Monday, July 16, 2012

Idiots of the Week: Dark Knight Rises Critic-Haters

Idiot of the week is an occasional feature of my political blog, The Think 3 Institute. It's occasional rather than weekly because I feel no need to make a ritual out of it, and I want the idiocy recognized to stand out from the run-of-the-mill stupidity that's encountered all too often in political life. I've moved the feature to Mondo 70 for the first time as an unintended preface to a series of posts I've planned leading up to Friday's release of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Rises. As some readers may know, this film is a sequel to a 2008 Nolan movie called The Dark Knight and the conclusion of a trilogy the director began back in 2005, literally enough, with Batman Begins. As both of those films were successful, the second film more so than the first, the third film is rather highly anticipated in many quarters. Many people want Rises to be a good, even great film -- I wouldn't mind that myself. Some people, unfortunately, don't want to hear bad news, even though they strain to hear it amid a mounting volume of hosannas greeting Rises as if it were the Second, or rather Third Coming. Many professional reviewers have seen the film by now and have started to post their reviews on media websites. The Rotten Tomatoes website keeps a running tab of early critical opinion; as I write, it reports that 29 reviewers have rated it "fresh," while 2 have deemed it "rotten." Working with the reviewers' star-ratings, letter grades, and other appraisal systems, it gives Rises a 94% "fresh" rating so far. Impressive, no? No! -- as far as many people are concerned, for those two heretics, and for much of the day a lone heretic, Marshall Fine -- have ruined Rises's perfect score. As a result, numerous Nolan fans have flamed poor Fine, deeming his opinion, after seeing the picture, inferior to theirs, sight unseen.

Part of this results from presumptions of prejudice on Fine's part. He must hate superhero movies, or like Marvel movies better, etc., etc. Superhero-movie fans are perhaps especially defensive against any hint of prejudice against the genre. But so what? If you're a superhero-movie fan, or a Batman fan in particular, or a fan of Christopher Nolan's work in general, are you going to like Rises any less because Fine, whom I'd never heard of before today, disliked it? But perhaps these people are insecure in their anticipation and want no hint from anyone, no matter how prejudiced they assume the source to be, that the film might not live up to their eschatological expectations. My own expectations are pretty high despite my less than rapturous reception of Nolan's last picture, the heavy-handed dream fantasy Inception. My expectations probably differ from those of the people who would hear no criticism as well as those of the critics, since I liked different things about The Dark Knight than most people. Some of my expectations have less to do with Christopher Nolan than with my near-lifetime of Batman fandom. For me, there's a standard that Nolan has to meet, which I hope to elaborate on later this week; Nolan doesn't set the standard himself. That's why I can't accept this idiotic notion, from people who haven't seen the movie, that it's above criticism from people who have seen it, or that any criticism is automatically wrong in some way. It's still possible for Nolan to get Batman, and in this case Catwoman, wrong at the last moment. I don't mean that he might deviate from my ideal of either character. I do mean that he can still screw up as a moviemaker. I welcome any vision that's different but good, especially since The Dark Knight Rises may be the last mainstream superhero movie with license to be "different" -- but that's also a topic for later in the week. For now, let me say to anyone freaking out because they read a thumbs-down review that I hope you like the film better than Marshall Fine or Christy Lemire did, and that once you've seen it you can prove how they saw things wrong. Until then, you're idiots.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Samuel Wilson said...

Just a note: I didn't delete the previous comment because it flamed me. It was spam of the "nice post, thanks for writing" variety. Relevant comments, hostile or otherwise, remain welcome.

hobbyfan said...

I have yet to read the misguided musings of Marshall (Not So) Fine, and we know Christy Lemire is good for some lame commentary, which will probably be picked up by the local papers by week's end.

That said, I will have to read them and see what they find to be so wrong. The only issue I see for right now is the way Bane was costumed. The morons at DC will play monkey see, monkey do, and redesign Bane in the comics after the movie. I really hope someone comes to their senses.

I'm looking forward to Dark Knight Rises myself, and have it on my to-do list this weekend.

Samuel Wilson said...

Compared to the way Bane was treated in his last movie appearance, you should treat Nolan's version as a canonization. Meanwhile, do you know anything about Marshall Fine apart from his failure to appreciate a film you want to see? Unfortunately, you can't read his review, as of the last time I checked, because Rotten Tomatoes pulled it and the flamers crashed his website.

John/24Frames said...

Fine is a critic and author. I have read two of his books, BLOODY SAM (Peckinpah) and HARVEY KEITEL: THE ART OF DARKNESS both of which are decent bios.
I have not previously read any of his reviews until now but as for the hostility toward his negative review of DARK KNIGHT here is part of what he says in the review...

"I’m not trashing the entirety of “The Dark Knight Rises” – I’m saying that its potential is such that it ultimately disappoints, thanks to Nolan’s decision to go big, bigger, biggest."

He then says...

"As in “The Dark Knight,” that urges to operate on a grand scale results only in a grandiosity that, ultimately, becomes a bit silly, even nonsensical."

I have not seen the movie yet but this sounds like a legitimate point for a critic to make. If he is out of touch with other critics and fans well so be it. The job of a critic is not to placate fans but an intelligent point of view.

here is a link to his review.

http://hollywoodandfine.com/reviews/the-dark-knight-rises-grandiose-not-grand/

Samuel Wilson said...

John, your point is well made. I've read a Peckinpah bio but don't remember if it was Fine's, yet the choice of topic is a point in his favor. I suspect that part of the defensive attitude toward reviewers is a misassumption that a prediction that you won't enjoy a movie is actually a command: don't enjoy it. At the same time, a true critic may or must become a critic of audiences as well as of films. Some people won't take Rise's grandiosity as nonsensical, but it's Fine's prerogative to disagree.