Bart!

I've been unusually busy over the week, so I missed Variety editor Peter Bart's screed against out-of-touch movie critics in Thursday's edition. A fellow blogger e-mailed it to me, eyes no doubt rolling as he pressed the "send"command.

I like Bart. He's a smart guy and a fascinating, as they say, character. Badgering movie writers who he seems to believe are involved in some kind of conspiracy to privilege the obscure and arty over the populist is a cherished hobby of his, and I don't begrudge him this, or take his jabs personally. In the case of this particular column, though...well, there's no way that even he doesn't know just how full of it he is.

Let's leave aside, for the moment, his line about critics potentially shopping around for a new line of work. I've always thought it was bad karma to wish unemployment on people, but if Bart wants to play that way, fine. And let's not get too agitated about the part about how "the kids who storm their multiplexes to catch the opening of Night at the Museum don't give a damn what the critics think." Oooh, you hear that, critics? That just happened! The kids don't give a damn what you think! How do you feel now, huh?

(You know, the kids who were playing hooky last Friday morning at my local multiplex, fighting over whether to see 300 or Ghost Rider while I was tramping in to check out Dead Silence 'cause Universal wasn't screening it for the critics—they didn't even give a damn who I was, let alone what I thought. Man, why haven't I just killed myself already!?!?!?)

No, what really makes Bart's piece a classic crock is how he gets all affronted at the bad reviews for 300—a movie that scored 60 on Rotten Tomatoes' Tomato-meter. 60's pretty good, you know—that's 60 percent positive reviews! And a lot of the positives are from pretty big-time critics. None of them heirs to Manny Farber and Andre Bazin, perhaps, but thoroughly respectable names. As for the dissents, well, you might think that non-unanimity of opinion signals a healthy, feisty and potentially interesting critical debate, but not Bart. No, he's ticked that A.O. Scott called 300 stupid—sneering that it would mainly appeal "to devotees of the pectoral, deltoid and other fine muscle groups"—and that Kenneth Turan turned in a "prolonged wince" of a review. And the reason Scott and Turan are demonstrably wrong to dislike 300 is its $70 million opening weekend.

So, Bart says, because Scott and Turan hated 300, and because Stephen Holden didn't much care for Museum, and because NO critic found anything nice to say about Ghost Rider, movie reviewers ought to "consider a sabbatical until September, when movies aimed at their quadrant magically reappear." By this point in the article many might be wondering just why they're reading it; then Bart tips his hand and shows us his reason for writing it. A joke he clearly loves so much he can't keep it to himself: "And, by the way, if you've ever met a film critic, you"ll know they're not big on either the pectoral, deltoid or other muscle groups."

A less refined and kindly critic than myself would here note that Bart isn't exactly a body-builder himself, and further note that Bart might want to make a point of avoiding drinking establishments which feature dwarf-tossing contests, lest he be mistaken for the entertainment. But I am more refined, and kindly, than that. And now, I have to get to the gym.

Comments

[Aaron Aradillas]

Man, I would've flipped when I was 14 and recognized one of the many critics I was reading was at the same movie I was seeing. Then again, I probably wouldn't have recognised one because critics rarely provide a photo of themsleves with their copy like, say, society columnists.

For me, critics were the real rock stars. I could care less about what the actors thought of real world issues. I wanted to know what critics thought.

Bart's "deltoid" comment is childish, but it also gives me an idea. I think there could be a small but appreciative market for pin-up posters of movie critics. Think about it. Now, you could have both Sarris and Kael on your bedroom wall. (You could place Sontag in the middle of them.) You could have Armond White and Walter Chaw off to the side to symbolize their rebel status. Finally, you could decide between Siskel, Ebert, or Siskel & Ebert. (No Roeper, please.) Amy Taubin would have to be shot in moody b&w. The possibilities are endless.

[addison dewitt]

Oh, God -- not this argument again. (Bart's, not yours.) I've never understood why people get so affronted by critics disagreeing with box-office opinion. What's it to them? I'm sure every critic who panned 300 knew it was going to be a smash. The kind of reviewer who gets indignant at the fact -- and there are always some -- is being every bit as stupid as Bart.

As a rule, the only practical effect critics can have on a movie's receipts is to stimulate interested moviegoers to try one they might otherwise pass up or never have heard of. Otherwise, it's just discussion, entertaining and/or illuminating (or neither: cf. the latter-day David Denby)to whoever enjoys talking and thinking about this stuff for its own sake.If ya don't care, ya don't care.

But the idea that audiences would respect critics more if they just validated every hit is nonsensical; all it would do is make us redundant. I think that what Bart either can't understand or can't stand is that, essentially, we're amused onlookers-for-hire to the process and not part of the machine.

[Jenni]

Once I saw George Whipple at a movie screening. It was very exciting.

[Messi]

If you read that idiot Scott's review, you'd see he only hated 300 because of the liberties it took with history, the idiot fails to see the movie is a 97% faithful adaptation of a graphic novel by Frank Miller. This is Frank Miller's 300, that just shows how unobjective A.O Scott is. And he won a pulitzer prize for film criticism??? What a dumb Carnt. Anyone can win a pulitzer. My grandma has a pulitzer.