Never trust the opinions of random punters

When you're a good writer and someone else is not, you feel like a bit of a bully talking about their bad writing. (And my apologies if I seem a bit big-headed calling myself a "good writer." If I've been a film critic for 30 years and I can't call myself a good writer, there's something really broken about my self-esteem.)

But that doesn't mean that other people's bad writing doesn't sometimes bug you.

Actually in this case it's more bad thinking than bad writing. It's the logic behind the conclusions in the thing I'm about to discuss, more than the expression of those conclusions, that I'm interested in today.

(Before I continue, I should define "punter" for you. It's a word I didn't hear before coming to Australia, but I like how it works in conversation. Although the term has its origins in betting, in this context it translates roughly to an average person, customer or member of the public, though in a slightly derisive way.)

I'm not sure if you know much about Quora, but it's a question answering site where someone posts a question and whatever Quora user wants to answer it will write them a response. And usually the asker is soliciting opinions, not facts. AI provides factual answers quite well (most of the time, anyway). 

I got involved with Quora because I once had to ask whether we should be worried about cooking in an oven where there had been rodent poop. The response led me to Quora, I signed up, and maybe as many as ten years later, I still get emails about things people are talking about on Quora, which seem generally to be tailored to my interests. 

And I should state that a lot of the Quora users are not native English speakers, but that's not even a significant part of why I'm writing about this today.

The thing that prompted me to write this piece was an answer to the Quora question "Who is the best actress in the United States?"

Before I get to the answer, I'll say that the question is already problematic. It's not saying the best American actress, and the answer this person gave is proof that they know this is not the question, because the actress given in the answer is not American. Then what does the question mean, exactly? The best actress in Hollywood? The best actress who is currently physically located within the contiguous 48 states, or possibly Alaska or Hawaii?

So the Quora answerer apparently just wanted an opportunity to talk about Ana de Armas, who should not be the answer to this question under almost any circumstances. 

I want to start by saying that Ana de Armas is fine. I've liked her plenty of times. Sometimes she's really good. Sometimes she's not so good. So basically, I think she is a more than competent working actress who is obviously very attractive, so she's gotten plenty of work. She does have one Oscar nomination, so that's in the answerer's favor.

But the only reason to call her the "best" in the craft of acting is if you are basically in love with her and you just want to write about her for a bit. (I actually do have one friend who is in love with her. I myself understand that she is quite beautiful, and yet she has never risen above that level into a personal favorite of mine.)

So here's what the guy says:

"In today’s Hollywood, defining the “best actress” is never simple—but one name is dominating the conversation right now: Ana de Armas."

That made me chortle.

The way he phrases this, it takes it out of the subjective and into the objective. It's not that this guy thinks Ana de Armas is great; anyone can have a personal favorite, and even if I might argue with them about that, I would never write a blog post about it.

No, what this guy is saying is that 

a) there is a constant and strenuous debate about who is the best actress in Hollywood, and 

b) in this hypothetical constant and strenuous debate, Ana de Armas is leaving the other contenders in the dust.

He goes on to argue:

"She isn’t just another star—she’s a rare blend of elegance, intensity, and raw physical commitment."

No problem there, and it's actually rather elegantly written, speaking of elegance.

But then he continues:

"Often described as the female counterpart to John Wick, Ana has carved out a space where performance meets precision."

Huh? 

Let's break down this hilarious sentence:

1) Why is "female counterpart" in italics? Nobody knows.

2) You do know that John Wick is a movie character, not an actual person, right? When you were talking about Ana de Armas, you were talking about an actual person. 

3) I get why this person is saying this -- de Armas appeared in a movie (Ballerina) where she was the literal female counterpart to John Wick, as that movie is actually set in the JWU (John Wick Universe). But even so, she would not need to be "described" as a female counterpart to Wick -- she would just be one. 

4) What does it mean for performance to meet precision? Isn't precision usually a component of performance? 

The writer then includes a fairly defensible paragraph in which he discusses de Armas' accolades for Blonde, but follows that with:

"Then came her unforgettable turn as Paloma in No Time to Die. In just minutes of screen time, she delivered one of the most electrifying performances in the entire Bond franchise—effortlessly balancing charm, danger, and lethal precision."

