For years this photo, taken somewhere in central London during a June 2013 press junket for Edgar Wright‘s The World’s End, has tickled my brain. I can’t get it out of my head. There’s something about the communal gaiety of these obedient Wright fanboys, ecstatic and euphoric about hanging with their hero + their place on the promotional gravy-train express…I keep coming back to it.

If only I’d managed to become (or at least simulate being) a Wright worshipper, I too might have been part of one of the most iconic (and odious?) Hollywood fraternity photos of the 20teens….if only I hadn’t triple-hated Scott Pilgrim vs. The World…if only Baby Driver (three-quarters of which I genuinely liked) had come out before The World’s End…a lot of variables.

Who am I kidding? I’ve never felt much of an aesthetic kinship with the fellows in this photo…well, now and then & here and there as it might be, depending on the film, but they’re basically genre & fantasy geeks and fools for Wright and I’ll never be either…and even if I’d been there I probably would have avoided posing for this shot, not being a drinker and all.

Wright might some day make another film that works as well as Baby Driver…maybe. Last Night in Soho sure as hell missed the mark in more ways than one, and so he’s “down” right now. But he’ll be back on his feet before long.

(l. to. r) Hitfix’s Drew McWeeny, Todd Brown of Twitch, Edgar Wright of A Fistful of Fingers, Harry Knowles of Ain’t It Cool News, Jordan Hoffman of Screencrush, Devin Faraci of Badass Digest, Germain Lussier of Slashfilm, Alex Billington of First Showing, Eric Vespe of Ain’t It Cool News, Silas Lesnick of Coming Soon and Steve “Frosty” Weintraub of Collider.

Generally speaking the disparity between critic and audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and IMDB is fairly consistent. More of than not it’s (a) critics are fine with a film but the audience isn’t or (b) vice versa.

How then to explain the different audience scores for Kenneth Branagh‘s Belfast? 91 on Rotten Tomatoes, 7.4 on IMDB, and 63 on Metacritic — a 28-point spread between Metacritic and RT!

Jordan Ruimy: “The readership for Metacritic tends to be a little more highbrow than Rotten Tomatoes.” More than a little, I’d say, when it comes to Belfast.

Critics mean nothing these days. 90% are woke sheep, herd mentality whores. Audience scores are what finally count in the end.

The opening of Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat (‘44) meets the spirit of Omicron Christmas.