A Smaller Critic-Moviegoer Gap

By DAVID MONTGOMERY

Dec. 31, 2001 12 AM PT

WASHINGTON POST

We, the moviegoing public, should be ashamed of ourselves.

It’s the conclusion of another year when we flocked to the mega-plex, spent more money than ever--$8 billion so far--and voted with our dollars for our favorite films. As usual, the critics are telling us we don’t know squat.

Comparing our top 10 list with theirs is like scanning the menus at McDonald’s and Chez Panisse: Both have potatoes.

We loved “Rush Hour 2.”

The critics adored “The Man Who Wasn’t There.”

We dug “The Mummy Returns.”

They preferred “Ghost World.”

Not a single foreign word appears on our list.

The critics would not feel right about themselves if they couldn’t roll their Rs over “Moulin Rouge,” “Va Savoir” or “Amores Perros.”

Sequels? Bring ‘em on! There are five on the people’s list, six if you count “Planet of the Apes,” which is more a remake but still familiar, formulaic and--in our humble, uninformed opinion--fantastic.

Any critic worth his mise-en-scene would rather sit through “Titanic” again than endorse a sequel.

It is true that we all agree on something, and that is “Shrek.” Everybody loves a good cartoon.

The critics and the public may have more in common this year than the top 10 lists suggest. “Ali,” “Black Hawk Down” and “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” are making many critics’ lists. All three are finding favor with the public as well but have opened so recently that they have not registered the megabucks required to number among the 10 top-grossing films.

Still, such exceptions prove the rule.

“The critics’ criteria center on much more particular uses of cinematic style and acting, etc., which are not the same criteria by and large that the general public goes to see,” says Douglas Gomery, a media historian and economist at the University of Maryland.

Judging by popular movies over the years, what we go to see are mayhem, monsters, sex and low humor.

“So if you have two groups going in with different criteria, it doesn’t surprise me that they don’t overlap,” Gomery says. “What I find surprising is that they overlap at all.”

The “genius of Hollywood,” Gomery says, is on display during those instances a few times a year when box-office bucks and critical kudos are heaped on the same work.

The split in popular and critical tastes may be more than a debate of the simple-minded vs. the sophisticated.

There also could be a structural reason, built into the movie business. The most frequent moviegoers are teenagers and those in their early 20s--especially males. Ergo, some argue, smash box-office hits tend to be movies that appeal to that crowd. What thrills teenage boys hardly ever appeals to film critics.

“There’s a generation gap between the average age of the typical critic and the most frequent moviegoer,” says Paul Dergarabedian, president of the movie sales tracking firm Exhibitor Relations Co.

He estimates that the year will end with movies grossing about $8.3 billion, up from last year’s record $7.7 billion.