offering intelligent discourse

Film This new essay from Roger Ebert is worth posting in-line. It's about the reaction to his review of Transformers 2 in which he was lambasted for being out of touch and/or only giving it a poor review because it's "clearly" not the sort of film he likes. Once particular quote stands out:

"What disturbs me is when I'm specifically told that I know too much about movies, have "studied" them, go into them "too deep," am always looking for things the average person doesn't care about, am always mentioning things like editing or cinematography, and am forever comparing films to other films."

That's me! That's been said to me over and over again, ad infinitum and usually by people (some of whom might even be reading this) who've asked me what I thought of a particular movie in the first place then don't like a proper thought out answer as though being informed and having an opinion is a bad thing.

And hating something like Transformers (I've yet to endure the sequel) has nothing to do with not liking that kind of film or not 'getting' what Michael Bay is trying to do. I'm one of the three people who adores The Island. It's that it's poorly written, horribly directed and pisses a much loved franchise up a wall.