Why I will never be a film critic. Not long ago, as I lay sleeplessly in bed at 3 a.m. while my brain recatalogued my myriad career, spiritual, and bodily failings, an image from a movie I once saw flitted into my mind. It took a few minutes to chase down the context for the image, and then a fuller memory came back. God, what a lousy movie, I thought. What an overblown, pretentious piece of junk. Poorly made, maudlin, rambling, full of the maker's self-pity and self-importance. Couldn't remember the name, though... it began with an "L". "Lotto". Leono".

The following morning, I looked it up on IMDB. Ah, yes. "Léolo", that was it. Shudder. Hmmm, the IMDB crowd seems to like it – a 7.3 out of 10 rating. "The most magic of magic realism." "Devastating masterpiece." "Brilliant, beautiful, wistful black comedy." "Best Film of 1992." Etc. Piles of awards won. Apparently, "In 2005, TIME named Léolo one of the 100 best films of all time."

Well. What do I know? Okay, the first five minutes or so are pretty good, but it goes steadily downhill from there.

Maybe the core problem is something else I realized recently – I don't really like movies. Sure, there are individual movies that I enjoy, but they are rare and far between – for the most part, movies just don't do anything for me.

Oh, sure, when I was young and bored, and had time on my hands, and was looking for companionship, movies were very useful. I will never deny their utility in social interaction. But as an art form, to be enjoyed just for themselves? Feh. If I tried, I could probably name ten movies that I would consider actually owning on DVD, fewer that I would consider to have had a noticable and long-term impact on my life – none, in fact. 99% of Hollywood's output could slide into oblivion, and I wouldn't even notice. (I suppose the industry does keep a lot of otherwise idle hands gainfully employed, so I suppose it is on the whole a Good Thing.)

Now that I think of it, most of the few movies that I really like are comedies. I'm not sure why that is – maybe the cinematic reed is too weak to support much more without seeming over-puffed and full of pretention. Those few don't fit into any category that I can think of, though the likelihood of enjoyment is increased (though not guaranteed) if Monty Python is involved.

Mmmm, "Life of Brian". I could watch that forever.

(Moira here): But Kurosawa. You like Kurosawa. As do I. But you and I share the same attitude to movies. I like ripping yarns, I like movies that are beautiful to look at (and will tolerate otherwise uninteresting movies if they are visually seductive), and I like to gaze upon beautiful people (or non-beautiful people with compelling faces), dull or trite though the vehicle may be.*

Kurosawa fulfills all those requirements in spades. Even when the movies are less than excellent (Rhapsody in August, Dreams), they are wonderful to look at. The only reason I've ever been tempted to indulge in a huge honkin' vulgar plasma TV is for the purpose of watching Ran in all its glory in the comfort of my home, whenever I please.

But otherwise, movies? Eh, shrug. Movies to me are often just an irritatingly passive experience. In reading, you have to co-create the fictional world. (I do that with opera recordings, too - I can't understand the librettos, so I just make up stories for myself to go along with the music. Bet you didn't know that Turandot is set in the western Pacific during World War II, did you?) Movies are just given to you, and what is given is often unsatisfactory. As David says - pretty thin reeds unable to bear the pretensions of the maker.

I'm pretty snotty about comedy, too. Popular laff riots rarely make me laff riotously, with some rare exceptions: Life of Brian, Spinal Tap, Fawlty Towers, Christopher Guest's stuff, The Office (original Brit version). Certain genres of physical comedy - the stuff that has its origin in Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton or whoever winching a piano into an upper story for 20 minutes running and in the process dropping it onto the pavement approximately 5,000 times - just irritate me to the point of murderous rage. (This may be genetic. My father had that reaction to I Love Lucy, and so do I.)

*That's another minor reason I have little interest in movie-going: with an exception or two, there seems to be little dazzle and dash in the looks department in Hollywood these days. I usually have no idea who the people on the cover of the check-out stand magazines are, but my aren't they a bland little lot of scrunchy-faced interchangeable blonds/blondes. That's why I like a lot of foreign movies - not because the product is necessarily better, but because they (Bollywood, China, what have you) seem to have higher standards of pulchritude now.

(Moira out)

Posted by David Fleck at 07 January 2007 10:19 AM