“I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore.”
Contrarians of earth: Please, for the love of all that is holy, stop writing about Inception.
This happens every time people start going apeshit about something. Suddenly, haters sprout up like weeds bashing it, griping about how overrated it is, writing long diatribes about how much they hate it. People, like myself, rave about how much they love Inception and then other people actually spend time writing about how no one anywhere should ever love it, under any circumstances.
Stop wasting everyone’s time, especially your own. Instead, use all that energy and passion raving about something that’s better, something you feel is more worthwhile.
First, to the general problems I have with hating on movies to begin with.
Movies are an art form, a creative medium, and watching a movie is a subjective experience. We can pretend all we want that our claims about the movies we love and the movies we hate are objective facts, but it just isn’t true. The mood we are in, the people we are with, the audience at the theater for that particular showing, some random chemicals firing in our head, all sorts of crazy subconscious shit bubbling up unbeknownst to us… there are an endless number of factors influencing how we feel about a film (or about anything for that matter).
So, why does it make you so angry that you want to prove to the people who love something that they are deluded and weak-minded? It’s insane. What bothers you so much about people who love Slumdog Millionaire, or Juno, or Crash?
The most common argument I’ve seen is that the contrarians are film advocates, that they are just steamed that subpar films are getting attention over great films. Bullshit. If that was the case, why are you wasting more ink on the film you hate, thus giving it more attention?!? Sure, make snarky comments with your friends, make fun of it in passing while you are writing about something else, but how much energy do you really want to expend trying to rain on someone else’s parade? Why would you want to rain on someone else’s parade to begin with? They are having a fucking parade, be happy for them!
Instead of whining and complaining, make a commitment that every time you see a [insert movie you hate here] article, you are going to write about Kurosawa and Wenders, or rave about Korean cinema, or try to get everyone to watch your favorite unrecognized movie. That, my friends, is advocacy. Negativity and criticism advocates nothing but negativity and criticism.
Also, why does it seem that everything written whining about a movie being generic and derivative is written so… well, generically and derivatively. You are going to complain about a movie being uninspired drivel by writing your own uninspired drivel? Come, again. (That’s what she said.)
Now, on to my problems with people complaining about Inception specifically. The complaints about Inception are particularly baffling. Sure, there are some people who hate it, but most of the people debating it are debating whether or not is a masterpiece, or just really good.
Really?!?
To quote Eli Cash, “Why would a reviewer make the point of saying someone’s not a genius? Do you especially think I’m not a genius?”
I’m pretty smart, and unquestionably passionate about the things I love. I could come up with a bunch of pretty solid arguments and big words to prove Inception was brilliant, then you could use similarly solid arguments and big words to prove it wasn’t. The question is, why? We both like it, why are we going to argue about just how much one should really like it? Talk about minutia. It’s the epitome of insipid. Let’s just get it out of the way now, if you want to spend time trying to convince me Inception wasn’t great, I’m not interested.
However, to briefly rave about the film a bit more, it is brilliant storytelling. Without spoiling it with specifics, there is a particular moment in the film where a large number of people at our screening made audible noises. Not out of fear, or disgust, but because they were so engaged in the story. Nolan told a heady, complicated story, and still had a cinema full of Americans involuntarily making noises because they were not only following along, but were on the edge of their proverbial seat (actually, my friend Austin sat in front of me, and there were times he was on the edge of his literal seat). I thought that maybe this phenomenon was unique to my viewing, or to my city, but as it would turn out, Warner Bros. has been pulling down video from the internet where viewers were using cell phones to document theaters full of people making noise at the exact same moment all across the country. To quote our vice president, that’s a big fucking deal.
Okay, back to my diatribe. I guess the thing that bothers me so much about this is how much energy people put into being negative. It’s really easy to hate on stuff, it’s lazy. Our culture actually says you are smart because you can critically tear something apart. That’s just not true. Tearing something apart is simple. Building something up is hard. You actually put yourself on the line when you praise something, that’s scary. Throwing temper tantrums because all the other kids like stuff that you don’t like is, well, you know.
I have tons more to say about this, but I’m going to stop for now. Suffice it to say that I implore you to put something positive into the world instead of being so negative.
Learn to advocate the things you love with more passion than you bitch about the things you hate.
