GoldbergBlog » criticism

I’m Positive I’m Not Negative

Matt — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 15:33:47 +0000

I’m going to put this to bed once and for all:

I’m not a negative person.

That seems to have become my reputation. I know part of that comes from what I say about upcoming movies and my comments on trailers, posters, and other aspects of a marketing campaign. My coverage of movie news is part-mockery and part-criticism. I can’t go back through every single news story I wrote in 2011, but people get defensive over minor things. The trailer for The Dark Knight Rises didn’t change my life and I made fun of the collapsing football field because it’s funny. I don’t think the movie will be bad. It’s a criticism of a trailer that shows a football player who doesn’t realize that everyone behind him has fallen into a pit and died. Also, the quake ended when he scored a touchdown, so it worked out well.

But I also get excited by good trailers. I do a Top 10 list at the end of the year to prove it. And most importantly, I don’t let any piece of marketing lock in my opinion. Marketing on major movies is a non-stop assault, and I can’t avoid it, but I can try to stay objective before being subjective.

However, I can go back through my reviews and try to empirically prove that I’m not negative. I’ve come to the point where I almost want to stop using a letter grade. The reason I keep using them is because hopefully it will serve as a hook. Readers will scroll down to the bottom, see the letter grade, and then read the review to see why I gave that grade. Sadly, the rating tends to dominates the content. We’re in the Rotten Tomatoes age where people want to see a percentage and take that as the final word on the film’s quality. Keep in mind that RT works on a binary-system. A film is either “fresh” or “rotten”, so a B- has the same weight as an A+. Even as a shorthand, Rotten Tomatoes is imprecise.

But since people are so fixated on grades, and then they want to turn around and say that I’m negative, I’ve provided the following chart, which breaks down how many As, Bs, Cs, Ds, and Fs I gave out in 2011:

As you can see, the highest percentage of my reviews were either a B+, B, or B- (the exact number was 56). “B” means “good”. “A” means excellent. I have seen enough movies to understand the difference. Hollywood and even indie films don’t hit a grand slam every time they go to bat. “A” is a high standard and when a movie meets that high standard, it should mean something.

The next highest percentage was “C”, which means “mediocre”. I hate to say it, but there’s plenty of mediocrity in the world. Not everyone is a superstar and a lot of movies just get by. They’re forgettable or they’re a wasted opportunity. I don’t hate these movies. I just don’t get much out of them.

Perhaps this disconnect is that my critics want my film criticism to be “one higher”. Cs should Bs, and Bs should be As. But I demand more from my movies. I see the flaws not because I’m “negative” but because criticism is my business and it’s my job to break down movies and see how they work and how they don’t. I don’t “turn off my brain” nor would I want to. It seems ungrateful considering it got me to where I am today. I don’t like subjecting it to Sucker Punch, but we’re in it together.

There’s no agenda for me. There are movies I look forward to and movies I dread, but I give them all a fair shake. And if you don’t think I do, then look past the letter grade and read the actual review.