Ask the Answer B!tch

Why is it that the more critics heap praise upon a movie, the less appealing it is to regular people? I mean, who even saw The Queen besides critics?
—Ailon, Glendale, California

The B!tch Replies:  I get the feeling you want me to pick a side. Very well, then. Between the People and the Critics, it's the Critics who are at fault. Everyone say huzzah, up with La Raza and all that, for the Answer B!tch sides with the Common Man on this one.

That thrumping sound you hear is the chorus of a thousand block parties suddenly erupting all over Bensonhurst and the more politically active areas of Queens.

There is no one true reason for the rift between Americans and movie critics. (And there is indeed a rift: The biggest grossing films in the last three years, including this one, so far, are 300—which got only a 61 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes—the Pirates of the Caribbean sequel, which critics hated, and Revenge of the Sith, which critics decimated.)

But here's a theory: Americans want escapism and fun and a sense that the good guy will always win. But most critics—most journalists, actually—take themselves more seriously than Chloë Sevigny, Vincent  Gallo and Emily Deschanel combined.

Plus, because they see so many films, critics also tend to favor flicks that take chances and mess with the traditional formula. They want different, they want weird. They want art.

Exhibit A: Manohla Dargis, a top film critic for the New York Times, who once said, "When I think about movies, I need to get beyond the stranglehold of pop culture. I think one of the problems with film criticism is that we rarely talk about art anymore."

But Americans don't want art. After trudging through their 90-hour workweeks and barely tolerating yet another afternoon with their whining 2.5 children, we do not want experimentation or elevation in any form. Usually, Americans just want candy. Or at least something that Jesus would enjoy.

(I'm serious. According to the Christian-oriented review site MovieGuide.org, last year's top-10-grossing films had "moral, Biblical or Christian content in them," or at least something with which Christians could identify.)

That means a plot they can understand, plus guns, aliens, Charlize, serial killers, boffo special effects and pirates. And one other thing: characters with strong motivation.

"There is one common denominator in movies that draw crowds and earn big bucks domestically: motivated characters," scriptwriter Ian Coburn said in a recent essay on this very topic. "The characters in Saw  have a strong motivation to escape, or identify and capture the killer…

"[But] The Aviator is about one man, Howard Hughes. The people around him seem to be there only for him. They have little or no motivation. His right-hand man has kids, which have absolutely no impact on his life. Believable? No."

Titanic and Lord of the Rings notwithstanding, critical darlings rarely give us any of that fun-slash-moral stuff. Instead, critics want movies like The Queen or Babel, anything that will let them use terms like life-affirming and visceral.

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