What's Wrong With How We Critique Pop Culture, Rate Films

I was reading an article published in January 2006 by some critic in some magazine, the edition of the best and worst of the year 2005. He rivaled Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg against each other for who was the best (not of this year, but of all time) for pulling in audiences. He went for Jackson based on sales. Then he started talking about Spielberg losing his touch to pull people in, which people have been talking about of him along with every other director who has been almost or just as successful as he is since their success began.

It came down again to hype vs. content. This is my biggest pet peeve and I only have two. The critic seemed to be surprised that Spielberg's "Munich" was as good as it was and then he said to the audience not to be as surprised because "he did make Schindler's List" as if he had forgotten.

But what disturbs me the most is that people refuse to recognize talent that stays these days. Every filmmaker is going to have a few clunkers and Spielberg definitely has a few, but overall his product is good, not only in my opinion but generally he has made some of the greatest films of last century and some of this one, critics and audiences agree.

I don't think it has anything to do with Spielberg's "dwindling" talent that people speak this way, it has to do with the attitude toward art and every artists from classical music to paintings to literature. Everyone who knows me knows that it disturbs me when people don't appreciate things like Shakespearean plays, or Mozart, or Hitchcock, or Raphael (and I don't even like Raphael but I appreciate his art and talent). People have their opinions and such and I love having discussions over what people liked or disliked about certain films but (and now we come to the reason for this article) when people say something is overrated, no matter if it be someone like Brittany Spears, I almost take offense.

It makes my stomach boil, that word, "overrated".