I’m smarter than you, or at least I am supposed to think I am smarter than you and come off smarter than you because I review movies. So there.
Look, I said that in 19 words and I didn’t need the thesaurus or the dictionary to do it. However, I guess I could have said:
I am an arrogant windbag that will search for words to make me sound smarter while I review the latest romantic comedy.
At least that is how I was being treated in my latest jaunt over to RottenTomatoes to check out the critical score for Catch and Release. I gave it a “D” and was just curious what others were thinking and if they thought the same as I did. While, it seems those that gave it a bad grade basically felt along the same lines as I did, I noticed they said it in a much different way. Some were rather verbous and descriptive in their review captions. So much so that the word “lugubrious” was used twice in two different captions.
Being the idiot that I am, after thinking these critics must be so much smarter than me, I looked the word up:
lu·gu·bri·ous [loo-goo-bree-uhs, -gyoo-] – adj. – mournful, dismal, or gloomy, esp. in an affected, exaggerated, or unrelieved manner: lugubrious songs of lost love.
Okay, good on yah for that one. If you think I didn’t have fun with the loo and the goo in that one guess again. Then I see words like “lachrymose” used in the same sentence as lugubrious. After I stop hitting myself in the head and drooling because I am so stupid that there are two words I don’t know the definition of I head back over to dictionary.com for this definition:
lach·ry·mose [lak-ruh-mohs] – adj. – suggestive of or tending to cause tears; mournful.
So, Catch and Release tends to cause tears and is mournful. That’s sort of true… I guess, not sure about the tears part. But is it palpable, affable, seriocomic and an example of vacuous literary flotsam? Now I ask you sir… IS IT? Based on these captions it most certainly is!
Now I am not claiming to be a brilliant writer. As a matter of fact I think I am far from it. I do hope I am somewhat entertaining, but that is out for opinion. However, when I see people using this type of language it makes me think if it is really necessary for a romantic comedy of which currently has a 23% rating and isn’t likely to improve much. Since when do you have to be a Spelling Bee champ to read a movie review? And these are just the captions!
The final straw comes with the catch phrase listed on two of the captions. I thought of it for my review and almost used it. I ended mine with “…but for what its worth this one will be quickly forgotten.” However, it almost was “…but for what its worth this one should just be thrown back.” Ah ha, GOTCHA! Didn’t see that one coming for a film titled Catch and Release did yah? Two reviewers out of the first 13 took advantage of this clever bit of witicism in their captions and I am sure several more will follow, and it if is not in their captions it is most likely in their reviews.
No matter how you look at it you are stupid and critics are smart. Deal with it! OR, perhaps it is just me that is stupid. Stupid is I? I be dumb? Not sure the correct grammar there as I am now doubting my every word, but oh well.
