The Men Who Stare at Stinkers

I wanted to go to a movie, and let me first say that just about every one out lately sucks. There have been a couple of good ones, but I’m going to ignore them because they’re not as fun to write about.

I went to Fandango to check out what was on and the reviews. What’s amazing to me is that the reviews are all over the place. One movie fan says, “This is the funniest movie ever,” and the next one says, “don’t waste your money, wait for the DVD.”

I could understand if these reviews were in the middle, like “it’s not a great movie but it’s a lot better than cleaning the toilet.” Then you know that it’s nothing to get excited about but something good enough to pass for entertainment. But when the reviews are so far to the left and right, who can you believe?

I also get confused about the professional critics at the LA Times, Variety, and USA Today. For instance, I read the LA Times’ review of “The Men Who Stare at Goats.” I read the whole review and can’t tell if it’s a movie worth seeing or not. The only thing clear is that they like George Clooney. Well, so do I, and he’s almost enough of a draw that I’d go see anything he’s in, except that I don’t quite trust him anymore. He was in “Burn After Reading,” a movie I thought was beyond stupid.

Which leads me to my main complaint about some movies. They try so hard to do something new and different, and if it’s really really different, the critics will praise it just because it’s not the same drivel they see all the time. They’ll give the movie a good review even if the director thinks a plot is something in a cemetery, even if the story is remarkably unbelievable, and even if the characters act bizarre just for the sake of acting bizarre. In other words, in my and the rest of the sane world’s opinion, the movie stinks, but the critics love it.

Sometimes the reviews are obviously slanted to favor a movie. Maybe the critic is getting a kickback. You see this a lot on DVD’s. There will be some glowing remark like, “the best movie of the year” and then the reviewer will be in microscopic letters under it, and it will be someone like, “The North Dakota Plains Mostly Monthly Observer.” My favorite, though, are those movies released at the first of the year and someone reviews them, saying, “One of the top 10 movies of 2009.” There have only been 4 movies released so far, and this one is so bad it can’t even make the top 5 list.

Well, enough griping about movies. We’re going to see “Couples Retreat” which promises, according to the fan reviews, to be both a “laugh out loud comedy” and a “complete waste of time.” But it sounds better than “The Men Who Stare at Goats,” because of these telling reviews by fans: “this movie suct really bad,” “This movie was beyond horrible!” “This movie would be declared cruel and unusual punishment if shown to Guantanamo inmates,” “a stinker of gigantic prortions,” “Pointless yawner and time waster,” “I want my money back.” See? These kind of reviews I can trust. Sorry George. You may be pretty, but I’ll stick with watching you again in “Brother, Where Art Thou?” Now that was a fine movie, and you were brilliant every time you said, “My hair!” Can’t you please get Hollywood to wise up and give us a good, quirky, entertaining story to spend our hard earned money on? We’re counting on you. And quit taking parts in these lousy movies, it’s not fair to us women who have to give up the eye candy because we don’t want to be pistol whipped by a lousy plot.