Quote of the Week

There’s a place for digging into The Grapes of Wrath during a catastrophe like the Dust Bowl. Of course. But there’s also a place for Swing Time, and Swing Time may be even more important because it gives hope, it allows them to forget – and during that space of forgetting, they remember themselves and better times, and it gives them strength to go on.

It’s funny how people who claim to be Experts in film don’t get this, don’t understand the history, and … even more importantly … don’t seem to understand PEOPLE. How can you not understand human beings and consider yourself qualified to write about a popular artform like the movies?
--Sheila O'Malley, "Watch What You Want. Find Comfort Where You Can," The Sheila Variations, April 1, 2020.

Why Good People See Bad Movies

I suspect most good people go to see bad movies for the same reason they do a lot of stuff that's not good for them: they are seeking escape. Escape from their problems. Escape from the world. Escape from the boss from Hell and the co-worker from Hades.

And sometimes... they find it.

For two hours--or at least ninety minutes -- they get to get caught up with or laugh at someone else's problems and shortcomings for a change. Never mind that the acting isn't always brilliant or the writing all that perfect -- it's the escape from reality that matters.

It would be nice to pretend that someday soon people are going to stop doing this and seek only good movies. But that's not likely.

Sturgeon's Law ("Ninety percent of anything is crap") alone dictates that there's always going to be a certain number of bad movies made and that there always will be. Plus it's obvious from even a brief visit to the average movie messageboard that even smart, well-educated people can disagree on what constitutes a good movie -- or at least one worth watching.

In light of all that, the true wonder is not that so many bad movies are so popular but that so many good movies actually get made.