(Image: Justin Reed Art)
I’d be lying if I said that a couple answers in last week’s AVQ&A on “guilty displeasures” — pop-culture products that are generally well-regarded but you can’t stand — didn’t make me scoff in disgust. David Wolinsky and Emily Withrow’s shared opinion on There Will Be Blood, in particular, struck me as whiny, petulant, and fundamentally uneducated. And frankly, I was surprised that the A.V. Club editorial team let it through. From my perspective, it was like The Financial Times giving James Glassman a series of articles on smart retirement planning — the act was simply below them.
And by that I don’t mean to suggest that the writers’ mutual dislike of There Will Be Blood should have been silenced because I disagree with their position. Not in the least. No, I’m suggesting they should have been silenced because the two of them are clearly obliterated on drugs. P.T. Anderson’s misanthropic masterpiece is one of modern cinema’s shining beacons of unfettered brilliance, unimpeachable in every facet — from the crisp, enrapturing photography by Robert Elswit, to the startling performances by Paul Dano and Daniel Day-Lewis, to Johnny Greenwood’s pummeling, intense score, to Anderson’s lean screenplay that still manages to feel epic. As far as I’m concerned, liking There Will Be Blood isn’t so much a matter of taste as it is a basic demonstration of critical competence.
So it gives me perverse pleasure to see A.V. Club managing editor Josh Modell respond honestly and emphatically in this week’s AVQ&A on personal, pop-cultural sacred cows. Writes Modell, with his tongue at least halfway in his cheek:
I will say that dismissal of certain things will probably result in the loss of my respect for your pop-cultural opinions overall. (And you know how much you wanted/needed my approval!) Something like There Will Be Blood, for example, which a couple of people dismissed in this very column just last week as ‘boring.’ Okay, you thought it was boring, I can accept that. But next time you say a movie is boring, I’m rushing out to buy a ticket. And when you tell me something is exciting and fresh and amazing, I’m going to assume it’s Everybody Loves Raymond.
To take this a step further, I’m even comfortable asserting that There Will Be Blood is among the best predictive Litmus Test Films (LTFs) of the modern era. What is a Litmus Test Film? Like its painfully transparent name suggests, an LTF is a movie that so accurately represents what I believe to be a meaningful, legitimately great piece of pop-art that disliking it suggests a severe and irreconcilable personality defect that renders me unable take your opinion(s) on any topic seriously again. A few other notable LTFs off the top of my head:
- Richard Linklater’s Before Sunset
- Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing
- Woody Allen’s Annie Hall
- Robert Altman’s Short Cuts
- Rob Reiner’s This Is Spinal Tap
- Martin Scorsese’s The Last Waltz
So basically what I’m saying is: thanks, Señor Modell. And to the rest of you: don’t say you weren’t warned about what I consider acceptable and unacceptable taste.
