John,
I’ve been interested in movies for as long as I can remember. The story I tell is that Jurassic Park started it all. It certainly didn’t hurt, but movies had definitely been on my mind for way longer than that. And my parents and grandparents were both movie buffs, so when the AFI released their ill-conceived 100 Best Movies of the First 100 Years of Movies, it was the talk of our family for an entire Thanksgiving dinner. I was ten or twelve at the time. By the time I was fifteen, I had seen 92 of the movies listed.
There’s no such thing as a good movie or a bad movie. There are only movies. ‘Good’ and ‘bad’, ‘best’ and ‘worst’, are just subjective values imposed by people. Because of this, adding ‘to me’ at the end of every sentence about what you think of a movie is wholly unnecessary. ‘Raging Bull is a bad movie to me’. See what I mean? It’s redundant, because ‘Raging Bull is a bad movie’ is already an opinion. It’s not an argument, fact, or really anything of any importance. It’s just a thought and a feeling, written down.
When I was in my teens, I was put upon, and felt disconnected from the social scene in my junior high school. My response was to start reading Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese books. For a certain sect of nerds, intellectualism becomes a form of armor against a world that doesn’t understand them. I lived this for at least five years. I know exactly how it feels to beat my intellectual chest and prove how much better I am than everyone else by being ‘more aware’. ‘You guys might have girlfriends, but have you seen A Clockwork Orange!?’
But truly liking something has nothing to do with what anybody else ever said about it, from your best friend to Roger Ebert. I love Signs. It’s the best movie ever made. I say it that way, instead of saying it’s my favorite movie of all time, because it is the best movie ever made, and it wouldn’t be my favorite if it wasn’t. The point here is that me saying Signs is the best movie ever made has exactly as much value as anyone saying Citizen Kane or Raging Bull is. There is literally no difference. Citizen Kane’s goodness has not been measured in a lab; it has been agreed upon by a very small portion of a population. I’m tickled that Roger Ebert likes Signs. I’m tickled when anybody likes Signs (I’ll jump at any opportunity to be able to say “he has more strike outs than any two players” and have people know what I’m talking about). But ultimately, their opinion of it means nothing to me. It doesn’t make me like Signs any more or less.
Speaking in absolutes about movies (or art in general) is not only okay, it should be expected. Not speaking in absolutes makes no sense. Roger Ebert never says, ‘to me, I think Martin Scorsese is one of the best living filmmakers.’ If he did, he’d be boring. He states his opinion as fact because it’s so painfully obvious that it is only a mere opinion. That’s all it ever could be.
My favorite movies are all the best movies ever made. What does the historical relevance of Hitchcock have to do with how good or bad his movies are? The answer is nothing. Psycho is a decent movie. It’s not better than Tremors in any way, regardless of its influence, legacy, etcetera. I could get into the myriad technical and aesthetic reasons why Tremors is better than Psycho, but it’s not important. It’s not the point.
The point is that if your favorite movies are not the movies you consider to be the best movies ever made, then I don’t understand you at all. What reason would anybody ever have to like something based on what other people think, its historical relevance, or really any other reason than just fucking liking it?
If someone really thinks Citizen Kane and Casablanca are the best movies ever made, that’s great! I’m excited to hear about it. But it doesn’t make me like them any more or less. The fact that any of this needs to be explained is a little comical to me. But apparently, when you say ‘I don’t like movies from the twenties and thirties’ people are like ‘whoa whoa wait wait, you must not like movies! What about Buster Keaton, he’s a genius, blah blah blah’. Well, okay, but what’s your point? I’ve seen it, I get it, some of it’s kinda neat, but it’s not as good as Clueless. For many obvious reasons.
People often get confused about entertainment and art. Art is entertainment. It’s only entertainment. Art does not cure cancer or pay your phone bill. It moves you to laughter and tears. It inspires, evokes and touches. It’s a beautiful thing. But it’s entertainment. Many things can be entertaining: a clever joke, a well-written line, a color, a camera movement, etcetera, into infinity. What I find entertaining is well-constructed art that effects me deeply. Wet Hot American Summer does that a lot better than The Godfather. The reason being that Wet Hot American Summer is way more artistically advanced. Adding the politically correct caveat of “to me” would be boring and unnecessary. Of course it’s my opinion. how could it not be? It’s not an argument. It’s not an argument because it would be a fool’s venture to try to convince you to like Wet Hot American Summer. You liking it is your decision. And that’s beautiful.
