Walrus, Yes!

I've been a fan of Kevin Smith since Mallrats. These days it seems like the popular thing to do to shit on his latest work. Am I going to say that these people are wrong and that Tusk, Yoga Hosers, Red State, Jersey Girls, and Cop Out are the greatest cinema of all time? No, I can't say that those people are wrong. What I can say is this...

1. Tusk wasn't made for you.

Last night, I watched Tusk for the first time. Being a Smith fan, I frequent his podcasts and I was there to listen to the inception of the idea of Tusk. The brainstorming session behind this film was a fevered dream of two guys smoking weed and coming up with the most absurd bullshit that entertained them.

At the end of the day, Smith asked his fanbase if he should even make this a reality. He was ingrained into what he thought that Hollywood wanted that he was even second guessing whether he should even do this or not. The answer from the fans was a resounding #WALRUSYES.

Being there for the inception of this, finding it entertaining, and watching become a "thing," I knew what to expect and I knew that its absurd nature would polarize people. Mainstream Hollywood and its fans would tear this apart, which they did. Still, there is a demographic outside of mainstream Hollywood that are rabid fans of this type of film.

There are those of us who watch Troma Movies, David Lynch films, or even El Roth's... um... I guess you could say movies. We can sit down and watch 1993's Freaked right next to Marvel's Avengers and be equally entertained by both. One critic said that Smith seems to be making movies for his family, friends, and fans. This was intended to be a negative critique, but I wouldn't take it as that.

Kevin Smith is at the point of his career that he can make movies for his family, friends, and fans and toss a middle finger to everybody else. Anyone who considers themselves to be artists ache for the day that they can make art for themselves and if people buy it, whatever. He is there. Who cares if you like it, he likes it, his fans like it, his family and friends support it, so screw everybody else.

2. None of his movies have been blockbusters.

Fans today far too often have this nostalgic love for an artist's work, but keep a selective memory of that work. So many people will hold up Smith's early work on a pedestal as the quintessential example of the everyday man breaking big and making it huge in Hollywood. They seem to selectively forget that, aside from Clerks, all of his films were critically panned as being bad movies.

Mallrats was criticized as being amateurish, immature, and a waste of film. If you go back and watch Clerks, Smith's film that most people consider his best movie (I disagree. I think that Dogma is, but that's a debate for another day), you would see that it was probably his worst.

The acting was debatably bad, the direction and editing really expressed his (at the time) lack of skill, plus the humor was so incredibly dry that mixed with the deadpan acting it hurt trying to follow. Did I consider it a bad movie, though? No.

Putting all of the negatives aside, I was entertained watching it. Is it treated like the greatest movie of all time by film connoisseurs? For some reason... yes. Then came Mallrats, which was a slight step up, Chasing Amy, which was only a gimmick away from being the typical rom-com of the day, Dogma, which was his most controversial film, then Jay and Silent Bob. Don't get me wrong, I love all of these films. But, I can recognize that none of them are Oscar-worthy material without losing that love.

Other people who are fans, though, can not understand why Clerks didn't win Best Film of the Year. Which makes watching Smith's newer work harder for these fans. It's the same quality that we appreciated and loved before, but now without the nostalgia blinders. So, these people are seeing the warts and wrinkles that they don't remember from before, but have always been there.

Is Tusk any better? No. By no means am I saying that Tusk is any better. I had a my problems with it. The ending was a hard pill to swallow, there was one scene that I question the placement of, and some of the character development was a bit lacking (I'm looking at Haley Joel Osment).

Am I saying that it's on par with his other films? Sure, just for a different audience. If you take the humor of Dogma and jam it into his earliest film, Vulgar, you get the basic feel of Tusk. Tusk belongs in this library of work and I, for one, welcome it there.

3. Internet critics think too highly of themselves.

One of the biggest complaints about Hollywood is that everyone is afraid to take risks. All that we get in mainstream film anymore is sequels, reboots, and movies based on other IPs. That's because Hollywood is a business, they are not going to take a chance on anything original when originality is going to fail.

That failure is almost a sure thing because critiques dwell on the negatives more than anything anymore. This comes from the fact that, with the advent of internet fame, so many people claim to be critics without actually knowing about the field.

Much like what WWE is going through with the fans constantly trying to hijack the show. Without knowing the ins and outs of filmmaking, these critics base their opinions on previous opinions about films that are not tied to the currently critiqued film.

On top of that, many basic mistakes are made that professional critics would cringe at the idea of publishing. Mistakes like genre lumping (basing an opinion on a film on the genre that it's lumped into), placing the blame for a bad film opinion on unrelated factors (blaming the actor for bad editing), and the dreaded basing a review on other reviews, are amateur mistakes to make in film review.

We, as viewers, will hang on every word of these reviews, though. Because we have this idea that, since these people are "us," that it has to be a completely incorruptible and true opinion.

An article from TheHustle this past December shows just how easy it is to actually corrupt those opinions. Also, the issues that came about from Zoe Quinn, of Kotaku, added to the aforementioned basic mistakes that are made by amateur critics can only serve as proof that these online critics have very little, if any, credibility. Even if the commented critiques don't have any compensation to it, the hope that our uneducated opinions are of any importance will drive people's egos to jump on bandwagons.

For a while now, there has been a cynical concept floating around that if something isn't A+, then it's an F. This, like much in our society, is picked and chosen when and where it applies. It seems like this opinion has permeated critiquing to its core.

Anymore, if critics like a movie, they love it. If they don't, they hate it. They completely ignore the massive gray area in between the black and the white. Internet critics, above professional critics should be held to a higher standard, because of that perceived notion that they are the same as us.

The problem is that they are not held to a higher standard. Hearing their opinion is no different than hearing the opinion of a movie from a complete stranger that doesn't have to prove their merit. Picture a guy on the side of the road screaming that Transformers 4 deserves an Oscar and everybody is nodding in agreement.

4. How DARE you have a different opinion than me?!

When I was young, I was bullied by a kid that had a group of other kids that would laugh along. At the end of the school year, I got a note from one of these other kids that apologized for laughing along and saying that if they didn't laugh along, they'd be on the other end with me. I've noticed that mentality has carried forward. Maybe the reasoning is different, but the idea is still there.

The idea that anyone could like something that you don't is so hard to comprehend for some of us. I've been guilty of it myself. You don't like Stranger Things?! What the hell is wrong with you?! If you need proof, get into a conversation with a death metal fan. To avoid having that ire pointed at us, we jump on the bandwagon as if what side of the opinion we're on is the most important aspect of our lives.

Kevin Smith's movie may not speak to you, but that doesn't mean that they don't speak to someone. Trashing that someone's opinion for not being the same as yours only serves to insult yourself, but this seems to be the main argument made in most debates. Time to grow up, people.

Tusk is not Schindler's List, but it doesn't have to be. Tusk entertains fans of the movie about as much as any movie entertains their respective fans. In some aspects, the reason why some people do not like it are valid. Others, not so much.

You're allowed to have that opinion.

To expect that a film is going to be wiped from history due to that opinion, though, is expecting way too much. The film may not find a fan in you, but it will find a fanbase somewhere. As part of Kevin Smith's fanbase, I liked Tusk (may not love but I did like), and I'm looking forward to watching Yoga Hosers and Moose Jaws also. Why, because I want to be entertained. Which is the point of a movie anyway, isn't it?