Why films either 'suck' or they're 'cool'

Anne Billson

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 7 July 2011

Since when did liking or not liking become the standard by which a film should be judged? Many's the time I've shared my feelings about a movie with friends, only for them to come back with, "Yes, but did you like it?" As though that were the only criterion! I've probably learned more about film-making from incompetent, badly written rom-coms than from any amount of perfectly constructed masterpieces. I've glimpsed extraordinary visions in otherwise awful films (one of my all-time favourite scenes is the upside-down severed head used as a slide projector in Wild Wild West), and cringe-making missteps in otherwise wonderful movies. But the signs are that we increasingly prefer criticism reduced to thumbs-up or thumbs-down. Star ratings, I'm told, are massively popular, though I can only goggle with disbelief as internauts throw tantrums because the reviewer on a film website has awarded Thor three stars instead of four.

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