My original piece was a hyperbolic, reductive essay full of jocular half-truths. Obviously. How anyone missed that is beyond me. As someone who loves movies, I certainly love all movies from any era. I even love that kooky movie Empire. You filmed the Empire State Building for nine hours? I’m down!
I have seen thousands and thousands of movies, and I like about 100 of them. I love about 50 of those, and about 25 are beyond sacred. The rest are just kind of okay. Movies aren’t that good. And as a movie lover, that’s interesting to me. My vision of a great movie is extremely narrow. Not because I’m bitter, cynical, jaded, or closed-minded, but because I have a very specific idea of what a movie ‘is’. And it’s an important idea to me. It’s an idea that I study and deconstruct every time I watch a movie, and especially every time I turn a movie off after five minutes.
My narrow idea of what a movie is was born out of my obsessive movie watching (movies from every era, genre, and country). Because, again, the more movies you watch the worse they get and the more spectacular a diamond in the rough becomes. Entire decades become trivial when the styles of the time run together. Michael Bay is no different than the action directors that preceded him. Deconstructing each one individually would certainly be an interesting and fun endeavor, but doing it in one essay would be nearly impossible. Especially if that’s not what the essay is about. Some of you out there basically admitted ‘I saw that you insulted Raging Bull and I knew nothing else you said mattered’. I appreciate you telling everyone that you’re simply biased. It’s a strange bias, sure, but it’s a lot more concise than a bunch of nonsense about me being angry or stupid for not liking some movie from the 40’s.
John, here’s the first paragraph from your rebuttal:
There’s a film writer I like named Marya Gates who once tackled the idea that “old movies” aren’t worthwhile. In a short video overview of film history from inception to the present day, she concluded that “if you don’t love all of it, I don’t understand how you can watch any of it.”
My question to you is, when, in The Idea of What a Movie Is, did I ever say I don’t love all of it? All I said was that I don’t like most of it. Because most of it sucks. But I love movies, and I love the ever-changing idea, throughout history, of what a movie is. And the goal of my essay was to discuss that. You and your cohorts appear to have overlooked the entire point, and meat, of my essay, simply because you were offended that someone could have the audacity to not like something that you all have deemed important.
There’s not much to comment on in your rebuttal. It’s mostly just a bunch of ”I like old movies, that makes me cooler!” and ”You MUST be a stupid and/or angry because you don’t like old movies!”. It’s such a nonsensical stance that I can’t really speak on it.
But to answer your question: Why do I write about movies? I suspect I write about them for the same reason anyone does. I like them. I like the idea of them. Why do you?
– Greg
P.S. Donkey Kong IS the best game ever made. You Suck!
P.P.S. To bring things all back to the first paragraph, the following is a correction to the AFI list of best movies ever made. I’m only listing twelve (not counting sequels) because there’s only about 50 worthy of listing anyway. These are the most artistically advanced movies ever made. They are better than The Godfather, Casablanca, Citizen Kane, Raging Bull and every movie made before 1975.
Signs
American Movie
Raising Arizona
Back to the Future (1, 2)
Paradise Lost (1, 2)
The King of Kong
Field of Dreams
The ‘Burbs
Indiana Jones (1, 2, 3)
Comedian
Tremors
Ghostbusters
“I have seen thousands and thousands of movies, and I like about 100 of them. I love about 50 of those, and about 25 are beyond sacred.”
So yeah, you don’t love movies, you love a few movies and have some incurable obsession with spending way too much time with a medium that doesn’t entertain you. This is fine, lots of people don’t love movies, I feel this way about sports, music and many other things. But I wouldn’t go on making declarations about a medium that clearly doesn’t work for me, beyond declaring that it doesn’t work for me.
Why not? I’m seriously asking. Also, I DO love movies, I just don’t think most movies are good. I still love that they exist. I can’t say the same about photography or ballet, whose respective existence I’m wholly indifferent to. Hence not writing about those art forms.
But you never give any actual reasons for your claims that X movie is better than Y or more artistically advanced or whatever… It’s almost like you’re just making crazy claims to create controversy for more page hits. I mean, consider my curiosity piqued when you say that, but then when you provide zero actual criticism or analysis, my suspicion that you’re just making grandiose statements and are full of shit feels that much closer to being correct.
