If you enjoy this post, please retweet it.
I’ve been itching to watch the movie, Venom, for quite some time and finally watched it. It didn’t disappoint. Make no mistake about it: This isn’t something like the MCU that hides superb acting and writing within a fantasy-action film. It is what it is, but what it is is a lot of fun. Why else do you go to the movies except to have fun? Sometimes action is all you need.
Professional movie reviewers (the pre-internet world’s “influencers”) disagree. According to Rotten Tomatoes, Venom’s approval ratings are 80% for real people and only 29% for movie reviewers. Even politicians aren’t that out-of-touch with the people they serve. Seriously, how do these people have jobs? Who’s paying them?
From a purely artistic (not financial) standpoint, you can’t say a movie shouldn’t have been made unless absolutely no one likes it. Otherwise, it has artistic value. Movie reviewers shouldn’t be writing their reviews from the perspective of their own subjective point of view. They should put their egos and snark aside and focus on to whom the movie might appeal based on its themes and genre. Then the reader can predict whether or not it will appeal to them. That would be useful. That’s what I try to do with my writing, but I’m not a talented creative writer, so the professionals should do that.
I saw a play at Arena Stage decades ago, and one of the lines that always stuck with me was, “I don’t want to see one of those foreign films you like. If I wanted to read, I’d have stayed home with a book.” The speaker was talking to someone who should have become a movie reviewer. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a book, and there’s nothing wrong with seeing a film with subtitles, but sometimes you don’t want either.
If a critic wants to assign a rating to a movie (i.e., one star, two star, etc.), that’s fine; we can all ignore it. But to do their job correctly, their review must disclose the genre and themes of the movie so that each of us can make an informed decision as to whether the movie will likely interest us (or our children, if applicable). Those are the only opinions that matter to each of us.
Sometimes you just want to see someone get his head bitten off. Venom delivered. It was fun.
Follow me on Twitter @gsllc (please retweet!)
Follow Venom @VenomMovie
Follow Starz at @STARZ
Follow Sony Pictures @SonyPictures
Follow Arena Stage @ArenaStage
Spoiler Alert!
.
.
.
There’s only one thing about the movie that stood out that I didn’t like: The typical comic book trope of a villain having the same powers as the hero. But hell; it’s an origin story. I’m looking forward to the next one.
[…] you just want to see someone get their head bit off. If that’s your current mood, this may be your […]
LikeLike
[…] Los Angeles just returned to Netflix. Rotten Tomatoes reports a score of 36 from the film critics (who mean nothing to me) and 48 from the audience. That means, to the population at large, it sucks. I don’t care. I […]
LikeLike
[…] I know. With Rotten Tomatoes scores of 26 from the critics (who mean nothing to me) and 45 from the audience, Green Lantern isn’t exactly well-loved, but if it were, it […]
LikeLike
[…] has Rotten Tomatoes scores of 19 from the critics (who mean nothing to me) and 31 from the audience, which is even worse than Green Lantern. Go figure. Like Green Lantern, […]
LikeLike
[…] Tron: Legacy is actually a guilty pleasure. Rotten Tomatoes reports scores of 51 from the critics (who I don’t care about) and 63 from the audience. The 63 is technically a good score, but just barely. Still, I suspect it […]
LikeLike
[…] Tomatoes reports scores of 38 from the critics (who I don’t care about) and 49 from the audience, both of which are rotten scores. Nemesis is certainly a guilty pleasure, […]
LikeLike
[…] its own path. For what it’s worth, its scores on Rotton Tomatoes are 77% from the critics (who don’t matter to me; well, usually), and 89% from the audience. These aren’t as good as the 85%/93% the Shining […]
LikeLike
[…] Over on Rotten Tomatoes, the Clash of the Titans remake earned scores of 27% from the critics (who cares?) and 40% from the audience, but I’m one of the 40% that liked […]
LikeLike
[…] night was a long-overdue quarantine watch party for Venom. I’ve mentioned Venom before, but these are my viewing notes for the […]
LikeLike
[…] Clearly, the same thing is true of movies and TV shows, though it’s anymore complex analysis. Certain themes draw some of us in that may leave others uninspired. These often override any objective measures of filmmaking (though these measures are still important). After all, I liked Green Lantern. Because movie and TV critics tend to arrogantly think that their opinions are objective truths, I never listen to them. […]
LikeLike
[…] as I’ve said before, you shouldn’t care about someone else’s opinion about a show unless you understand why […]
LikeLike
[…] the end of an era. TL;DR: A brutal review of Clash of the Titans by a dense, visionless critic (not my favorite group of people) writing for Variety drowned out the positive reviews and disheartened Harryhausen. This was the […]
LikeLike
[…] that implicitly claims that a show is good or bad based on some make-believe objective standard. I hate that pretentious nonsense. Whether or not you like a movie, song, TV show, or food is purely subjective. Instead, my approach […]
LikeLike