About Different Drummer
"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however distant or far away."—Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
Maybe you’re like me. You feel out of step with the current drumbeats in the movie review band. Some of the films they disdain you enjoy with guilty pleasure, and though you’d never admit it to your intellectual friends, the ones they rave about often leave you either cold, disgusted or both.
You don’t have to agree with all of these purely personal preferences. But if one or two really strike you, get ready to join the Borich Brigade of Different Drummers.
You:
Go to a show, see a flick, catch a movie, pop in a DVD, but rarely “attend a film.”
Do not regard a dysfunctional family as an essential centerpiece of a great work.
Find the love life, political beliefs and prior work of actors mostly irrelevant to your enjoyment of a movie.
Remember when passion was a look, a longing, a light touch, when verbal wit rather than profanity ruled the day, when gangster, criminals and thugs were the bad guys.
Feel the artistic merit of a film is inversely related to the frequency of the “F” word.
Feel manipulated when a film is merely a vehicle for political, social, or religious indoctrination.
Think black and white is okay, sometimes even better than Technicolor. And subtitles don’t bother you, as long as you’ve remembered to bring your glasses.
Find one of the greatest things about being a grandparent, aunt, uncle, or babysitter is the excuse to see all those great Disney movies again –(the old Disney films, not the new WOKE abominations.)
Are convinced that young punk movie critics take themselves too seriously.
Realize all the greatest stories have been told. It’s how they’re retold that counts.
True Beliefs:
American Beauty was overrated. Okay let’s get it out. It was SICKO.
Richard Burton’s voice was a finely tuned instrument, Sir Lawrence Olivier was classic perfection, but Mel Gibson’s Hamlet was more alive, more real and more believable than his critically acclaimed counterparts.
Captain Kirk was ultimately superior to the politically correct Jean Luc Picard.
No one was a better Bond than Sean Connery.
The original Producers was the funniest film ever.
No one can compare with Hitchcock.
True Confessions: “I...
...actually sobbed, great gulping, chest-heaving embarrassments, when Old Yeller died.”
...love John Wayne, male chauvinist, cowboy (Is that a bad thing?), and warmonger that he was.”
...am a sucker for horse flicks and am still waiting to see some of Dick Francis’ novels hit the screen.”
...fell in love with Louie Jordan when I saw him in Three Coins in a Fountain on my 7th birthday.”
...really like action flicks, dig martial arts movies, and am a Jackie Chan fan. “
...fell asleep before the end of Citizen Kane when I rented it. (This final confession is so blasphemous that I left it for the end, hoping you haven’t read this far.)”