In my original piece I do go into more detail about why Raging Bull isn’t very good (albeit a technical masterpiece) and why Field of Dreams is advanced. However, AGAIN, the reasons why are not the point of the pieces. Providing specific criticism would be tangential in the original piece and unnecessary in this one.
If you really want me to do it though I will.
I’m just thinking that that’ll be a bit more interesting than an essay explaining what subjectivity is.
I completely agree. Unfortunately this piece was necessary since the whole internet went nuts because I don’t like old movies.
We have very different definitions of necessary.
Well, I guess I just assumed nobody knew how subjectivity worked since that was the only logical explanation for their reaction.
Like what reason would John have for even writing a rebuttal unless he believed that there was some kind of movie court and I had like submitted into evidence that old movies suck. Why would anybody even care?
“My original piece was a hyperbolic, reductive essay full of jocular half-truths.”
Much like this piece. Except now you have left and concept of logic even further behind.
How so?
Here is a nuts and bolts review of what happened:
Original piece summarized simply:
Movies, like an other art form, have evolved over time. The basic idea of what a movie is, connotatively, is not static — it changes with time, technology, cultural mores, individual innovation among other things. What we perceive to be “a movie” today is much different than 50 years ago or 100 years ago. What we do understand to be “a movie” today was cultivated around the mid 1970s — Rocky being the epicenter. This is all explained pretty clearly and colored in with jokes.
Reaction to piece:
-You’re wrong
-You’re stupid for not liking Raging Bull
-You’re stupid for not liking old movies
The only explanation for it being ”wrong”, even though it’s OBVIOUSLY an opinion anyway, is that I’m stupid or unaware of ‘cinema’ because I don’t like old movies. It’s so illogical it’s still hard for me to speak on it. And nobody has ever really tried that hard to make sense of it.
John’s rebuttal began with the notion that my piece was somehow ‘wrong’ because some woman said you have to love all movies. Then he went on to list a bunch of old movies he thinks are good. But I don’t really know why, or to what end. Then he concluded by telling me that movies are beautiful by waxing, eloquently, about ghosts or something.
If you like old movies then you inherently think I’m wrong that Rocky is the first movie. But so what? How does my opinion of movies effect you so deeply that it inspires any reaction at all. Did movies cure your moms cancer? Every time I say Raging Bull sucks an angel looses its wings right? Saying I’m ignorant of cinema because I don’t like old movies makes literally no sense. It would be like saying your neighbor doesn’t like the Denver Broncos because he doesn’t follow Canadian football.
The problem is not (just) that you’re wrong, it’s that you’re incredibly boring. You see Raging Bull as “just a bunch of footage”, and think that’s providing a technical reason why it’s a bad movie, but that’s not a technical reason at all– it’s a (shallow) analysis of its narrative structure, with no insight into image, sound, editing, or any of the other things that make a movie something other than a script. Similarly, considering collage-films like Baraka as “just a bunch of footage” suggests that you don’t actually understand how an image can contain a theme, or a story.
And that’s fine, really. Lots of the lay people you champion aren’t very good at analyzing a movie, or understanding the themes carried by an image, or following constructive editing, or understanding things that aren’t signposted and spelled out. Lots of people see movies as radio with pictures, and can’t follow a story unless the dialogue repeatedly recaps the story for them. But such people have nothing interesting to say about movies, because they have no particular insight into the form. If you can’t be bothered to acquire that knowledge, then what you have to say about movies is as interesting as what Bradley Cooper has to say about particle physics: not even a little.
Ugh.
Why do you assume I think saying Raging Bull is boring is providing a technical reason?
Why do you ignore all the times that I applaud Raging Bull for being a technical achievement?
Movies like Baraka ARE just a bunch of footage. That’s not even debatable. It’s the point of the movie. To be a bunch of footage of earth tied together thematically. Geeze.
Your detractors are really nitpicking at this point. Baraka most definitely can be described as ‘a bunch of footage’. As can my film, Rehearsals. Which isn’t to say that the aforementioned movies, and movies like them, are without themes, or meaning, of course.
Yeah, whats worse is when I ask for an explanation they either stop talking or make less sense.
Well sure, in that sense, all movies are “just a bunch of footage.” Jurassic Park is “just a bunch of footage.” It becomes a movie when it’s organized into a thematic whole, with some kind of progression through time. Which Baraka does, same as Signs, same as any other movie. Understanding what the thematic connections are, why the first shot and the last shot can’t be swapped, or how the movie works requires doing a little thinking about what the shots are saying and how they’re organized. And you seem to resent being made to do that.
