Don't Shoot The Messenger

Normally I am a big fan of movies which promise a lot of action but so far I haven't found myself in any great hurry to see the new movie, "Lone Survivor." This is for a variety of reasons, the biggest of which is that going to the movies isn't particularly fun anymore. I used to enjoy seeing a film up on the big screen as the filmmaker intended but these days there are so many people who spend the entire movie texting, talking on their phones or bring small children to R-rated movies that it ruins the experience and with the advances in home theater systems you probably only need to see very specific movies (like "Gravity") on the big screen. Another reason that I haven't made plans to go see this movie as of right now is that I kind of feel it will be depressing. For those of you who don't know this movie is based on a book of the same name about a SEAL team which went in with the mission of capturing a high-ranking terrorist and found themselves severely out-numbered. Their plan was to try and escape but they could not so they instead were forced to stand their ground and fight. As you may have guessed from the title, it didn't work out for three of the four of them. Everyone I have talked to who has seen the movie has said the entire theater walked out with this shell-shocked look on their faces and I like my movies to be more upbeat than that. I don't always need a super-fun happy ending but I don't want to walk out feeling sad. Still, I'm sure I will eventually see this movie because from all accounts it is great. However, this week we all learned once again that not all movie reviews are created equally.

If you have seen a commercial for this movie than you probably heard it advertised along with a review which dubbed it, "The greatest war movie since "Saving Private Ryan"." Now, movie reviewers have a habit of going for hyperbole so this is not the most outrageous claim ever but the issue is apparently in who said it. You see, it came from Grantland's Bill Simmons who is primarily a sportswriter. He is also Grantland's editor-in-chief which is why he was there when the studio screen the movie for the site's entertainment writers. Apparently he was very enthusiastic when talking to director Peter Berg after the show was over and Berg asked if they could use the quote for the advertisement. Simmons agreed, never knowing the studio would make his quote the center of the entire campaign. Now there are people out there wondering just who the hell Bill Simmons is to make this kind of statement while I am left wondering what the big deal is. I have never made my feelings towards movie critics (or critics of any kind, for that matter) a secret - I don't like them for the very simple reason of I don't think their opinion matters more than mine and the fact that they think it should is insane. Not only have the majority of them never made a film of their own, which means they have no experience to dwell on, but most of them were working in another department about two weeks ago and only found their way into this position because of layoffs or the regular reviewer going on maternity leave. It is not like you can train for this kind of thing - you just watch a free movie and tell people what you think - so what makes their opinion on a movie any more of less valid than Simmons's? If anything I would say as a producer of the "30 for 30" series he has more experience working with directors than the people who are so angry about his review being granted such exposure.

I guess if you wanted to take the other side of the argument you could point out that Simmons shouldn't be making such a claim because he obviously hasn't seen every war movie since "Saving Private Ryan" and thus couldn't make an accurate determination on "Lone Survivor"'s place in that hierarchy. Admittedly, that is the one area in which Simmons is lacking - he doesn't spend all day, every day going to screeners and there is something to be said for having that kind of mental catalog at your disposal. However, I would argue that his is the kind of fresh perspective the movie industry has been lacking. Far too often I see movie reviewers on TV and they hate everything. Not that I blame them because the simple fact of the matter is that even if your job is as sweet as going see all the new movies eventually you will start to resent the very idea of films. It's the nature of the world - no matter how cool your job may be eventually it will become like any other job on the planet, which is to say there will be days you hate it (I assume those are the days you screen the new Adam Sandler movie). As I mentioned at the top I don't really like going to theaters anymore and I only do it once in a while. I would have to imagine it is hard to do that every day and then try to leave that bias at the door and go into a movie without with an open mind. It is not a stretch to think that a few of these movie reviewers made up their mind about hating a movie before they ever got to the theater. When you think about it like that the idea of a guy who normally watches basketball for hours on end and is truly excited to see a new movie becomes exactly the kind of person I want reviewing my movies for me.

Also, I want to point out that if you have ever taken the time to read the affiliations some of these reviewers have the idea of a well-respected sportswriter giving a positive review to a movie seems downright logical. It is no secret that the worse a movie turns out the deeper they have to dig to find a positive quote to put in the advertisement and on more than one occasion a really bad movie has been accused of inventing a person and title just to make the review look authentic. Compared to that you can see why "Lone Survivor" would be happy to use Simmons' endorsement. I mean, Grantland is a large website and its staff has some major credentials. I would much rather hear what someone from that site has to say if the alternative is some guy from a 40-watt ABC affiliate in Wyoming, especially when you discover he may not even exists. And that is to say nothing of the trend of using Twitter reviews as if they carry real weight. (Comedy Central is notorious for doing this.) Look, I love Twitter but even I would be hard-pressed to take anything I saw on that medium seriously due to it's sarcastic nature and the fact that a third of the people on Twitter are high and another third of accounts are run by spam robots. I am happy to go there for the jokes but I would never be influenced by any review of a movie I ever saw there, I don't care how positive or negative it may be. Look, I'm not saying I want ESPN to add a movie review corner to "SportsCenter" but I would certainly rather hear Jalen Rose's thoughts on this year's Oscar races than hear a movie reviewer try and break down the NBA Eastern Conference.