wretched in Hollywood

There’s lots of ink—virtual and dead-tree—being spilled about the problems of Hollywood.

Time’s Richard Corliss knows what’s wrong:

The winner, in the film, director, screenplay and supporting actor categories? The Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men, which three different people told me they’d been meaning to see. The runner-up, with wins for best actor and cinematographer? There Will Be Blood, an audience-punishing epic that doesn’t open for another two weeks. Best actress? Julie Christie, in Away from her, which earned less than $5 million in its North American release. …

By the time I’d got back to my office I had realized that we critics may give these awards to the winners, but we give them for ourselves. In fact, we’re essentially passing notes to one another, admiring our connoisseurship at the risk of ignoring the vast audience that sees movies and the smaller one that reads us.

So the reviewers are “connoisseurs,” and they’re reviewing the work of independent Hollywood spirits like, say, George Clooney, who are proud of being out of touch with the mainstream.

And then everyone wonders why the audience isn’t connecting with the movies on offer? How much “connoisseurship” does it take to recognize that I’m Not There, for example, is a dog? Not a lot! And yet reviewers fell all over themselves to declare it genius.

Blech.