Similarly, Raging Bull (I understand, you may be sick of talking about Raging Bull, but you’re the one who chose it as an example). Is there a progression in Raging Bull? Well, yeah. Can you really say nothing has changed in the characters, the world, or (and this part’s important) your perceptions of the characters between the moment when LaMotta is leaping around the ring and the moment when he stares at the mirror and mutters “That’s entertainment”? It’s true, no one tells you what it all means, but really, it’s not that hard to figure out. And it’s more fun!
It’s your reluctance to do even that small amount of thinking—to say nothing of technical analysis, understanding composition, talking about editing—that makes you a dull writer. Oh sure, it’s just “one guy’s opinion.” But who gives a shit about one guy’s opinion? We read anything, including criticism, in the hopes of learning something we didn’t know, and perhaps being entertained along the way. But the off-the-cuff opinion of someone who can’t be bothered to research, or even think, is neither enlightening nor entertaining.
I love critics who make me look at a movie I hated and see what’s worthwhile about it. I respect critics who can tear down a movie I like in a way that’s interesting (or at least funny). But a critic who just yaps like a loudmouth on a barstool? Who needs it?
You clearly have some ability as a writer. But if you’re not going to bother putting in work, you’ll never be worth reading.
But again, that’s the problem. My original piece clearly delineates between ”a bunch of footage” and ”a movie”. It opens with the distinction I make between the two ideas.
Waxing about editing and composition would certainly be deeply interesting, and I could certainly do it, and have done it a lot in other pieces. But, in this piece it was wholly irrelevant. The compositional, sound and editing merits of Raging Bull can be discussed and deconstructed all day long, and again, I’d love to do that because as a movie geek I find it deeply interesting. In fact, contrary to your belief, I have spent my entire life doing just that.
But again, the piece is not about that so getting into the minutia of Raging Bull, or any other movie, would be needlessly tangential.
Jurassic Park is not a bunch of footage because everything in it is built around forward momentum of the story. Baraka is just a bunch of footage because that’s how it was designed. I’m not saying Baraka is bad or Jurassic Park is good.
To be honest though, in Raging Bull, no, Jake doesn’t change. He’s just a one dimensional angry guy motivated by jealousy and stupidity. He doesn’t learn anything and by the end he’s the same old asshole. The only thing redeeming about the movie is Scorsese’s amazing cinematic prowess. Raging Bull is a two hour exercise in tone. Every scene is a cinephile’s delight because they’re all so rich with interesting approaches to sound design, editing, composition, etc. Even the simple dialog scenes are amazing and it’s because Scorsese’s movie IQ is off the charts. That doesn’t make it not boring though. It’s also why ONLY film buffs like it, lay people don’t care about that shit and would rather watch a movie that has a story. My point all along is that Rocky is a vastly superior movie because it’s just as beautiful in an artistic and cinematic sense but also tells a story.
So to quote Mark Borchardt: What is it you do not understand?
Furthermore, this is my problem with John’s rebuttal. He doesn’t seem to understand any of this and would rather yell at me for not liking old movies. It’s not my fault they suck.
Actually, John’s rebuttal did very little yelling, but it pointed out where you made one basic factual error after another, none of which you seem to have registered.
As for Baraka vs. Jurassic Park: You’re confusing “movie” with “narrative cinema”. Which is an understandable mistake in someone who doesn’t know anything about movies made before 1980 or outside the Hollywood system, but sort of a weird failure of education in someone who styles themselves a critic.
What’s really sad about that confusion, as Dziga Vertov pointed out about a century ago, is that all the stuff you identify with “movies” is the baggage that was carried over from the novel, and is not inherent to the medium at all.
Now if you don’t actually see a shift in Raging Bull, that’s probably because you didn’t absorb scenes like Jake apologizing to his brother, and you certainly couldn’t understand what’s implied by the shift from low-angle shots to high. Perhaps you can’t quite process shifts in character or perspective if there isn’t a speech delivered by someone in the movie telling you what’s happened? I guess that’s fine (though a little boring) for “lay people”. But if you want to have anything of value to say about film, you kind of have to be something other than a lay person. You don’t have to like Raging Bull– Pauline Kael (you know who she was, right?) hated it– but you do have to understand what’s going on.
