Posted by C2FThom at edutopia.mpsaz.org on March 24, 2004 at 15:02:14:
These critics... Do they write from Mad Libs? Because it seems like they all drew from the same pile of adjectives and metaphors and put them in the same order. If I hear the words "a very special episode" one more time, and it's not attached to the front of a Different Strokes rerun, I'm gonna drive someone through with a shishkabob poker.
I run a movie review website--Smart-Popcorn.com--and I *try* to be a good critic. In truth, I know I have biases specific opinions that filter into my reviews, which (ideally) they shouldn't. But good grief... If one of our critics submitted something NOT ONLY so slanted but so cookie-cutter a review, there'd probably be a lot of debate before we'd even decide to approve it--if we were to.
My fear is the press has lined up against Kevin after all the support he tried to offer Ben & Jen when they were primary targets. Maybe not. Maybe there's just no room for anything warm & fuzzy in Hollywood these days. (How are the dime a dozen action flicks so much better received?)
But there *CAN* be some positivity drawn from this. So they aren't buying Kev's new film, a simpler, more personal tale than his previous work. That's too bad. But if Kev were any other director (or at least a lesser known director), they wouldn't be putting in this amount of effort to critique it. If they're so disappointed in JG, that must mean they've thought pretty highly of Kevin's work in the past, even when they wouldn't admit it. (It'd be interesting to see how many of these current "naysayers" who are praising his previous work were naysayers back when those films came out.)
Oh well. I'm going to be in a seat watching Jersey Girl on opening night, and will try to get my own review up shortly thereafter. I'll be honest; if I don't like the film, I won't sugarcoat my review. But I promise I'll write from my own original thoughts either way, and not just stamp my review out from the same cookie-cutters everyone else is using.