"London Fields" and Bad Movies as Palette Cleansers
Monday, April 1, 2019 at 9:00AM Please welcome new contributor Tony Ruggio...
Have you ever wondered why Film Twitter is more fickle than critics? If you spend a reasonable amount of time there you’ll find deep pockets of hate among many non-professional critics for critical darlings as varied as Birdman, La La Land, even Black Panther. Critics, often dismissed as snobs or "the elite", actually appear to enjoy more films per year than other journos, pundits, and regular Joe or Jane cinephiles on social media. Critics are the only animals in our film bubble ecosystem who are forced to watch everything, even the bad ones. Others might skip the latest Adam Sandler romp or Netflix original dump, but critics (many of them anyway) see it all and I'm here to argue that it gives them perspective. Bad movies have a place, and can serve an under-discussed purpose, and that purpose is encouraging a greater appreciation for what the Inarritus and Andersons of the world are putting out there.
Art is subjective, yes, but most of the time we know a BAD movie when we see it. On the heels of SXSW, I was drowning in good cinema. Between Captain Marvel the week before, Jordan Peele’s near-masterpiece Us, and a few little gems I could find nowhere else, the festival had given so much yet deprived me of a proper palette cleanser. London Fields was it, a gonzo film noir so inept and ill-advised that I was left more than a little awestruck...