You sound like a basketball player who insist that all he needs to do is dunk, because that’s what the fans love. You can’t shoot free throws, or even dribble, and you get really defensive when it’s pointed out that you might want to learn.
Your opinion is the least interesting thing you have to offer. Never forget that.
Old movies suck. Excuse me but you’ve made a factual error. We just got the results back from the lab, it appears that old movies are in fact good. Put the word out everyone it’s now a fact! If you don’t like old movies it’s no longer an opinion, you’re literally wrong.
I’m not confusing anything, I’m creating my own definition, explaining it, then using that as a basis for discussion points. It’s explained in the first paragraph of the goddamn piece! I know Baraka is a movie!!! But again, having to continue to explain this is really exhausting, not to mention baffling.
Also, just blindly claiming I don’t know anything about movies made before 1980 or anything outside Hollywood is basically just a stupid thing to say. It’s an empty assumption based on jokes I made in an essay. But since I don’t feel like taking the high road I’ll say I bet I know waaayyy more about old movies and obscure indie movies than you, nah nah nah.
I’m sure I’ve seen way more too!
Jake apologized to his brother, one can only assume, because he’s lonely. Again it’s only an assumption because we’re forced to ream it from the almost non existent subtext. Jake is stupid, he was lonely and thought apologizing was his only way to not be lonely. It’s not a transformation, or interesting, or anything. It’s a stupid asshole being an asshole.
I knew who Dziga Vertov was when I was 14 and by then I had seen The Man With the Movie Camera twice. By the way. According to your logic you just lost because it’s now been proven that I know more about movies than you because I’ve seen something old. That’s how this works right? When you see something obscure you get intelligent movie critic status.
Very entertaining debate! I’d qualify as a “layperson” by any “movie critic’s” standard but nevertheless I enjoy writing about them as an amateur in my spare time and gradually working through the “canon” of the cinema. But anyway, you both have much bigger cinematic balls than I do, so you can be proud about that.
I’ve only seen Raging Bull once, a couple of years back, and I guess, on the basis of my spotty knowledge, I’d have to agree with Greg. I didn’t see a character transformation in LaMotta, but he seemed like the same violent, one-dimensional douchebag he was from the get-go. Just my opinion, of course, though I know Greg says it’s redundant to say that.
I can also see “Fuzzy Bastard’s” (great handle by the way!) point that criticism should be much more than merely likes and dislikes and should work toward a more universal principle or conception. On that note, however, I find that a lot of movies, like Citizen Kane (especially), The Godfather, Raging Bull, Pulp Fiction, Bonnie and Clyde, and The Searchers overly focus on cinematic technique and cheap symbolism at the expense of strong characterization or nuanced scriptwriting. So I think Greg definitely has a point there. I’m not convinced that he’s explained it well enough, but as he said, perhaps that’s not the point. I guess I would disagree, however, with his assertion that it’s all just entertainment, since that’s too relativistic. As a critic, one should make an attempt to see why something’s great or not, and one should analyze rather than just effuse about a film’s merits. The argument should be for oneself, of course, and not for others. I don’t give a shit that every critic in the book thinks Orson Welles’s shit doesn’t stink or that the symbols of Rosebud and the big, lonely house were important for that time period. For me the movie just feels hollow, since it’s about an unpleasant, self-obsessed narcissist who makes everyone around him miserable. Even his own wife is a possession, a talent toy for him to manipulate. I find Welles’s vision in that film too nihilistic and empty. (In my opinion, he’s a better actor than director.) Great art should elevate, and I have found so much more to enjoy in what I’ve seen of foreign film-makers like Kurosawa or Renoir, who seem to me to raise film to the level of art, than I have in so many American ones, where slick style and/or sleazy blockbuster capitalizing often seem to take precedence over the creative process.
Dude, it’s not about who’s seen more old movies. It’s not about who’s seen more of anything. That’s an adolescent collector’s impulse, as is the impulse to divide into the world into “I like it so it’s great” and “I hate it so it sucks.”.
It’s about understanding movies and thus being able to say interesting things about them. If you can’t work up the imagination to understand why movies outside your personal comfort zone work for people who aren’t you, then you’re not going to have insight into anything other than the contents of your head. And no one cares about the contents of your head. It’s a total rookie mistake to think that being a critic is about articulating your likes and dislikes.
