An Epically Crappy Weekend and Roeper Returns!

I wish I could say that I have a great reason for the lack of posting over the last week, but the reality is that I'm simply still trying to recover from a weekend in which Norbit (staring Eddie Murphy, Eddie Murphy! and Eddie Murphy!!!) not only took home the top spot, but brought in $34 million. I would say that everyone who attended a screening of the film should be ashamed of themselves, but clearly, they have no shame.

Going into the February 2nd weekend I joked that we might be looking at a new all time low for combined Rotten Tomatoes scores among the weekend's top five films, the previous all time low having been set the weekend before at 23.8%. Well guess what, I was right. Headlined by The Messengers, my predicted number one, that weekend had a combined 18.8% on RT. Pretty good right?

But those poor films hadn't reckoned on the sheer awfulness of Norbit. Like a slow motion car-wreck, involving a fat-suit of course, Norbit led an even classier group of five films that captured audiences' attention with a combined 18.6% score at Rotten Tomatoes. Let me be the first to congratulate Norbit, Hannibal Rising, Because I Said So, The Messengers and Night at the Museum. You accomplished something terrifically crappy this past weekend, and now no one can take that away from you. (Sidenote: Night at the Museum somewhat artificially inflated each of the past two weeks scores with its 45% rating. Otherwise, the top four from both weeks would have come in at a staggering 12.3 and 12 respectively.)

It's also been some time since we visited with our good friend Richard Roeper. Now, it almost seems hard to believe, but Rotten Tomatoes has only uploaded five new Roeper reviews in the past month. What is this man doing all day? I mean, I understand he's a big time columnist and all, but doesn't he realize there's a nation of movie-goers who count on his sterling words of wisdom and insight? Even more upsetting is the fact that he wasn't sent to watch any of the real pieces of shit everyone seems so intent on paying money to see. No Epic Movie, no Because I Said So, no Norbit, not even any Messengers. Utterly unbelievable. But without further ado, here's a somewhat tardy version of This Week in Roeper:

• Alpha Dog - "Justin Timberlake has what it takes to be a genuine movie star."


• Arthur and the Invisibles - "Strange and kind of meandering."


• Alone With Her - "Alone With Her plays like an extended voyeur video with nothing new to say about hidden cameras or stalkers or anything."


• Catch And Release - "I was pleasantly surprised."


• Seraphim Falls - "Though the chase threatens to go on too long, the suspense remains high because we don’t know which man is the real villain, or if there’s a villain at all."

How Not to Review a Genre Film

January tends to be the dumping ground for a lot of forgotten films. Studios want them out the door, and hope they'll make a little money, as they recoup the expenses of their end-of-year, award season marketing binges. While this type of thing might bother the Richard Roeper's of the world, it's a goddamn goldmine for horror film fans. This week we're treated to The Hitcher.

Now, I enjoyed the Hitcher, it wasn't the finest film ever made by any measure, but it was an entertaining little ditty that put you on the edge of your seat a number of times and served up a heaping spoonful of that sweet, sweet genre pleasure. I don't want to spend too much time talking about the movie though, because honestly, you know if you want to see it, and if you don't, there's not a whole lot that I can say that would change your mind.

What I am interested in however, is the critical response to the film, because it's in that response that we see a really pathetic level of understanding for how a genre film works, and what exactly it's supposed to do. This will be a common theme around these parts, and I'll try to spread the love evenly, but this week's offender is Jeffrey Anderson of Cinematical.

Mr. Anderson writes one of the silliest, most worthless reviews in recent memory. He also manages to wield a wholly undeveloped sense of the genre. More than anything else, it is this failing that undermines everything he writes.

Obviously, his review is negative, in fact it's resoundingly negative. But that really isn't the problem. As Harry at AICN shows, you don't have to like the film, but a valueable reviewer will at least examine it on its own terms. In the interest of thoroughness, let's take one paragraph, line by line:

In any case, we get one of those scenes in which the lovers cruise through the pouring rain at night, and they talk and the guy gazes over at his lady love for such a long time that you wonder: who's driving the car? During this moment -- predictably -- they nearly hit someone standing in the road. Jim wants to help, but Grace urges him to drive away. At the next rest stop Grace takes so long in the bathroom (a running joke -- ha ha) that the guy catches up to them. Guilty, they give him a ride this time, he tries to kill them, and they boot him out of the car. He winds up with Grace's cell phone, but the script forgets all about this potentially scary element.

This is just a sample from Mr. Anderson's incisive little ditty. The emphases are clearly mine, so let's look at each in turn.

1. "One of those scenes" - Ok, nice start here. Anderson has identified a convention, and now he'll describe how it functions to heighten our pleasure. Oh, he doesn't do that? He was being facecious? That's a shame, for a second, I thought he knew what he was talking about.
2. "Predictably" - Guess what. Predictability is the point. If, at some level, we as an audience didn't know and expect what was going to happen, then we wouldn't get the same kick. That scene's cache is premised on our expectation of that exact thing happening.
3. "A running joke--ha ha" - Mr. Anderson, stop, god, your wit is killing me! Just so funny! Unfortunately, he created this whole thing in his head. Grace goes to the bathroom, an average viewer probably didn't even notice she was gone. She has to go to the bathroom. There's no gag. Move on.

4. "This potentially scary element" - I don't even know what the hell he's talking about here. Grace loses her cell phone, it's a necessary plot element. It explains why they can't call anyone later in the film. I fail to see how this could have been scary at any level. Should Ryder have sent text messages to Grace's friends? That would have been scary!

It's pretty clear that Mr. Anderson has little to no understanding of how genre functions to inform our viewing of a movie like The Hitcher. But even more embarrassing, we can only assume that he went into this movie expecting not some run of the mill popcorn scare ride, but instead some sort of cinematic achievement. It's a fucking horror movie! Like any rational human, I would never argue that the movie is deserving of any Oscar nominations, but to fail to appreciate the movie as a successful purveyor of genre pleasure is just unacceptable. It's idiots like Mr. Anderson that pollute the world with uneducated opinions about things they just don't understand.