Feature - Glass Half Full: The Filmic Forays Philosophy

Always look on the bright side of life. Eric Idle (and others) - Life of Brian.

'Your blog is very well-written,' my friend Kev said to me earlier this year. (I was having dinner with him and his mum in a very nice French restaurant in London's Soho district.)

'I'm glad you think so,' I replied, gratified. 

'You don't mess around, you get straight to the point,' he added.

'Thank you,' I responded, considering that this kind of unalloyed praise is exactly what friends are for. 

'One thing...' he went on, at which point I realised that the compliments had merely been a preamble to his main observation. 'You like everything.'

It's been said before, not just by Kev. There's a perception that I'm too easy to please, blanketing everything in praise and really not being sufficiently discriminating. I've fielded the opinion enough times to want to address it in print, so here goes. Let's get this said.

Firstly, and this is pretty significant, it's not actually true. I can bitch about films with the best of them. Take 2018 as a completed filmic year for example - there were some total bleedin' stinkers. Winchester was laughable (I gave it 5/10 - what possessed me to be that generous?) and Pacific Rim: Uprising was a soulless mess that left me in a literal stupor. A host of comedies failed to deliver the requisite laughs; I Feel Pretty, The Spy Who Dumped Me, The Happytime Murders and Night School were all ultimately lame and Life of the Party proved only marginally better due to a handful of stand-out Melissa McCarthy moments. Oh, and Book Club wasted a terrific cast on very drab material. The Nun needed an actual story and Patrick (no of course you haven't heard of it, only twenty people ever saw the damn thing and I was unlucky enough to be one of them) needed never to have existed. See? There were plenty of films that offered me nothing, and those are just the ones I saw.

 (dog-poo actually)

Which brings me to my second point. Since I'm not (yet) a full-time professional reviewer, there are only so many films I have time to go and see. So when faced the the choice of viewing say A Quiet Place or the Bruce Willis revamp of Death Wish (in UK cinemas at the same time), which was I more likely to take in? The groundbreaking high-concept science-fiction thriller that everyone Stateside was raving about, or the revenge-movie rehash that got roundly trashed by every other critic in every other town? Seriously, I wasn't going to opt for the latter in the hope of getting to balance my positive reviews with a hate-laden diatribe. Like everyone else I just want - in some form - to be entertained.

But that's only part of it.

I have a particular attitude when I go to the cinema, one that I intend never to lose, should I be taking up theatre-space aged 90. Basically it's one of hope and of giving any film the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes that hope flickers on in the face of critical negativity from elsewhere, or while simultaneously bracing myself for a new episode in some long-running franchise that's been going nowhere good for years. I never enter the screening-room with my knives ready-sharpened - there's no place for that in valid film criticism. Even if my expectations have been lowered by pessimistic buzz surrounding the project, or by a slew of two-star reviews, I want to be pleasantly surprised. I want to find something to enjoy that other reviewers have perhaps missed - a few nuggets of gold, however obscured they've been by all the crud.

That attitide strikes me as only fair. The 'critical' part of criticism is all too easy to do - click here or indeed here if you want proof that I can do scathing. But hundreds - in some case thousands - of industry people aside from the writers, director and cast have invested time, sweat and craft in even the most dubious of cinematic fare. Me, I've not contributed a single moment to the production of a feature film, so it behooves me (and when I dig out a verb like 'behoove' you know I'm being serious) to cut some slack. I won't deny that there's a dubious pleasure in unleashing a stream of literary invective when you really feel that two hours of your life have been flushed down the pan (I'm flashing back to Godzilla King of the Monsters as I type that), but fankly there's more joy in exhorting readers to go see something, than in warning them to stay away.

 (Nope - couldn't begin to muster a defence.)

Let me briefly illustrate all I've said with three examples - specifically of films that I've found reason to rate more highly than the overall critical consensus.