Maybe this is where my personal opinion comes into play, but in what universe (not the JWU for sure) is de Armas' work in No Time to Die "unforgettable"? If anything, I thought of it as sort of a footnote in that movie, something that doesn't move the needle at best, and is sort of a waste of the actress' charms at worst. To discuss the prominence of this performance within the history of a film series that has been going on for more than 60 years and features more than 25 movies is just the most irresponsible sort of hyperbole. Oh, and there's that interest in "precision" again.

The next three paragraphs are fairly innocuous discussions of de Armas' preparations for Ballerina and some of the other roles that she is known for, though the writer seems to find the titles themselves to be proof of her star magnitude, when they just aren't. 

But he lands the plane hilariously with the following conclusion:

"Right now, she’s not just part of the industry—
she’s defining it.

Ana de Armas isn’t just among the best. She is the moment."

What did I say about hyperbole?

I don't want to be that bully here. This guy is not as good of a writer as I am. Few people are. (Ha ha, now I'm just fucking with you.)

But come on. I feel like if you are participating in the Quora community, and the readers are expecting that you have some kind of expertise on the thing they've asked about, you should at least try to keep your comments within the realm of our commonly accepted reality. 

Over-praised action movies

I like John Wick. John Wick is fine.

BUT MY GOD, IT IS NOT THE SECOND COMING, PEOPLE!

There is a second coming of John Wick, though. John Wick: Chapter Two is scheduled for release next February 10th, and people in my Flickcharters Facebook group can't stop jerking themselves off about it.

There are at least three or four people in the group who seem to define themselves cinematically by their love for John Wick. One guy who never shuts up about it listed movies he'd watch during a recent marathon weekend. John Wick made the list, and afterwards in parentheses he included the clarification "(Because of course I did.)"

Why of course? What's so great about this film?

Oh, it's definitely good. I'll give it that. But I think that's why people think it's great -- because it's good. Good action films are harder to come by these days than they once were, so people are eager to rally around any good action film and call it great.

I think this also explains the love for Jack Reacher, another favorite in that group that is getting a sequel, though that one's ready to hit theaters this month. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (terrible title) is coming out in the U.S. on October 21st, and in Australia a day before that, on my birthday.

Jack Reacher is not good. At least, I don't think it is. I was singularly disappointed by that film, especially since I usually like Tom Cruise movies. The best thing about it was an entertaining villain turn by Werner Herzog. Everything else was pretty much tied for the second best thing about it, which was also the worst thing about it. There might have been a clever set piece or two in there, I don't remember. Jack Reacher was not worth remembering.

Yet it comes up regularly in my Facebook group, and that must be a fairly mainstream opinion, else they wouldn't have consider the movie sequel worthy. "JACK REACHER YEAH!!!" Really? "YEAH"?!?

The consequence of Jack Reacher being considered a hit by individuals who are not very discerning is that its director, Christopher McQuarrie, was borrowed to make another over-praised action movie starring Tom Cruise: Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation. In this case I was more conscious of tight set pieces and polished filmmaking. But I thought the movie overall was just lackluster. Maybe I've finally had enough of Ethan Hunt.

I wonder if this whole thing first started when other people saw a brilliant series of action movies in the Jason Bourne movies and I just didn't. I found them diverting, but nothing more. There have now been three in a row that I haven't seen, as discussed here.

There are two things I can conclude about being out of synch with the level of enthusiasm other people have about these movies:

1) I am just not as young as they are, or as in touch with my inner testosterone-infused teenager as they are;

2) I'm an old grump, which may be the same thing.

But I don't think I'm an old grump. One of Tom Cruise's other most recent action movies, Edge of Tomorrow, was in my top ten for the year it came out, and I gave it five stars. And I've got an action movie in this year's top ten as well: Captain America: Civil War. I don't expect it will finish the year in my top ten, but it's there now, and I've ranked more than 80 movies so far this year.

I think the real difference is that my need for action movies to be good differs from theirs, and differs from that of the average movie fan. The average movie fan earns the adjective "average" before his title (an "average movie fan" also seems to be a he) because action movies are part of his DNA. When all else is equal, he'd rather watch an action movie by a margin of two to one over any other type of movie. That's because even though he says he is, he is not really a cinephile. He is a fan of being entertained, and even though I'm making it sound like that's a bad thing, it's a totally fine reason to watch movies. One of the primary reasons, to be certain.

