“I Just Don’t Get It” – The Critics and Inception

As various critics annoyingly yet predictably rip Inception apart one has to yet again marvel at the silly way a film is brought down the pike, Oscar-wise.

It is as fun and easy to make fun of critics as it is fun and easy to write a bad review about a great film. ¬†I’ve seen it again and again, year after year, only to discover that Lo! The films the critics were so hot and heavy for are non-starters for lasting impact while the ones they trashed often go on to be heralded as some of the best films released in a given decade.

The situation was set up improperly. ¬†Critics are the elders of the tribe. ¬†They see themselves as a cut above everyone else but more than that, they have to see themselves as above the bloggers because, goddamned it, not just any old person can have the keen insight they have and not just any old person can write about film, define film, set a film’s place in history the way they can. ¬†And for the most I agree with that, which is why I’m one of the few bloggers who sees critics and bloggers not being created equally. ¬†Except that this time they are wrong. ¬†Just flat out wrong.

So far, Movieline’s Stephanie Zacharek (mostly never gets it), David Edelstein and Rex Reed have trashed the film, while Entertainment Weekly Lisa Scharzbaum gives at least admits that you can’t get it all the first through. She begins her review with, “Beware the critic who claims the ability to analyze¬†Inception authoritatively after one viewing.” ¬†And she’s right. ¬†There is much of the film that has to be gotten with repeated viewings.

This is, probably, a slap in the face, or smack-down to bloggers. ¬†This is the only logical explanation. ¬†For how can it be that something as daring and innovative as this, as imaginative and original as this, a film that represents the polar opposite of the kind of shitacular movies coming out of the major studios now – where everything is tested to death and dumbed down to the lowest possible demo — how is it possible that any self-respecting critic would not stand up and applaud what Nolan has done?

Is this really the way they want to confront the new?  Yeah, uh, good luck with that.

Meanwhile, Ebert is all over that shit, gives the film four stars.