An Introduction, or A Declaration of Principles (get the reference)

There are a ton of movie critics out there, but the problem is that too many of them are simply wrong.

Here is my intention for this blog: I want to discuss movies rationally in a way that is intelligent and accessible. I'm not going to use a "thumbs up" or star system when reviewing movies. Not because I think these systems are wrong, I just think they're simplistic. The intention was to make a quick and easily-recognizable form of grading, really, but it doesn't take enough into account. And rotten tomatoes has too many idiots on the site to take their percentages seriously.

In my opinion, movies that people enjoy have a balance of two qualities: they are good, and they are fun. Movies can be good, fun, either, neither, or both. Citizen Kane is widely accepted as the best movie ever made. I'm not going to argue that. What I will say is that it is a movie that is more "good" than "fun." It's brilliantly made, acted, written, and was ground-breaking in several ways. But when you want to watch a classic movie on a Friday night to kick off the weekend, do you pick Citizen Kane, or the more fun but not-quite-as-good Casablanca?

Two summers ago, two superhero movies came out that divided the audiences: Iron Man and The Dark Knight. People loved one or the other. You couldn't love both. If you did, you were wishy-washy. Look, that's just stupid. The Dark Knight was a fantastic movie; it was a huge leap forward in terms of the quality a comic book movie could be. It was complex, dark, and simply brilliant. Iron Man had a solid story, a rockin' soundtrack, dynamic characters that grew and related to the audience. Not to mention a guy flying around killing terrorists and tearing up the highways of LA. My point is this: The Dark Knight scores higher on the good scale than the fun scale, and Iron Man scores vice verse. Both are totally enjoyable movies.

I'm also going to talk about trends in movies I'm passionate about, including superhero movies and video game movies. They're what I'm into right now, okay? I'm not going to talk exclusively about these things, but my first posts will probably involve these topics.

So anyway. To keep the review system easily recognizable, I'll use a, gee I don't know... how about a score of one-to-ten in two categories: "Good" and "Fun." I haven't seen Prince of Persia yet, but from what I hear it scores high in the "Fun" category but scrapes the bottom of the "Good" category. For example.

E-mail me if there is a movie you want to see me review. Until then, remember that just because all the reviews say a movie's no good, it still might not suck.