To this reviewer’s way of thinking

Almost every mommyblogger had a paying job before becoming a blissfully content SAHM, and mine included reviewing movies. And books and theater and music. It really was the sweetest gig going. The movie screenings were typically on a Tuesday night, so they rarely interfered with important plans, but you were forced to see the movie with a theater full of the type of person who calls in to radio stations to win free tickets. And they came dressed in stretchy pants, sometimes with babies or toddlers in tow. Even to loud, violent R-rated movies. And they fought like pirhanas when the radio station morning crew asked movie trivia questions as they gave out posters and geegaws. They are what my friend Mary would call schufts. But, in all, not a bad trade for seeing movies for free. Not that free was the appeal back then, for when I worked for pay, $9 was no skin of my nose. Now it makes me go all elderly person and sputter, “Wha? Nine DOLLARS? Do you know I used to see Saturday matinees of ‘Grease’ for 99 cents? This is really some racket you have going here.”

I’d take a reporter’s notebook and a bright green felt-tip pen to scribble notes. You could occasionally see what you were writing in the dark when you used a green pen. I loved those pens – not too fine a tip, good ink flow – and even took a few boxes of them with me when I left my job. That was in 2005 and I still have a few of them still in operation. But I digress.

The next morning before I could get to work writing the review, I’d have a good chuckle looking over my notes, imagining the things I’d really like to say. I’d have to get that out of my system and write the standard 16-inch-column-inch long daily newspaper review, which included thorough mention of all the main characters (and the actors who played them and their other films), a hefty dose of plot, a sprinkling of dialogue and, at minimum, a nod to the director. They weren’t formulaic, exactly, but you were more or less required to cover all the bases. That made truly creative reviewing near impossible. The few times I tried to sneak what I felt was a really good review by, I was met with raised eyebrows. (If the review was a hit, those same editors congratulated themselves in a “Can I spot ‘em or can I spot ‘em?” sort of way.)

But as much as I liked reviewing – and felt I was in direct competition with every other reviewer critiquing that movie – I don’t much like reading reviews. I was eager to see what they “missed” (or what I missed), but I was always left thinking the writer gave away too much. Or that he was just too damn impressed with his own opinion. (Which of course wasn’t so much written as it was wrought, ornately.) Or, worst of all, that they were blurb-spouting shills who wrote expressly to be quoted in movie ad copy. (Yeah, Peter Travers. I’m looking at you.) I mean, what a bunch of gas bags.

These august reviewers have their fans. I had a friend who would actually start sentences with, “A.O. Scott said …” but it’s been roundly established the guy’s a thief. And a critic at my paper would faithfully repeat what Kenneth Turan said on NPR, just to build the platform from which to rip him a new one. I do like the way the bitchily venomous Anthony Lane reviews without an unwieldy regurgitation of plot. And while I think Manohla Dargis has just about the greatest byline in the world, she might be the guiltiest of the bunch.

They’re all working with an old business model. Most readers don’t give a rat’s patooty about the reviewer’s pedigree or his or her qualifications to make lofty pronouncements about this or that trend in cinema. Everyone knows the plot; they’ve seen the trailers. Keep your references to Norse mythology and tell me, Should I see it now in the theater or wait for Netflix? Is this a suitable date movie for the precious once a month your in-laws offer to watch the kids or will your husband hate it and hate you even more for dragging him to see it, making it a GNO pick?

So that’s what I endeavor to bring you with my movie reviews – news you can use. Or not. Maybe it will just be good reading, no spoilers. Unless something really chaps my hide. Then I reserve the right to spoil my ass off as I give the film the drubbing it so badly deserves.

One of the things I chafted at in my previous career of reviewing movies was the inability to go off on a tangent. Like, in the middling-at-best “Hanging Up”starring Meg Ryan, Diane Keaton and Lisa Kudrow, what the heck was with the saffron-colored roses? It’s all Meg Ryan did, arranging and rearranging them. For that matter, what was with the color saffron in general? Curtains, furniture, flowers, bunting draped all over the place at schmancy women’s luncheon. It will be one of the things I ask Nora Ephron if I ever get the chance.

I know I’ll inevitably receive carping about how a review of some movie or another appeared in Entertainment Weekly ages ago, so I’ll say this as plainly as I can: I don’t care. Since I don’t work for Entertainment Weekly, I don’t get invited to critics’ screenings held in advance of the movie’s initial opening in only a handful of cities. I live in a smaller market and we get the movies when we get them. It’s great to be all first and shit, but how many real, working people see movies their opening weekend? I’m talking parents here. We see them when we can get to them. So my reviews? Are right on time.

So, turn off those cell phones, do your best to follow along so you don’t have to pester your wife with questions about who’s with whom and remember to sneak in a healthy snack. Do you have any idea how bad movie theater popcorn is?

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