I just finished reading Anne Applebaum’s “History Will Judge The Complicit,” an Atlantic article about the differences between go-along collaborators vs. independent contrarians in politics, and with a particular focus on once semi-respectable Republicans who’ve abandoned principle by kowtowing to The Beast.
But the following passage also applies, I feel, to go-along film critics who routinely give thumbs-up reviews to films that they know deep down are mediocre, substandard or worse. One of the motivating factors in handing out “easy lay” reviews is that it feels comforting and almost peaceful to do so.
Here’s how Applebaum describes the mentality:
