Peter Bart movie reviews & film summaries

Jim Emerson  |  2007-03-23

"I will smite thee for being a dunderhead."

Or: That's Entertainment Reporting!

Have entertainment industry "reporters" lost all touch with the reality of the business they're supposedly covering? In a world where... "Entertainment Tonight," Entertainment Weekly, Variety, the New York and Los Angeles Times, the Star, the Inquirer, People, Gawker, Defamer, Perez Hilton and anybody else with a blog all recycle the same trivial non-stories, is there anything more overdone and superfluous than another entertainment reporter writing another trite, misconceived "trend piece" about (of all things) box office results?

OK, I'm being facetious. Kind of. Peter Bart, the editor of Variety -- who, it appears, has lost or at least misplaced his marbles -- started this latest round of "oh, the critics are out of touch" speculation (a non-story that will outlive all remaining film critics, just as it has the dead ones) last week with an inane diatribe worthy of, say, David O. Russell. (See how this stuff keeps getting recycled?) Bart wrote: In reviewing "300" last week... A.O. (Tony) Scott of the New York Times, said the movie was "as violent as 'Apocalypto' and twice as stupid."

That comment reflected the consensus among critics not only on "300" but also on "Ghost Rider," "Wild Hogs," "Norbit" and the other movie miscreants unleashed on the public since Oscar time.

The situation underscores yet again the disconnect between the cinematic appetites of critics vs. those of the popcorn crowd. The kids who storm their multiplexes to catch the opening of "Night at the Museum" don't give a damn what the critics think... Bart is four paragraphs into his piece and he's already writing in circles: The critics, he complains, don't like the big "popcorn" movies that are attended by kids who don't care what the critics think. So, the point is... what? What has changed over the last 80 years or so? Did the kids storming the multiplexes -- er, ornate movie palaces -- suddenly stop basing their moviegoing decisions on the New York Times reviews? (Bart neglects to mention that "300" got mostly positive reviews, and currently has a 61 percent favorable rating on RottenTomatoes -- and a 50 percent split decision among its "cream of the crop" critics, including those who write for the New York Times.) So, is Bart saying the disconnect is due to the fact that today's modern young a-go-go people don't read newspapers much anymore? Or that they used to pay attention to film critics, but now they don't?