1.  The Hustle - 35% on Metacritic.com

I'm starting with a recent release and a real challenge. By no stretch of the imagination could The Hustle 2019 be considered a great film, or even a very good one. Much of the humour is forced and Rebel Wilson's familiar comedy business falls terribly flat in key scenes. And, as pointed out by other reviewers, its attempt at feminist revisionism simply doesn't work plot-wise in a straight remake of '80s not-quite-classic Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

The Glass Half-Full Factor: Having been led to expect comedy-geddon, this simply wasn't nearly as bad as I'd been led to believe. Director Chris Addison demonstrated his pedigree in comedy on a good handful of occasions, resulting in my laughing more than once, even though I'd been assured I wouldn't. And Anne Hathaway was having such a great time camping it up that is proved infectious. I've always like her, and I liked her here. My 6 out of 10 might have been a tad generous and I have no plans ever to watch it again, but in all honesty it didn't suck that bad and I felt like redressing the critical balance, if only a little.

2. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom - 61% on Metacritic.com

Mega-fans of the original Jurassic Park have been particularly harsh on this summer-of-'18 title, claiming lack of plot logic and bizarre character motivations as two of their main grievances. Like all the Jurassic movies from Lost World onwards it simply can't match up to the sublime original and yes, I accept that some of the crazier writing decisions are pretty problematic.
The Glass Half-Full Factor: Simply put it was one of the more enjoyable family blockbusters of summer 2018 - full of nicely played dino-Gothic moments along with glorious action, not least when the island erupted into volcanic fury with humans and prehistoric critters fleeing in similar panic. Bryce Dallas Howard's character was more sympathetically written than in 2015's Jurassic World, so that her dynamic with Chris Pratt proved much more enjoyable. As popcorn entertainment goes, it was well-crafted with some flashes of its own personality, and totally did what a summertime cinema audience might expect it to do. That 7.5 out of 10 awarded by yours truly was earned.

3. Downsizing - 63% on Metacritic.com

Critics expected mighty things of this Alexander Payne project (he'd scored high with About Schmidt and Sideways after all) and felt as let down as the film's minituarised protagonist, when he discovers that living in a literal model world isn't all he'd hoped. Many reviewers seemed to think that the movie promised a 'Borrowers-for-grown-ups' storyline and then lost interest in that premise, tying itself up with a bunch of other disconnected ideas. 
The Glass Half-Full Factor: Okay - on this one I'm going full evangelical. Downsizing isn't a flawed film with some good bits. It's misunderstood brilliance. Sometimes a movie does something different from what you expected having seen the trailer and that can skew your whole response. When the movie in question is conceived, co-written and directed by someone as whip-smart as Payne, however, then maybe you need to watch it again before you pass final judgement. Downsizing is an ingenious satire on the excesses and other failings of modern society that works on multiple levels. Ultimately it delivers the message that there are no short-cuts to finding true satisfaction and meaning in life and that maybe you need to change where you look. It's the filmic equivalent of REM's New Adventures in Hi-Fi album - not necessarily an easy first listen, but ultimately more satisfying than either Out of Time and Automatic for the People. (Either you're thinking 'Ooh, controversial', or 'REM - I think I've heard of them'.) Anyway, I gave the film 8 out of 10 and it might actually be worth more than that - much like the album.

Look, this isn't about my defending past scores here on Filmic Forays. It's about something broader than that. Creating a feature motion picture is a truly colossal undertaking and while some films succeed in pulling everything together to create utter magnificence, many do not. I'm not here primarily to rip apart other people's creativity (though if a film grates on me or suffocates my brain I'll surely let you know). I'm here to give an honest reaction and personal appraisal, and if I can find something - anything - to like about the next movie I see, I'll tell you about it. I'll neither say it's great because I'm supposed to or trash it because everyone else is. 

Basically, I'm an enthusiast, albeit one with an adequately functioning brain. Give me reason - any decent reason - and I'll become enthused. It's the glass half-full way.