I don't know about "a surprising number of movie critics," but the participants in this year's Slate Movie Club sounded as if they spent most of their leisure hours sipping Chardonnay together in the same hot tub.

I like movies, personally, but current movies aren't really my thing. This is mostly because I am cheap, but it may also be a political statement. According to the Movie Club, nearly everything about the movies involves a political statement. For a movie to have no discernible political context is itself a political statement. By logical extension this implies anything that anyone does involves a political statement, which as a theoretical matter is a depressing thought.

As a practical matter it is obviously absurd -- politics in any form are among the many things most people who are not movie critics go to movies to escape from. Even real, direct political statements are likely to go right over the heads of the audience. This may be just as well if the people who make movies have the same idea of what politics is about that Slate's critics do.

What is that? Judging from last week's discussion, mostly it is about sex. This means sex for procreation and pleasure, sex as an expression of gender roles and power relationships, sex at all times in all forms in all places. My Labrador retriever doesn't think about food as much as the Movie Club thinks about sex.

Their view of the role of sex in politics, not to say existence, is a minority one, something suggested by their secondary theme. This is alienation. To be fair, alienation is a real theme of many films, especially though not exclusively the boring ones from Europe. But the Movie Club critics, or at least some of them, are quick to claim alienation as their own; this is the most likely explanation of the sniping the movie "Cold Mountain" -- a story of love in wartime -- took because it made no effort to show the Civil War "from an African-American point of view." O! The injustice! The oppression! It is as good an explanation as any also for the frequent references in their dialog to Marxist theory, all but irrelevant to the political culture of this country except as a symbol of alienation from it.

Well, as Dan suggests, read the Slate feature yourself. You may find it meaningful even if you are not sex-obsessed or chronically alienated. I would suggest one thought, though: there are a number of real, fairly significant political issues surrounding the movie industry, involving subjects as varied as copyright protection, foreign cultural ministries' zeal to funnel public funds to politically favored film makers, and the influence of western and non-western cinema on peoples whose knowledge and views about other countries may come mostly from movies (and perhaps popular music). The Movie Club critics said not one word about any of them. What kind of statement were they making?

Zathras,
I'm with you on the Slate movie hacks. Individually, they can come up with passable commentaries; together, they are less than the sum of their parts. I can't say why this is, precisely. Reading their give and take is like watching a (semi)witty dinner party on tv--you're not invited, so why watch?

Dan,
No offense, but you got Menand's wry piece all wrong. Of course these things are far from definitive (his point exactly--why does the NYTimes have four of them? they scarcely overlap, even). And he hit the nail on the head for me when he said that we want to have a seen at least a few of them (even if we say, phshaw, that wasn't THAT good) but not all, we want one or two "mainstream" but no more. In other words, we want to see part of our selves reflected there, but we don't want a mirror image, do we?

And Mystic River was overblown, but better than mediocre. Your friends need to lighten up.

and...here's my mini review of 21 grams. cheers.

Well, here's one American who has been offered the job of movie critic (more than once) and would not take it. Two reasons: 1. That's the end of writing or making movies myself, far more interesting (and erratic, alas) than criticizing them. 2. I know several film critics well and do not in the slightest envy them the task of seeing all those movies, the vast majority of which are truly bad. It's like submitting your stomach to a non-stop diet of cold, stale Big Macs with maybe one ration of fresh tuna sushi every three weeks.

“(last week, I had to defend Mystic River against a charge by two left-wing colleagues that the movie was really a veiled endorsement of American imperialism)”

Wow, Dan Drezner sure works with some strange folks. And some people actually wonder why I often insult people with advanced degrees behind their name. Where’s Mark Kleiman when you truly need him? I guess I was also mistaken to believe that the University of Chicago prohibited the use of hallucinating drugs on the campus grounds. Patton probably caused these individuals to have a nervous breakdown. Are they advisors to Howard Dean or any other Democrat presidential candidate? These academics definitely should not be allowed to play with matches.

Mystic River was well worth seeing. Clint Eastwood deserves much credit for putting together a insightful story concerning blue collar, New Englander Catholics and their lack of faith in the authorities to solve a tragic murder. Both Sean Penn and Tim Robbins were magnificent. I guess that they have decided to join the American imperialist conspiracy. Sean, in particular, was very impressed when I told him that we serve roasted babies covered in a delightful orange sauce at our banquets.

It's actually referenced in the Movie Club discussion, but there's another take on the whole "Best of" issue here:http://www.nypress.com/17/1/film/film.cfm

Well worth reading, if for no other reason than to get an idea of how impossible trying to determine a "Best Movie of the Year" is.

And actually, I'd like to have seen all of a critic's top 10 list, especially if it's a critic I've read regularly, although of course it never happens. But one thing I've noticed with a lot of people is that they don't seem to like movie critics much, because the critics' tastes are often very different from theirs. Of course critics' tastes are going to be different from the average moviegoer, for many reasons; it's the requirement of the reader to take that into account.

And it's silly to think movies don't reflect and comment on the society that produces them. That doesn't mean that it's required of movie watchers to look for these things and comment on them; on the other hand, it doesn't mean you have to ignore them, either. I suspect the readers of this site would find very different "political statements" than the Movie Club critics, which isn't a bad thing.

OK, I'll bite. From the reviews, I thought that Mystic River would be to the Brothers Karamozov as Appoclypse Now was to the Heart of Darkness. As I left the theater, I said to my wife, "Well, it was a good procedural, but it did not have any larger philisophical or tragic point."

I don't think you have to ignore political statements (intentional and otherwise) in the movies. I think that most people do ignore them, so that even if the Movie Club critics are right you have a "tree-falling-alone-in-the-forest" situation. If no one notices one is making a political statement -- and especially if one did not actually intend to make a political statement -- why is the statement worthy of comment, least of all from a movie critic whose connection with politics in the real world is somewhat tenuous?

Kelli: In fairness to the Movie Club, Slate does provide a forum for reader participation in discussions like theirs, the Fray. I noted a couple of the critics were dismissive of the comments posted therein, and I can't blame them. Slate has allowed the Fray to deteriorate into a somewhat more elaborately set up AOL chat room, but some of the critics did respond to e-mails sent directly to them.

Robert, I didn't go in (to Mystic River) with your expectations, but I came out with a similar feeling, except I don't think I could have put it as sucintly as you have.

I simply can't believe anyone 'wept copious tears' in that movie.

Haven't seen much this year I like myself, maybe Dirty Pretty Things and Dancer Upstairs. Saw Bad Santa last week, I enjoyed that.

Mostly I've been trying to watch 70's movies that I didn't see when they came out (because I was under 10). The highlights have been China Town and the Candidate.

I actually enjoyed Menand's article. I believe it was a somewhat tongue-in-cheek, British wit à la Oscar Wilde-style piece. His point that publishing three lists of the ten best whatevers in one paper was well taken; it is ridiculous, and amusing. Three top ten lists? Isn't that really ... a top thirty list? It's have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too syndrome: striving to cover your bets with 30 choices while supposedly exercising judgement and choosing 10. Menand is, I believe, poking fun at the very idea of top ten lists in general, with which we are indeed innundated at the end of every calendar year.

"Pluralism and democracy are fine things, but they have no place in the evaluation and consumption of pop culture, especially today, when, all around us, the sea is rising."

Couldn't Algernon have spoken those very words?

And speaking of The New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell's article "Big and Bad" on SUV's and the perception of safety is excellent! (It's in the same issue.)