What's Good Enough?

I just saw the movie musical Romance & Cigarettes. It's a John Turturro film starring Kate Winslet, James Gandolfini, Susan Sarandon, Mandy Moore, Steve Buscemi, Christopher Walken, Eddie Izzard, Mary Louise Parker, and Amy Sedaris. How could you go wrong with a cast like that? It's a movie with a troubled past, though, made in 2005 but not seen in theaters until 2007. The Coen brothers have an executive producer credit on it.

Roger Ebert loved this movie (it has a 49% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes), and I've respected his opinion on a number of movies, so I saw it, based partly on the quote associated with the movie publicity. The film was mostly terrible. There was a story there, but it got cluttered up with these musical numbers. And the songs weren't even originals. They were cover tunes with the original singer's voice in the background and the character from the movie singing along. I generally dislike movie musicals that resurface existing material. Give us something new. I don't mind songs by artists contributing to a movie, but if it's a musical, I want original numbers. There is something novel to Christopher Walken vamping to Tom Jones's "Delilah" but there isn't enough to warrant sitting through this whole movie for a little bit of fun hidden inside a musical number somewhere.

Susan Sarandon had a couple of good scenes--one with James Gandolfini and one with Mandy Moore. Gandolfini got better with his character as he aged.

It shocks me that anyone would rave about this movie though. I remember seeing Joe Versus the Volcano (57% positive reviews) in college. Another movie that I absolutely hated. Surprisingly enough--I just looked it up--Roger Ebert liked this movie too. Maybe I need to reassess my opinion of Roger Ebert.

If I take the time to revisit Joe Versus the Volcano now, at a different time in my life, will my opinion be changed? Was I less keen at a younger age to the satire that some of the critics have pointed out in their reviews? I just remember hating the movie. And I don't often watch a movie more than once.

What it comes down to is my belief that a piece of criticism is as much about the critic as it is about the movie, song, play, work of art, that he or she is criticizing. I generally like Web sites like rottentomatoes.com and metacritic.com that present an aggregate review rating. I still have hopes that at some point they will allow you to rate movies and discover critics who are aligned with your own tastes in movies. Is there another critic out there who hated Romance & Cigarettes and Joe Versus the Volcano and loved Talk to Her and Zelig and loved and hated other movies that I have loved and hated? I know that I could look these up for individual reviewers, but it would be nice if the application did it for me. Flixster on Facebook allows you to do this among friends, but I'd like to match my opinions against reviewers and find the critics who are more my movie soulmates. I'm sure at some point, the powers-that-be will allow for that.

I don't see too many terrible movies because too often I do look for some review about the movie before I see it. I'll still see something regardless of the reviews if I'm interested in the subject, but often I am looking for an opinion to get me to go. No one needs to tell me not to see The Pacifier or White Chicks though.

I did love Tommy Boy (58% positive reviews) and will soon introduce myself to Zoolander (63% positive reviews), which people have seemed to either loved or hated.

It boggles my mind that some of what I hate was actually made though and boggles my mind even further when someone actually liked it.

It just gives credence to that old cliche. "One man's trash is another man's treasure" ...