Well, that's not me, at least not anymore. That might have been me when I was an actual teenager, and not just channeling teenage desires as many of these people with whom I differ on John Wick, Jack Reacher and the latest Mission: Impossible movie seem to be doing. But the reason I know I'm really a cinephile is that I want any type of movie to be good, be it an action movie, a costume drama, a hard-hitting documentary or an abstract art film. The people who think John Wick is the best movie of the past five years are not even seeing those last three types of film.

Which is okay. I'm not here today to tell you how much better I am than they are, even though I know it sounds like I'm doing that.

Really, I'm here today to try to stop scratching my head about why these people love the movies they love, and I don't.

And through the writing of this, I've decided it's the opposite of someone who tries to break up with you gently:

It's not me, it's them.

What's in a name?

There should be no greater sign of creative surrender than naming a movie after one of its characters, right?

If you can't find just the right turn of phrase, variation on a familiar cliche, or particularly striking image or theme from the movie, you could see someone giving up and saying "Oh fuck it ... let's just name it after the protagonist."

"The protagonist has a boring name? Okay, let's change the name so it's not boring."

Having said that, though, some of my favorite movies subscribe to this naming convention. In fact, one such movie has residence in my Flickchart top 20 of all time, as we shall soon see.

So the question really is: If a movie has been named after the main character (or one of the other characters), is that actually a sign of creative deficiency? And if so, should we be able to see that in my rankings of all movies named after a character?

Logically, if all else is equal, movies named after a character should be spread equally among my rankings. If the title really is no sign of a problem with the movie, they should be sprinkled from top to bottom about equally. So in this post, I'm interested in finding out if that's really true.

(And thanks, John Wick, for bringing the question to mind when I watched you this week.)

First I need to talk about what movies I'm actually looking at, or rather, which ones I'm not looking at.

1) No movies named after just the character's first or last name. No Joe or Parker or Greenberg or Frank. Those may have their own kinds of problems, but at least there's something abstract about a title like Joe that can't be claimed if you give Joe a last name.

2) No movies where the character has a particularly flashy name or nickname instead of a given name. So, no Crocodile Dundee, Johnny Dangerously, Joe Dirt, Hudson Hawk or Edward Scissorhands. If the movie had been called Mick Dundee, it would qualify.

3) No movies where there are other words in the title as well. So, no Ace Ventura: Pet Detective or Agent Cody Banks. Those other words add something to the title that gives it additional meaning and/or context. (And in both cases are great titles, says me.)

4) No movies where the name is a famous brand name, or the name of the original source material. That rules out the likes of Robin Hood, Aeon Flux, Dick Tracy, Jane Eyre, Julius Caesar, Billy Budd and Flash Gordon.

5) No movies where it's not the complete name. Sorry, Frances Ha.

6) No movies named after famous people. Goodbye Michael Collins, Ed Wood, Marie Antoinette and Wyatt Earp. (I actually haven't seen Michael Collins, but it's one I immediately thought of.)

The other movie you won't see on this list is John Wick, but not because it doesn't qualify. I've just seen it too recently to rank it on Flickchart. I have a personal policy of waiting 30 days to rank a movie. That gives me a "cool down period" so I can get a better sense of how I really feel about it, before giving it a ranking that will have an impact on all other movies that come up against it.

However, I will say that John Wick is a particularly poor title for this movie. Yeah, everyone's afraid of this lethal killer and his name makes their blood run cold, but that alone doesn't seem justification for naming a movie after him. (I guess it would be like giving the title Keyser Soze to The Usual Suspects.) Especially since this seems like a prime example of modifying the character name so it would make a good title. (Don't light his wick, he's got a short fuse!)

That's plenty of ado -- shall we begin? I'll show you them in order of ranking, and then include a brief comment on whether the name works as the title or not. I've found more than 30 titles that qualify, so I'll try to be brief. Ranking listed is out of 4120 movies ranked.

1) Donnie Darko (2001, Richard Kelly)
Flickchart ranking: #15
Does the title work? Given my love for the movie, I have a hard time saying that anything about the movie doesn't work. But in truth, it's a bit lazy, relying on alliteration to sound more clever.

2) Ruby Sparks (2012, Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris)
Flickchart ranking: #99
Does the title work? It does, because the character is a fictitious creation, and the name has been designed to exemplify traits she has been given by her creator.

3) Annie Hall (1977, Woody Allen)
Flickchart ranking: #174
Does the title work? Again, it's such a great movie that I can't think of it as having any other title. But is there really a reason it needs to be named after her? No. Incidentally, this is Woody Allen's only film that uses this naming convention -- and it's also considered by many to be his best.

