Let’s start with Bridesmaids. One of the biggest, most successful comedies of the summer, right? Fawning articles everywhere about how Kristen Wiig is the Next Great Female Comic Voice. A 90% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes. All my friends post glowing status updates about it on Facebook. It was the “must see” comedy of the summer.
Well. I kind of hated it. Let the sniping begin!
Okay, I’ll admit Bridesmaids had moments of wit (Kristen Wiig’s attempts to get the cute cop’s attention in her car) and some of charm and surprising emotional resonance (the final bedroom scene between Wiig’s character and Maya Rudolph’s runaway bride), but over all? I thought it was a solid half hour too long, for one. Entire sequences—and characters (the grotesquely odd for odd’s sake roommates?)–could have been cut, but even within scenes the pacing felt leaden and resolutely unfunny; it just wasn’t cut for comedy. The script was baggy and unfocused; it wasn’t until well into the movie that the emotional core of the story—the friendship—really started to take shape. It looked like shit, shot with all the aesthetic craft of a 70s cop show. The performances felt wildly uneven; some insanely broad, others tipped in realism. Half the cast seemed to be in another movie all together. The reliance on cheap humor (making fun of the funny-looking and the fat; juvenile gross-outs—the infamous “food poisoning” sequence) cheapened the proceedings, undercutting what genuine humor was mined out of (relatively) real people experiencing real comic dilemmas. To me, the movie was a C+ at best. Hardly, I thought, worthy of the “critic’s pick” it got from the normally highly critical (and frankly highly pretentious) Manohla Dargis of The New York Times. Hardly the best summer comedy ever.
Now, here’s the thing: I’m not some high culture vulture who only sees art house movies or doesn’t own a TV. (In fact, I proudly own three.) Yes, I thought Tree of Life fascinating and gorgeous and worth my time, but often—hell, usually–I crave nothing more high born than Caddyshack. (I’m not even kidding; Bill Murray and that damn gopher own a little piece of my heart.) I’ve put in my time watching The Real Housewives franchise and laughing at The King of Queens. (Don’t start with me, you.) But somehow, time and again, I seem to find myself on the “thumbs-down” side of wildly popular entertainments—so popular I actually, often, feel embarrassed to share my opinion. Nobody would bat an eye if I engaged in a penetrating debate about the nuances of that aforementioned Terrence Malick opus. But my issues kick in with incredibly successful “crowd-pleasers”; diversions constructed specifically to appeal to the largest swath of humanity possible. But for some reason, they don’t appeal to me. I’m the only one at the party who thinks the baby is ugly.
I give you:
Pretty Woman: Look, I’ve liked Julia Roberts in many things—found her winning and even moving–but believe her as a sassy, slightly hardened street walker? When she was a fresh-faced twenty-three? No. (Even Laura San Giacomo—who played her best friend—would have been more plausible.) And the whole triumphant “Cinderella” of it all, with a woman “succeeding” because she banged a rich, happens to be wildly handsome, charming guy, for money? (Always the guys that pay for “companionship”. Sure. That happens.) That’s not a Cinderella story. That’s a fucked up, bullshit fever dream. I never believed a minute of it and so could never find it the slightest bit entertaining.
When Harry Met Sally: A Woody Allen rip-off (you’re going with jazz standards on the soundtrack? really?) that tried for a level of emotional “truth” which felt utterly contrived to me. The Meg Ryan character was so incredibly irritating I never for a moment believed that Billy Crystal would remain her friend, much less (begrudgingly; that bugged me too) finally fall in love with her. (He was no prize either, frankly.) The movie basically spent two hours mocking its dear Sally. If the movie doesn’t like its protagonist, why should I? And the infamous ‘orgasm in the deli’ scene? Completely fraudulent; the entire movie was practically premised upon the notion that Sally was uptight and repressed. She never would have publicly, loudly, acted out an orgasm. You can’t (or shouldn’t) utterly undercut your title character for a (fairly weak—the infamous last line was an ad-lib) joke. That’s just crap writing.
Forrest Gump: Who doesn’t like Forrest Gump? Who doesn’t like Tom Hanks? He’s an American treasure for crying out loud. And I do like him. A lot. I just couldn’t stand Forrest Gump with its mawkish, twee Americana and desperate need to be loved. The soundtrack alone, tracking each passing year with its most obvious Billboard top ten hit, made my teeth hurt. The movie had all the subtlety of a bulldozer. And “Life is like a box of chocolates”? It’s really not. Even in the Southern twang of an adorable naïf played by Tom “Beloved By All” Hanks.
Avatar: Not only did I think the story was a bunch of simplistic, derivative junk, the characters one-dimensional stereotypes (Steven Lang’s Colonel? Jesus), the dialogue clunky and amateurish…I didn’t even think it looked all that great. Seriously. Pulled into a fully realized, 3-D otherworld? No. I was watching a cartoon. A cartoon where a guy got to ride a flying Dino and hair fuck a blue girl with a tail. Pass. (I also hated Titanic, fyi. This may be a James Cameron thing…)
Inception: Complex, twisty, ingenious? How about utterly incoherent and couldn’t stand up to five minutes of real logical scrutiny? Why claim the movie is about dreams when the “alternate reality” sequences (I refuse to call them “dream sequences”) were about as dream-like as a trip to Disneyland? Bombastic, dynamic, imaginative, long, yes, but not “dreamy”, and certainly not psychologically interesting–as real dreams, if they’re nothing else, are. (No one’s Mom showed up? No one turned up naked?) Then, when the whole thing devolved into a James Bondian action movie? Why, again? I’m sick of filmmakers blowing shit up just because they can. (And I can say with absolute surety I have never dreamed of explosions.) I’m pretty sure I could watch Tom Hardy folding his laundry, but good god, I got bored. And the ending wasn’t all that freaking clever and it doesn’t make Christopher Nolan some sort of deep thinking genius; I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if the editor thought of it in the cutting room.
Glee: Ryan Murphy hates people. He can’t resist making his characters into grotesques. He wants to be able to make fun of them and then two seconds later, I’m supposed to care about them. Can’t. Won’t. Don’t make me.
I could go on, but you get the point. But this is where I start to fear that people will think I’m just some persnickety snob, unwilling to let loose and enjoy simple pleasures. But I’m not, I swear. (Caddyshack! One of my favorite movies!) Neither am I one of those deliberate contrarians, who hates what everyone else loves, just to be different; I hate those people. I love just loving a movie or a show or a book (hello, The Thorn Birds!) completely, unreservedly, even if I know it’s not “art”. I love pop culture. Hell, I love crap. I just want a better grade of crap.
Like I said: let the sniping begin!
Julia Robert Image Courtesy Everett
