Any half-honest film critic or columnist (a few actually exist) will admit the truth of things, which is that roughly 75% or 80% of commercial features have problems of varying degrees and are therefore a drag to wade through, some more than others.
On a year-by-year basis, how many films tend to be really and truly primal on some level…imbued with grace and poetry and levitational perception? Less than 5%…hell, closer to 3%. And that’s just the way it is. Fear inhibits receptivity. Inspiration is fleeting, sporadic…comes and goes.
But most critics, terrified of sounding like old-fart sourpusses, tend to slip on their ballet shoes and dance around the groaning reality when they write their reviews. That’s the basic difference between Hollywood Elsewhere and the Scott Mantz congregation. I don’t dance. Or at least I try not to.
