I don't agree with all of Nathaniel Rogers' annual lumps of coal in this post from a few days ago. He has five items listed on his “Most Overrated Anything” list, and I'd  argue that Amy Adams was hardly what was wrong with “The Master,” while “Life of Pi” was a more fascinating movie than he lets on. But yes to “Silver Linings Playbook.” At one point during that movie I did something I've never done at the theater before: I got out my iPhone and checked my email. Don't worry, I was in the last row! No one around me! Even so. Takes a lot for me to do that. Although my threshold keeps getting lower.

The quote of the day, though, is for No. 4 on Nat's list: film critics. We actually kind of disagree on this, too, since he thinks they're shirking their advocacy duties while I think the biggest way they fucked up was allowing others, namely pundits, to point out the main moral issues, or shortcomings, with “Zero Dark Thirty,” after a month of nothing but adulation from critics. That still pisses me off. If, in fact, the pundits are correct. I'll finally get to see the movie next week. 

But we agree here:

It's not helping, I don't think, that the online conversation is increasingly oroborus-insular and consensus-premature since movies are withheld from public view too long and by the time the conversation has opened up critics have tired of playing with them, like cats who've grown bored with their own tails or a dead mouse.

My real complaint, of course, is with the studios and distributors, who hold the best movies until the end of the year, then force-feed them to us at Christmastime.

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