ooh, i hate it when people like things that I don't like!

tomorrow the second of the 'twilight' films will be released. it's called 'new moon' and i get the feeling that for every person looking forward to it, there are probably just as many people engaging in some form of pre-emptive vomiting over the film. i didn't see 'twilight', as it got mostly bad reviews. and i likely won't see 'new moon' either, even if it gets good reviews. mostly because i don't give much of a shit about 'twilight'.

i visit the onion av club site a lot. and this week as part of their jokingly titled "i watched this on purpose" series, the subject was the first 'twilight' film. the result was about as snarky as you would imagine, though the writer, an adult male, deserves some credit for realizing that 'twilight' wasn't exactly conceived for his demographic. unfortunately, the legion of numbskulls who posted on the comment boards to pillory anybody stupid enough to actually enjoy 'twilight' were unable to assume even that small amount of empathy. when "this sucks and aren't we all so clever for not liking it" circle-jerks break out, i get depressed. why do intelligent people need that sort of thing? yup, 'twilight', a bizarre modern gothic/vampire romance series cooked up by a mormon writer named stephanie meyer, sounds ridiculous. so what? why does any ostensibly secure adult care what other people enjoy?

because looking down on others is one of the best ways to feel better about yourself. what's more ego-boosting than pinpointing an entire subset of the population and defining them as being clearly and fundamentally stupider than you? and if you can find a group of like-minded smarties whose points of view are congruent with yours, so much the better! it'd be saddening to encounter this stuff if these people weren't so unbearably smug about themselves. as it is, i have considerably more contempt for people who hate (supposedly) stupid crap than i do for the (supposedly) contemptible masses who lap it up.

more often than not, crazes like 'twilight' are ephemeral in society. of course, the books may have a lasting entertainment value for teenagers reading them today but 'twilight' isn't likely to affect how someone chooses to live their life in any significant way. most teenage girls will outgrow it. and the small number who don't leave it behind as they move into adulthood are likely the sort of needy types who, one way or another, would have found something else to lose themselves in anyhow. the specifics of what these people like are, by and large, unimportant.

what's comical about film nerds laughing at the stupidity of 'twilight' fans is obvious: they're no better. the only difference (which is ultimately negligible) is this: many film nerds believe the things they obsess over are genuinely worth obsessing over. it simply boils down to a matter of whether or not one has good taste! the nerve of other people, getting wrapped up in something that film nerds don't approve of! it's a false dichotomy but you can't point that out to hyper-critical film nerds, because they either believe that it's ok to be obsessive about certain things (as long as those things are, in their opinion, worth obsessing over), or they simply won't acknowledge on any level that they are just as obsessive themselves.

the comment boards of sites that attract film nerds are hilarious and pathetic. these people are not paid film critics, yet they consider themselves obligated to see nearly every film that gets released. and in taking on film critic-like duties, they have somehow assumed a stunning sense of outrage regarding which films fail or succeed. it's truly bizarre to read comments from people who honestly think that michael bay's continuing success is a gross injustice, as opposed to, let's say homelessness, which they don't seem to give a shit about. of course, it's a lot easier to fulminate about something trivial than it is about something important. because yowling over the undeserving fame of some douchebag director doesn't leave one in the awkward position of having to back up the complaint with real action. though doing so would mean that you couldn't gripe about how bad it is, you could simply avoid the guy's next movie! complain about the problem of homelessness and you've got a problem yourself: there are things you could do to help, so why the fuck aren't you doing them?

film critics have a tough job, as i see it. they have to watch a lot of crappy movies and then, unlike the rest of us, feign at least some degree of objectivity and review what they've endured. but like most of us, they aren't really objective. as we progress through life, our experiences (and the things we learn from them) create a personalized sort of prism through which we view everything. the problem is that few of us realize that our own responses are rarely, if ever, objective in any true sense. that's why film reviews should generally be taken with a grain of salt. ideally, one could take the opinions of film nerds who get so much pleasure out of hating things the same way. but there is something about the braying, strident obnoxiousness of these people that i find repellently fascinating. the surety with which they hand down their pronunciations on everyone else's unworthiness is astonishing.

yup, people who line up to see the new 'twilight' movie are dopes, but most of them are teenagers, a group predisposed to engage in dopey activities. that's more than can be said for adults who actually waste hours of their lives obsessing over what other people like and getting angry about it.

by the way, werner herzog's remake of 'bad lieutenant' (starring that atrocious ham, nicholas cage) also opens tomorrow. it looks like a deliberately campy, steaming pile of shit. anybody who goes to see it is an idiot. but i'm not being judgmental when i say that, merely making an objective observation. haha.