You Don't Have to See a Movie to Hate It

Sometimes I feel like the character in Metropolitan who pretentiously notes that he doesn't read literature--just literary criticism.

I'm confronted with this realization following incessant exposure to advertising for Little Fockers, which I predict will be one of the worst films of the year.

And no, I don't have to see it to believe this.

I've already suffered through the first two installments of this trilogy: Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers, both incredibly junky, cynical "comedies" predicated, in part, on jokes relating to the protagonist's nearly profane surname and his supposedly effeminate profession as a nurse.

This is the kind of humor that makes Jerry Lewis look like Moliere.

So far, I haven't yet read a review for LF, but I will...and I'm hoping whatever I read will corroborate my sentiments. I'd also like to think I can discern a reviewer with "taste" from a reviewer without it. You know--someone reliable.

Someone who can verify my belief that I don't need to see this flick...ever.

For the record, I don't surround myself with "yes-reviewers" or newspapers that only share my opinions. But I know that a good review of a bad movie will provide a reader with a feeling of support that people often relegate to therapy sessions or Sunday dinners with the folks.

"You're not alone," a good review conveys. "We're in your foxhole, too."

And that's what makes good criticism: total, unabashed obsequiousness. Maybe that's what that character in Metropolitan initially liked. Before he changed, of course, and started reading literature.

Yeah, I'm still not gonna see LF.