Paul Marchbanks

By Paul Marchbanks

I simply adore movies. Sure, I spend my days discussing and writing about British literature, and I take in the occasional prime-time thriller by J.J. Abrams, but what slides most easily down my narrative-worn gullet is bite-sized, slick and shiny cinema. Nothing compares with the anticipation of seeing a good story flicker across the silver screen. Some Saturdays, I motivate myself through a full day of readin' and writin' by dangling beyond my laptop the mere possibility of a visit to the cinema. And it really hurts when I take in a stinker. Like Harry Knowles of Aint it Cool News, I deeply want movies to be good: I grieve when a film fails to meet my fairly charitable expectations. Unlike many of those writing about film, I don’t get a kick out of pointing out the weaknesses of a work several hundred people have put their entire lives into for a few years. I’d rather be completely overwhelmed by a movie than find myself tracking its plot holes, bad acting, or faulty special effects. If I do have to criticize a film—and some of the stuff out there just doesn’t leave one much of a choice—I’m more interested in targeting a particular element than trashing the whole. I’m also much more likely to wrangle with a film’s ideological underpinnings than attempt to, say, undermine its mechanics or lambast it for poorly copying certain cinematic antecedents.

Posted by Paul Marchbanks at May 2, 2005 12:50 PM