Based on your writing, your personal comfort zone isn’t even interesting eccentric or unusual– it’s bog-standard viewing for anyone of your age and class. That’s a perfectly good place to start. But if you stop there, and worse yet, get militant about your right to never learn about anything that wasn’t made just for you, well then you’re choosing to live in a very small world. And that’s fine– you’re under no obligation to expand your horizons, though this provincialism does make you less worth reading. But when you start loudly trumpeting the importance of living in the tiniest possible mental village, and accuse anyone who chooses to explore the world of being a poseur, well them’s fighting words.
But, they’re only fighting words to people who choose to fight over it. I’m still confused at why I keep being accused of having a lack of knowledge of movies just because I have a narrow taste.
And I absolutely don’t think I’m obligated to like or care about anything outside of my idiosyncratic view of the art form. I don’t think any critic should ever do that and ultimately yes, all criticism is is just explaining your likes and dislikes, from Ebert to Kael to Truffaut, that’s all any of them ever did — explain why the liked or disliked something. Their opinion was no more learned or relevant than any of ours.
Also, I never said I was a critic. I make movies and edit and direct video projects for a living, I write essays about movies (often ones I like) for fun. I’m not proclaiming myself to be a critic. All I ever did was write a joke filled love letter to my idea of what a movie is. The internet jumped down my throat because you guys can’t handle it when someone dares speak ill of movies that a few people said are important for some reason. I don’t mind the onslaught though, it’s been really fun and entertaining.
“People often get confused about entertainment and art. Art is entertainment. It’s only entertainment ” is really regressive and encapsulates how misguided of a critic you seem to be. Not all art is entertainment but all art is inherently political and contains social meaning.
I’m not even Greg and I don’t get this one. I’d ask why all art is inherently political, and what you mean by ‘social meaning’, but I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to understand your answer.
Regardless of what one thinks about Greg’s taste in movies, his definition of art is pretty accurate.
yep
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But to answer your question: Why do I write about movies? I suspect I write about them for the same reason anyone does. I like them. I like the idea of them. Why do you? …………………….Well……………………dipshit……………………if I may so FUCKING BOLD…………………………………HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU CLAIM TO BOTH LIKE SOMETHING AND ALSO AT THE SAME TIME THINK EVERY SINGLE GODDAMNED ONE OF THOSE SOMETHINGS BESIDES THE ONES THAT YOU PERSONALLY FUCKING LIKE ARE FUCKING WORTHLESS GARBAGE??????????????????????????????????? YOU KNOW, USUALLY PEOPLE WHO ‘LIKE MOVIES’ DON’T USUALLY REALLY CLAIM THEY’RE ALL FUCKING WORTHLESS PILES OF FUCKING GARBAGE UNLESS HE FUCKING LIKES THEM. LOOK, JACKASS, I’M NOT FUCKING PISSED BECAUSE “booooh hooooo ramdon asshole on the internet disagrees with fucking me”, I’M FUCKING PISSED, BECAUSE YOU ARE THE FUCKING ONE HERE WHO CAN’T SEEM TO GET IT THROUGH THEIR OWN THICK FUCKING SKULL THAT JUST BECAUSE YOU HATE ANY FUCKING MOVIES MADE BEFORE 1975 OR WHATEVER ARBITRARY DATE YOU SET WHATFUCKINGEVER DOES NOT FUCKING MEAN ANY FUCKING MOVIE MADE BEFORE 1975 IS NOT A FUCKING MOVIE. “You liking it is your decision. And that’s beautiful.” OKAY, GREG, IF YOU’RE NOT A FUCKING HYPOCRITICAL FUCKING JACKASS, THAN PLEASE FUCKING EXPLAIN TO ME WHY THIS APPARENTLY DOESN’T APPLY TO ANY FUCKING MOVIE THAT YOU DON’T FUCKING LIKE? I MEAN, AFTER ALL, “All I said was that I don’t like most of it. Because most of it sucks.”…………………………………“Not because I’m bitter, cynical, jaded, or closed-minded” ………………………………………………..you know Greg, a wise man REALLY should have once said “The worst type of critic any critic can be is a combination of both an EXTREMELY FUCKING HYPOCRITICAL and an EXTREMELY FUCKING NOT SELF AWARE AT FUCKING ALL IN ANY FUCKING WAY AND AS SURE AS FUCKING HELL ON ANY FUCKING LEVEL piece of fucking shit”