4) Billy Madison (1995, Tamra Davis)
Flickchart ranking: #357
Does the title work? I can justify this one based on the fact that it's about a fully grown man who returns to elementary school. I believe he's called Billy even in his everyday life (haven't seen this favorite in something like 15 years), but him going to class with third graders makes the name "Billy" all the more evocative.

5) Erin Brockovich (2000, Steven Soderbergh)
Flickchart ranking: #410
Does the title work? This is a questionable inclusion because it's the name of a real person, but since it's not a particularly famous real person, you can't make the argument that the film was titled that way to sell a brand to us. I suppose it works, but primarily because her last name is colorful. If her name had been Erin Smith, that would not have been the name of her movie.

6) Donnie Brasco (1997, Mike Newell)
Flickchart ranking: #424
Does the title work? This one works well, because it's the name of a fake identity, a bit like in Ruby Sparks. Like Johnny Depp's character himself, the name is designed to give the ring of truth without raising any suspicions among the mafia Depp's character is infiltrating. The name indicates "Italianness."

7) Jerry Maguire (1996, Cameron Crowe)
Flickchart ranking: #467
Does the title work? Again I feel blinded by liking the movie so much. But why does a movie about a sports agent need to bear that agent's name? Answer: It don't.

8) Napoleon Dynamite (2004, Jared Hess)
Flickchart ranking: #648
Does the title work? You could argue that this should be set aside in the Edward Scissorhands category, but this is the character's actual name in the albeit very quirky world this movie presents. It's evocative and fun and it totally works. It is pretty much exclusively a portrait of him, and therefore should be titled as such.

9) Happy Gilmore (1996, Dennis Dugan)
Flickchart ranking: #951
Does the title work? After his first two starring vehicles, it seemed like this would be Adam Sandler's thing ... and then he never did it again. (Despite being involved with Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star, Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star and Paul Blart: Mall Cop.) Happy Gilmore straddles the line between silly name and real name. It makes less sense as a title here than in Billy Madison.

10) Barton Fink (1991, Joel & Ethan Coen)
Flickchart ranking: #1054
Does the title work? As far as I can tell there is no reason this needs to be the name of this movie. It's just a clever-sounding character name.

11) Charlie Bartlett (2007, Jon Poll)
Flickchart ranking: #1541
Does the title work? I've actually talked about this title on The Audient before, and dissed it because I know they just liked the sound the words made when characters spoke them. The trailers for this featured a succession of characters in a row saying "Charlie Bartlett," making it obnoxiously clear how clever the screenwriters thought they were. The movie is okay, though.

12) Bob Roberts (1992, Tim Robbins)
Flickchart ranking: #1568
Does the title work? This one works better than most because the titular politician has been constructed to seem like an everyman that voters would like to elect. His name is both bland and punchy, like a catchy pop tune. It's a pretty great title.

13) Rocky Balboa (2006, Sylvester Stallone)
Flickchart ranking: #1586
Does the title work? This one deserves its own unique category: character name of a character made famous by the series the movie appears in. While it is a brand name of sorts, it has the useful function of attempting to show us a change in the tenor of the series, a shift to something more realistic. (Or maybe, a return to something more realistic, as the first Rocky is gritty as hell.)

14) Ellie Parker (2005, Scott Coffey)
Flickchart ranking: #1640
Does the title work? In the sense that it is a portrait of one particular struggling Hollywood actress, it makes a certain sense, but it stinks of them having no better options for a title.

15) Jackie Brown (1997, Quentin Tarantino)
Flickchart ranking: #1716
Does the title work? I hate this title, mostly because the title of the book it was adapted from is so vivid and has such impact: Rum Punch. Why QT didn't stick with that title, I'll never know.

16) Michael Clayton (2007, Tony Gilroy)
Flickchart ranking: #1955
Does the title work? This one seems especially useless, because isn't George Clooney's title a bit of a cipher in his own movie? It seems like it's more "about" either Tom Wilkinson's character or Tilda Swinton's character. But I don't remember it all that well and was not all that impressed with it.

17) Albert Nobbs (2011, Rodrigo Garcia)
Flickchart ranking: #2181
Does the title work? Another false identity here. It's a great-sounding name for a butler. I say, it works.

