I had a strange epiphany this weekend. I was watching my Sunday morning shows, and on between "Meet the Press" and MSNBC’s all day Dateline Murder Mystery Marathon, was a little show called “At the Movies”. Now this was not the show of my youth. That show had Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert on it, and I watched it mostly to see them disagree. Well Gene Siskel is no longer with us and Roger Ebert now just does print. (Which if you get a chance, read him, he’s brilliant.) So now “At the Movies” is populated by A.O Scott from the New York Times and Michael Phillips from the Chicago Tribune. Both good critics, but they don’t have the fire of Siskel and Ebert.
Anyway, I tuned in because they were going to review a movie I was thinking of seeing, “Kick-Ass”. They hated it. They also hated “The Joneses” and “The Perfect Game”, two movies I had only slightly heard of. The only one they liked was a foreign film called “The Secret In Their Eyes”. Now “The Secret In Their Eyes”, you have never heard of, and after this you will probably never hear of it again. It’s a film from Argentina, without Penelope Cruz, or Antonio Banderes. It won a lot of awards including the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film. It has everything that serious film critics love.
Now I am sure it is a great movie, but I was sitting there going “Really?” I don’t think that “Kick-Ass” is the second coming or anything. But on a show reviewing movies for the general population, the only one you like is the obscure foreign language film. What you didn’t like was the brightly colored, ultra violent popcorn film made for the masses. Made for, dare I say, AMERICANS. REAL AMERICANS.
It made start thinking of Film Critics, and how they generally don’t like the sort of mass produced loud blockbuster films with lots of explosions and robots that turn into trucks. They seem to favor smaller films. Films that make you think or worse read. Films that are not made in America. These critics are sort of elitists. They are the intelligentsia telling us, regular Americans that our movies about blue people on another planet are not as good as THEIR movies. Ya know, THEIR movies, the ones we don’t want to see, because we don’t like to read. (Unless they are Kung Fu movies and we really don’t care what they are actually saying anyway.)
And why don’t they like OUR movies? Why aren’t our movies good enough for them? I’ll tell you why. These elitists films critics think they know better than us due to their years of “experience” and extensive “knowledge” of films and film making. And now on shows like “At the Movies” and in the liberal New York Times, they are trying to recommend, nay SHOVE their movies down our throats. Some of these movies, I have read on the internet, are from socialist countries. That is right, socialism. Film critics = socialism.
So Tea Baggers, I get it now. I am awake for the first time. I am tired of having these elite socialists shove their film agendas down my throat, with their complex characters and interesting stories. If I wanted to see a foreign film, I would just wait until it is remade in America, with an American cast, and most likely Ashton Kutcher. No, I am an American, and in AMERICA we only watch movies where things blow up, and people eat poop. And I am not going to have some group of elitists and their films panels tell me I shouldn’t. It’s my God given right to waste my money on movies where all the good parts are in the trailer. It’s in Constitution, which was written on July 4th, 1776.
It’s time to take our country back from these film elites. Am I saying A.O. Scott is like Hitler? Not that I would ever admit if cornered by a respected journalist. But A.O. Scott is an elite, and he recommends movies from socialist countries. If the Tea Party Movement has taught us anything, you become like Hitler if you are a socialist, and you become a socialist anytime you embrace something from a socialist country, like universal health care. That is not just me, that is science, which I don’t believe in because I am a Christian. I also have on good authority A.O. Scott was born in Kenya. Is there any documentation saying he was? No, but there is also not any documentation saying that we was not, that I would believe.
Sure, there were movies in the past that these elite film critics recommended that I saw and liked. Also there were huge summer blockbusters that they told me were bad and they were much worse than they said. But I don’t remember that, because I choose not to and it does not serve my argument.
So let’s get this revolution started. Let’s get Real Americans reviewing films. Let's get people reviewing films that have no extensive knowledge of film. Let’s get rid of the people who don’t like a performance, because it is clichéd or dishonest. Let’s get people who like a performance because the lead actress is “hot” and male lead “kicks ass”. Let’s get rid of the people who dislike a movie because the CGI is distracting, and there is no story. Let’s get more people who recommend a movie because “that part where the two dudes were fighting was kinda cool.”
With that Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” will sweep the Oscars. Not because it was the best film of the year, but because the masses liked it. And if Taylor Hicks winning "American Idol" taught us anything, it’s that the masses are always right.
Jason
