I complained about it before, but I intend to do it again without reservation. While reading an article about World War Z once again coming onto the Netflix platform, the author writes as if I care one iota what pretentious, holier-than-thou movie critics think about a movie.
Their scorn and malicious verbosity long ago led me to the realization that they likely have no connection with the movie-going audiences to whom they proselytize. The article in question appeared on Yahoo entertainment, titled Netflix just added Brad Pitt sci-fi classic – 11 years after release it still splits opinion.
Doesn’t everything? The title suggests that the movie itself falls victim to the panoply of topics scourging modern society with dichotomous contradiction. Seriously. You either like a film or don’t. A certain book either resonates with you, or it doesn’t. That is simplicity in its purest form.
I absolutely despise plump, red tomatoes. My daughter eats them as if they were apples. It doesn’t mean I am going to remove her from the will—there’s plenty of other reasons to do that. We therefore don’t have vociferous arguments over the dinner table about her wretched tastes.
Isn’t there enough division in the world right now? If you do not agree with me on this, I hate you. If you like this company, you eat puppies. If you think in a manner opposed to my being, you embody the source of all evil.
The whole concept is ludicrous. Infantile even. I’ve seen toddlers behave in this manner. Perhaps I’m just a radical, but I learned from my parents to celebrate people’s differences. To embrace an opinion different than mine. We teach our children—or at least should have—it is acceptable others may not like the same things. We tell them to be confident in their own tastes.
The article in question—the one that got my bile churning—predicts the movie has a strong chance to fall into the top-10 of views this week. But here’s what gets me: “That it scores a generally average 67% on Rotten Tomatoes is unlikely to stop many people watching this 11-year-old [Brad] Pitt sci-fi classic.”
I have read many articles about movies that always have to throw in the critical rating. Why do I need that? Back in 1997, the critics hated the movie Starship Troopers. Going against the trend, I absolutely loved it. I recognized it for the satire it was.
Back in November 1997, the famed movie critic Roger Ebert said the movie lacks “exhilaration and sheer entertainment.” Not for me. When it came out on VHS, I snatched that thing off the shelf the first day I could. The same when I finally came out of the stone aged 90s and bought a DVD player—sometime well into the 21st century.
Today, critics love it. They seem to have jumped on the bandwagon. A little late to the party considering I knew it when it came to theater screens everywhere. In March 2023, Chicago Reader movie critic Lisa Alspector wrote the movie “blends the conflicting elements of intentional camp and perverse sincerity into a single tone.” I thought that over twenty years earlier.
I rest my case. It doesn’t matter what critics who do not embody the same experiences you have think about a work. What’s the old song by Barbara Mandrell? I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool. I loved the Paul Verhoeven-directed film Starship Troopers way before it became trendy to do so.
The poem The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost comes to mind. I disagree with it. “Two roads diverged in a road, and I, / I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference.” Do not present me with two options only. The road “less traveled” means it has still been trod.
Nay. I will lay down a new road. One where I do not follow. I do not lead. I go where my feet take me.
Take care. I have some writing to do.