18) Shirley Valentine (1989, Lewis Gilbert)
Flickchart ranking: #2217
Does the title work? It's from the one-character play of the same name, so I can hardly blame them. And since it's just the one character, it makes a certain amount of sense. But it's not particularly memorable, and I'm sure other titles would have served the story equally well if not better.

19) John Carter (2012, Andrew Stanton)
Flickchart ranking: #2737
Does the title work? Leave "of Mars" on the title, and they may have had a hit. Actually, I'm sure the title only had a little to do with the box office failure of John Carter, but the name by itself tells you absolutely nothing about, well, anything. John Carter of Mars? Now you're cooking.

20) Charlotte Gray (2001, Gillian Armstrong)
Flickchart ranking: #2983
Does the title work? As with Shirley Valentine, the original book was also named this. As that's not a property I know, I'm including it here anyway. Big "so what?" here. Didn't like this movie, didn't find the character interesting enough to get a movie named after her.

21) Billy Elliot (2000, Stephen Daldry)
Flickchart ranking: #3074
Does the title work? Billy Elliot will probably never overcome the fact that I saw it on a day when I felt particularly depressed, but I like to think that I wouldn't have liked it even on my best day. No idea why this story of a boy who wants to dance needs to be named after him.

22) Nacho Libre (2006, Jared Hess)
Flickchart ranking: #3119
Does the title work? And Jared Hess makes the list again, with a title/character name just as marginally legitimate as Napoleon Dynamite. (And a movie that's far less legitimate in terms of quality.) Because this is, again, a stylized world, I say, why not?

23) Fred Claus (2007, David Dobkin)
Flickchart ranking: #3278
Does the title work? Easily one of my favorite titles on this list. It perfectly establishes the concept of Santa Claus having an ordinary slacker brother. It's just too bad the movie isn't a bit better after a promising start.

24) Simon Birch (1998, Mark Steven Johnson)
Flickchart ranking: #3422
Does the title work? Like Jackie Brown, they changed the name of the book on this for no reason I can think of. A Prayer for Owen Meany would have been a perfectly fine title. And maybe then it wouldn't have seemed quite so precious and maudlin.

25) Patch Adams (1998, Tom Shadyac)
Flickchart ranking: #3504
Does the title work? He's a doctor named "Patch." Get it? (The character's name is actually Hunter, so this kind of violates my rules. But I'm leaving it in, just to give myself the opportunity to shit on this movie.)

26) Dolores Claiborne (1995, Taylor Hackford)
Flickchart ranking: #3559
Does the title work? Also the name of Stephen King's novel. I have absolutely no idea what this movie was/is about. But I assume the title is not very important.

27) Jack Reacher (2012, Christopher McQuarrie)
Flickchart ranking: #3612
Does the title work? The most similar in function to John Wick. Not a good movie. At least in this case I think the title is an improvement from the source material, which is called One Shot.

28) Larry Crowne (2011, Tom Hanks)
Flickchart ranking: #3668
Does the title work? Larry Crowne, he's a simple fellow.

29) Julian Po (1997, Alan Wade)
Flickchart ranking: #3669
Does the title work? This movie is like a character exercise more than a movie. Christian Slater plays Julian Po, a depressed man who comes to a town and wants to kill himself, but whose life is changed for the better by the townspeople. Or something.

30) Alex Cross (2012, Rob Cohen)
Flickchart ranking: #3858
Does the title work? I debated about whether to include this one, because it probably falls into the brand name category. However, the series of books starring Detective Alex Cross don't actually bear his name. Having a reboot of the Alex Cross movies called Alex Cross has a bit of the same function as calling Rocky VI Rocky Balboa. And it works there so I guess it works here too.

31) Jonah Hex (2010, Jimmy Hayward)
Flickchart ranking: #3893
Does the title work? Yeah yeah, it's based on a comic book character. But I'd never heard of that character before. Whatever. Am I still doing this?

32) Dom Hemingway (2013, Richard Shepard)
Flickchart ranking: #3987
Does the title work? I HATE DOM HEMINGWAY AND I HATE HIS ASS FACE.

So one thing I noticed is that surprisingly few of these are out-and-out terrible. There's a decent number that are actually quite good. Let's see if the average Flickchart ranking bears this out ...

The combined rankings of the 32 movies equal 67,366, which divided by 32 equals 2105. The dead middle of my chart would be 2060, so this is very close, and proves ... nothing. Well, it proves that whether a movie is named after one of its characters has next to no bearing on its quality.

But hey, we had a fun discussion, didn't we?