wow rotten tomatoes?

Nice to know you can't think for yourself and have to listen to others, giving their opinions on movies they probably haven't seen, and box office numbers after ONE DAY?

Sorry, but it is apples to oranges. A movie like Surviving Christmas is not TRYING to score the huge opening weekend numbers like a horror movie. It is working to maintain decent numbers from now until New Years.

<<Or anywhere else in this country -- except maybe on the coasts, where there are still a few thinking people.>>

This comment is not indicative of a "deep thinker" so I'm going to assume that it is either not to be taken seriously or you were caught in a weak moment. And while I totally agree with your point, I do not agree with your assumption.

Categorizing people according to the movies they enjoy is completely shallow at best. Think of the theatre as a giant garage sale. One man's junk is another man's treasure. Or is that analogy a little too "Peoria"?

I go to movies to be entertained. I do enough deep thinking in my day to day life that sometimes it is enjoyable to sit back with an oversized popcorn and laugh at stupid things on the big screen. I happen to appreciate theatres with decent cup holders. I'm from Iowa. Does that make me a simpleton?

I enjoyed Eternal Sunshine, but I didn't walk away feeling very entertained. Just because I didn't LOVE the movie doesn't mean I didn't get the point of the movie or value its merits. I just prefer to seek depth in my relationships, not my movie choices.

People are always spouting off on this board about these people being pretentious and those people being idiots. Are you kidding me?? Because of the movies they enjoy??

Truth be told, I would wager that some of the "idiots" are reading books without pictures and actually enjoying it and the "thinkers" are watching The Wedding Planner and shedding a few tears.

I am not intending that you should bear the brunt of my spewing. For the most part, it's directed at the board in general. But, you seem like an intelligent enough person to handle it with some perspective. If not, accept my apologies. I'm sure you're a lovely person.

Quote: "As a former film reviewer, I can tell you that 9 out 10 films aren't worth the film they are recorded on."

Frankly, if you hate so many films so much then why were you a reviewer? This is exactly part of the problem with critics. Many of today's critics seem to be of the opinion that they are here to rescue us, the paying public, somehow, from wasting our lives watching terrible films. The trouble is, this is a complete conceit, in actuality most critics tell us only A: how they personally felt about the film which is close to pointless precisely BECAUSE it is their own very personal view and B: what their publication or internet site or whatever's agenda dictates, what they think their readership will agree with. This is why in the UK for instance you can predict with quite a good degree of accuracy whether The Sun will like a movie and also what The Guardian will think of it, because they're horribly biased. The reason the IMDB is so great is that none of us is getting paid for our opinions or, hopefully, has to pander to the opinions of others. If a film were really to be judged fairly then all we would be supplied with in the media would be a brief plot synopsis in order to help us decide if a film were "our sort of thing". Paid critics spend the majority of their time stroking their own egos and trying to find a way to sound more important, intelligent, or funny than their subject, and yes, many do not even watch the films they pretend to be so informed about. Ctomvelu, your post proves this perfectly.

You said Surviving Christmas "sounds like a real stinker"...um, well, you wouldn't know would you, you speak with absolutely no authority as you haven't seen it, at least if you had seen it then you could honestly appraise it. Also, saying that it is an attempt to cash in on other Christmas movies??? What do you think all Christmas movies are, what do you think most movies do. Anyone with a modicum of financial sense would not greenlight a movie that had no precedent. The making of movies all over the world is largely governed by trends, this applies to the Hollywood system particularly but it really also applies to any other financially successful movie industry. It has been said many times, Hollywood exec.s do not like to take chances, they look for something that has proven successful, modify it just enough to be acceptable as a new product and then sell it to the public again. The art is in how individuals have circumvented and exceeded this system to produce something different. Your post is full of generalisations and suppositions "I suspect it did poorly at the box office", "satire has never played well", and I'm supposed to trust reviewers like you, only see the movies that you have vetted for me, the problem comes when Hollywood studios listen to people like you and deduce that they must make movies that EVERYONE will love, believe it or not, that isn't the way they used to make money, not before the age of the blockbuster movie, but now, they're continually damned by the very same people that corral them into producing derivative, universally recognized trash.

Your overall pretension and lack of knowledge is belayed in your assertion that Eternal Sunshine... is an art film for the thinking man. First off it is made by Focus who are an arm of Universal, this is basically the strategy, a Hollywood studio creates another production arm under a different name and uses it to market films to the independent and art film market. The film actually happens to be very good in my opinion but lets face it, it's still produced, marketed and sold to us with a very lucrative target audience in mind. These films are not made to simply satisfy artistic longings, they are financial endeavours which, if made by the right people, can also be artful. It, also has its precedents, is not all THAT original but is enough of a new spin to make it enjoyable for us. The only reason movies like Surviving Christmas are fairly universally trashed by critics is because that is what the media believe people want to read at the moment, that is what they believe the "art cinema" bunch and cinephiles want to hear to stroke their egos. If you see the movie and hate it fine, if you see it and like it, fine. Just don't waste your time putting someone else's view up on a pedestal and worshipping it. I love movies and if you really do too then you should be spending less time sh*ting on ninety per cent of them, after all, if your attitude to them is anything like your attitude to Surviving Christmas then you haven't even seen them!

Ben Affleck is a really cool guy. If you've ever listened to any of the Kevin Smith commentaries, you'd realize that he's not arrogant or any kind of a big shot Hollywood guy. He's very funny and a great dramatic actor, and just because he plays arrogant characters in movies like Armageddon and Pearl Harbor, that doesn't mean he's like that in real life. See Chasing Amy, and quit making fun of Ben Affleck. It IS a fad, and it all started with Bennifer and Gigli, and some people still haven't gotten over it.