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Page 34<br />
NOW THAT YOU’VE SEEN IT<br />
“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”<br />
One of the things that’s been on my mind since I left HitFix is the way we as an<br />
industry somehow let everything get turned upside down. I would estimate that at<br />
least 90% of the conversation about any movie happens before the movie comes out<br />
now, and then once it is actually in theaters and audiences can see it and participate<br />
in whatever conversation there’s going to be, the press has already moved on to<br />
something else that’s coming soon.<br />
The thing is, that’s called marketing, and I’m tired of doing it.<br />
My job has never been to sell a movie for the studios, and I guess I should<br />
have noticed at some point that the language they were using to discuss the<br />
relationship that the press has with them had started to take on certain implications.<br />
They called us their “partners” as often as not, and in that word usage, there is the<br />
idea that we’re in this together. Their successes are ours and vice-versa. Only that’s<br />
nonsense. I’ve championed films that the studios have abandoned to die, and I have<br />
refused to bow down before some of their biggest hits. As a critic, as someone who<br />
approaches film as an art form and a way of communicating empathy, I am tired of<br />
being part of any studio’s strategy when it comes to opening a movie.<br />
To that end, I’d like to regularly review films here that have already opened,<br />
with the idea being that I don’t have to tiptoe around things out of fear of ruining a<br />
movie pre-release, and because it also allows us to dig deeper into the text of the film<br />
without hesitation. So often, reviews have to talk their way around the most<br />
interesting elements in the film. For example, the film Arrival is one where I think<br />
you have to discuss the film’s biggest story points in order to examine the thematic<br />
purpose of the film. Ultimately, it asks the question, “Would you make a decision<br />
that would bring you enormous joy if you knew for sure that it would end in pain?”<br />
That’s a profound notion, illustrated in dramatic manner, and when I left the theater,<br />
that’s what stuck with me, that lingering question that I’m not sure I could answer.
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