Movies have fascinated me for as long as I can remember, going all the way back to the first movies that I remember watching - The Wizard of Oz and Gremlins. I've always loved the meticulous nature that they have, the character arcs, the three-act structure, the clearly outlined way that they go about telling a story that differs wildly from the episodic format of television. I grew up on Star Wars and Indiana Jones, eventually discovering Jason Voorhees which led to a lifelong love affair with horror movies that was detailed endlessly in this blog. But I wanted more. I wanted to know why movies made me feel the way that they did, which is what led me to going to the library ('memba those?) and checking out the book that you can see above in handy-dandy .jpg format.
I don't think it can be stated enough how much of an influence that one single decision from my youth has had on my life. I absolutely scoured that book, looking up all of the big horror franchises that were just outside of my reach as a sixth-grader like tantalizing hanging fruit. From there I flipped through the book, A-Z, reading the reviews for all of the films that I'd heard of. Then I read the reviews of the films that I hadn't. Fascinating story, I know. But I dug in, taking note of directors, actors and screenwriters, picking up on the people that the man I knew as the fat thumbs-up thumbs-down guy on TV seemed to think were better. I didn't know who John Carpenter, Martin Scorsese or Orson Welles were before perusing that tome. But I found out. More than anything, reading those reviews taught me to pay attention to a film's opening credits. For this lesson alone, Roger Ebert was indisputably the man, no matter how bad his notorious takes on '80s slasher films were.
Sometimes I think about what ol' Mr. Ebert would think about the state of film criticism today. I didn't always agree with him...but he was genuine. Film criticism is anything but genuine these days. Example 1: Ghostbusters 2016. To quote Ebert's heir apparent Richard Roeper on this film, there is no way that such a clear majority of educated film critics saw this mess of a movie and thought that it was a solid, well-made update of a legendary comedy. Example 2: Dave Chappelle's Sticks and Stones. Really? Such a consensus of reviewers thought it was bad and unfunny? Of course not - they knew what they had to write to keep their jobs. Example 3: Superhero movies and the never-ending Fast and Furious franchise. You know, it wasn't that long ago when the film critics of the world would have been calling these things out for what they are - soulless cash grabs that continue to exist long after they've exhausted their artistic merit. But now they all get like 90+% on Rotten Tomatoes. Almost as if the corporate movie industry with television, media and critics under their umbrella depend on them doing well.
Cinema is supposed to be challenging. It is supposed to push the
envelope, to make you feel uncomfortable, to shake you to your core at its
best and make you wish you were anywhere else in the world at its worst.
Modern cinema is anything but challenging, playing it achingly safe, going along with the official approved narrative in a never-ending slew of remakes, reboots and sequels.
I wanted something different from the official approved narrative. I wanted movies that challenged me. Armed with a subscription to the Criterion Channel and about $150 worth of new Blu-rays, I set about watching classic movies. There were three rules when it came to selecting the films: (1) They had to be movies that I'd never seen before; (2) They had to have a reputation of quality, whatever my goofy subjective definition of that is; and (3) One film per director.
If you've read my reviews before (again, all three of you), you know what to expect. If you don't, Lickness is the name, eight paragraphs is the game. I'm not stuck up, I'm not PC, and I'm not overly analytical. But I'm totally, 100% honest.
Oh, and we're grading these movies the classic way. The only way that I've ever graded them - the Ebert scale, which goes something like this:
* - Poor
** - Fair
*** - Good
**** - Excellent
Get ready for a trip through the history of cinema, as best as a schlubby factory worker can convey it. Read up. If I mention films, film-makers, film terms, or actors that you've never heard of, Google them. Challenge yourself. Time to be like Alex.
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