was a great film while the very appropriately titled Alexander was a travesty. Snakes on a Plane... you pretty much get what you’re expecting here. Anyway my point is that what makes a movie good has little or nothing at all to do with title, genre, content, message, or how many times it makes your laugh, scream, cry, fart, or toke up. It has everything to do with how well it is written, directed and acted etc.

This is why Stranger Than Fiction is THE BEST Will Farrell movie BY FAR. Most of the rest (especially Step Brothers and including Semi Pro and Blades of Glory) suck really bad. “But Radcliff! Those movies are funny!” First of all, that depends on whether you have a mongoloid sense of humor, (I don’t and they’re not) and second that doesn’t matter! (See above.) I don’t care if you “laughed harder in Step Brothers than any other movie ever” (actual quote by a friend, paraphrased and twisted so it supports my forthcoming point.) Laughing is not an indication that a movie is good. It is an indication that movie is funny. There is a large difference. The quality of a movie is contingent on many factors, number of laughs is not one of them. The quality of the movie is a result of many talented people at every level of production from the writer to the scorer doing their jobs right to tell an effective story.

That’s why The Bourne Ultimatum is a good movie, and Shooter is not. The acting, writing, and directing etc was infinitely better. Plus Shooter was horribly cliche, over the top, ridiculous and did i mention, poorly made. “But Radcliff! What if I like Shooter?” Don’t worry, that’s not wrong. I like National Treasure. A lot. I’m not proud of it, but it’s true and I can’t help it. It’s just such goofy fun. Yes, I know that the plot is ludicrous and not well thought out. Yes, I know the acting is ultra campy and most of the dialogue laughable at best. And because I know this it’s okay that I like it. You don’t have to only like oscar winning dramas about handicapped nazi serial killers with daddy issues. You can enjoy Transformers! Just don’t cajole yourself into thinking that it’s a terrific movie. It’s entertaining indeed, but not good, not well made, not quality. See the difference?

Good! Likewise movie’s quality is not based on what the movie’s saying. The whole point of the movie could be “serial killing is nobel” or “ the Nazi’s had it right” and it could still be an excellent film. (For the record the Showtime show Dexter has an active serial killer as the protagonist and it’s AWESOME. Rent it.) Million Dollar Baby is quite possibly the best movie and/or Best Picture winner of the decade thus far. The whole message of that movie is that euthanasia is okay, good even. This is in slight contradiction with my personal beliefs. But my personal beliefs have nothing to do with the quality of the movie. A movie is good whether or not I agree with its message. Period. That’s why Million Dollar Baby is one of the greatest movies of the 21st century so far while I can safely say that Left Behind II: Tribulation Force (a movie slightly more in tune with my personal beliefs) is completely awful.

And lastly, the content in the movie, whether it be violence, sex, swearing, etc, has once again absolutely no effect on the quality of the movie. (Let the uproar begin.) Let me explain. Say you’re super offended by violence and gore. Say you walk into the wildly acclaimed foreign film Pan’s Labyrinth. Within the first twenty minutes or so there is some graphic bottle-jamming-face-crushing action. Does this diminish the quality or pedigree of the film in question? NOT ONE LITTLE BIT. Does it diminish you’re enjoyment of it? Sure, because that’s your game to call. If you don’t like a movie, it doesn’t mean it’s a bad movie. In this case it’s an brilliant, beautiful, and vibrant gothic fairy tale despite what you think of it. Is it a good movie morally? Hell no. But that doesn’t stop it from being a quality movie. Now, we live in America which means you get to decide for yourself what your opinion is. You can determine where each movie’s moral and message lines up with your beliefs and therefore conclude how you feel about it. But just because you disagree with either DOESN’T MAKE IT A BAD MOVIE.

To sum up, you’re opinion, though it matters to you, doesn’t effect the pedigree of any movie. If you’re like me, you can love terrible brain-dead movies like National Treasure and severely dislike very well made movies like American Beauty. The point is you realize the difference between your opinion and the quality of the film in question. They could differ.

Ok I think I’m done here. If i come out of this article sounding like a pompous ass, then good. That’s how I wanted to come off. It gets my point across better and it’s damn fun to write. (I’m not in real life... usually.)