Film Criticism

I’m not an expert on film (or anything else), but I am a student of it, and I’ve dabbled in it enough to know just how difficult it is to do well. I’ve taken a few film classes, I’ve written and sold screenplays, I’ve made a half dozen short films and one handheld, no-budget feature, I’ve read hundreds of books on film, and watched thousands of movies—just enough to know how very little I know.

Of course you don’t have to be an expert in or even a student of film to know just how challenging it is to make good ones—even the most casual moviegoer can tell you that more mediocre movies are made than anything else, and far, far more bad films are made than great ones.

Still, I find it a bit uncomfortable to criticize the state of American cinema. Part of the reason is in the difference in knowing and doing. I know a little about film, but I’m not a working filmmaker—and there’s an enormous difference between the two. I feel far more comfortable speaking about the state of American publishing or criticizing novels because I’m a working novelist. But, here again, because I do it, because I know how difficult it is to do well, I find it difficult to be vitriolic or violent in the way so many haters online and in print are.

I recall a challenge John Mellencamp issued to haters years ago. “You make your best rock record and I’ll make mine,” he said, “and then we’ll compare the two.”

The point is well taken. Criticizing is easy. Creating enduring art isn’t. And making an attempt at making authentic art gives us greater appreciation for all who do—regardless of the relative failure that results.

And it will fail. Everything does—particularly art. I understand this all too well. As Joyce Carol Oats observed, “The artist, perhaps more than any other person, inhabits failure.”

This same sentiment is echoed in a remark by TS Eliot. When someone commented to him that most critics are failed writers, he responded, “So are most writers.” I would say all. It’s just some books fail less than others.

My approach to this column has been to reflect on life and meaning as I’m inspired by exemplary works of art, and with few exceptions—a few books and movies so bad I had to comment or mediocre works that nonetheless provoked thoughts I felt worth sharing—I’ve done just that, which casts me in the role of appreciater far more than criticizer.

But the state of Hollywood movies in general, and summer movies in particular, is so bad, I’m compelled to write about it, so, having said all the above, I will now step out of my role as appreciater and into the ill-fitting clothes of criticizer.

What’s wrong with Hollywood?

It all comes down to character and story. We come to movies wanting an experience of what it means to be human. Whether in ordinary or extraordinary circumstances, we hunger for humanity—everything else is secondary. Everything—visuals, stunts, explosions, chases, spectacles. What’s missing is humanity—people we can relate to in credible (if extraordinary or even unrealistic) situations.
And here’s why: money.

Art for profit becomes entertainment. Entertainment produced to make the most money possible becomes hollow, shallow, silly, bloodless, lifeless.

Like politics and our “free” market, greed has largely spoiled the entertainment industry. Blockbuster-driven studios produce absurdly big budget movies that, like other entities in our society are “too big to fail,” and so try to be all things to all people, attempting an even more watered-down version of what worked before.

Sure, there are still a few auteurs around working within the studios, but most are forced to make independent films—something becoming increasingly difficult to do, with fewer and fewer means of distribution.

In the same way chain stores, blockbuster and celebrity books have negatively impacted publishing, cineplexes, blockbuster movies, and star vehicles have hurt the film industry.


Here’s my Top 10 list of What’s Wrong with Hollywood.


1. Illiteracy. Too many people at the top making the biggest decisions don’t read—not books and not even the scripts they’re greenlighting.


2. Gatekeepers. Interns are doing most of the reading, writing coverage, and, therefore, deciding.


3. Risk aversion. Art can’t be made without risk.


4. Money. See above. Things are out of balance. Too much business, not enough show.


5. Sequels. Enough!


6. Old TV shows. Even if something happened to work as a television show, chances are it won’t as a film. TV and film are different mediums—and it has little to do with the relative size of the screen.


7. Video games. Really? Really?


8. Pyrotechnics over people. If we don’t care about your characters, we’ll soon be bored with your explosions.


9. Skewing tween. By attempting to make PG-13 movies for adults that appeal to tweens, too, you do neither.


10. 3D. Gimmicks can’t distract us from seeing that you have only cardboard characters and a preposterous plot—and having to see that in 3D just makes our heads ache all the more.