And in the back of my head, a little voice was singing the David Byrne lyric, "Well, how did I get here?"
Actually, I volunteered, as soon as I heard the Sundance Film Festival announced they were doing a panel discussion on the state of film criticism - a subject about which I, like most people with my job title, have strong opinions.
Upon seeing the 50 or so people in the Filmmakers' Lodge audience - pretty good for so early in the morning and so late in the festival - I was relieved to see that non-critics care, too.
I felt a bit like the odd man out, because I was the one guy not from the New York/Los Angeles nexus of film criticism. The moderator was Scott Foundas, the film critic at LA Weekly. Besides Gleiberman and me, the panel had two writers who make their bones on the Internet: IndieWire editor in chief Eugene Hernandez and Film Threat editor in chief Mark Bell.
As the conversation began, Gleiberman took the lead by talking about the unfortunate habit - by movie studios and by audiences - to speak about popcorn movies and "art-house" movies as if they are different species.
"I see a lot of critics now, in adapting to that situation, have almost embraced the dichotomy," Gleiberman said. "It's an acceptance of the idea that art and entertainment should be on different islands."
Critics have the power to champion smaller and more artistic movies, Gleiberman said, but only collectively. (See, for example, the ads for "No Country for Old Men" that list the numerous regional critics' societies that named it the year's best picture.) But that collective thinking can go too far.
"I think critics are starting to think collectively," Gleiberman said. "I think that a groupthink mentality is starting to settle into film criticism, and that really bothers me. The thing that drew me to film criticism, the thing that I applaud about it, is it should be about the voice of the critic. It should be about the individuality of the voice."
Gleiberman cited last year's "Letters from Iwo Jima," a movie he hated but most every other critic adored. "I'm not saying that any of those opinions was wrong, or that my opinion was sacrosanct," he said. "I'm saying, 'Where is the diversity of opinion?' "
Hernandez cited the pressure mainstream publications place on their critics, directly or indirectly, to write to match their readers' sensibilities - while also being squeezed for column-inches. With those pressures, Hernandez said, "How can we expect them to be able to make the kinds of really in-depth points in their reviews when they don't get the space that they deserve?"
Bell made the point that the Internet also offers a wide range of opinions, as anybody can either post their own reviews or comment on others' opinions.
I argued that such diversity exists outside New York and L.A. Regional critics, like me, often get Oscar-bait movies after the big-city folks have made their pronouncements - and we sometimes scratch our heads and ask, "What was the big deal?" I felt that way about two of this year's Best Picture Oscar nominees: "Atonement" and "There Will Be Blood," movies I thought were well-made, though not the transcendent experience others made them out to be.
This is just one sliver of our wide-ranging talk, which covered the difference between critics and "regular" moviegoers, the impact of the Internet, the obsession with box-office stats, and why critics embrace certain filmmakers over others.
Faced with the central question - do film critics still matter? - we all agree, perhaps self-servingly, the answer is "yes."
"If movies do become so trivial that critics don't matter, than we've got a lot bigger problem than whether critics don't matter. We've got a problem that movies don't matter anymore," Gleiberman said. "If that ever happens then we're in an extremely unhealthy situation. Because a culture needs art, and a mass culture needs popular art, because art keeps you sane, art is the mirror. . . . Film critics will always matter as long as the movies matter."
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* SEAN P. MEANS writes a daily blog, "The Movie Cricket," at blogs.sltrib.com/movies. Send questions or comments to Sean P. Means, movie critic, The Salt Lake Tribune, 90 S. 400 West, Suite 700, Salt Lake City, UT 84101, or e-mail movies@sltrib.com.
