MovieBob provokes actual thought from me for once...how rare.
The phenomenon Bob describes with his Arbys analogy is what I like to call the "Boondock Saints Dilemma" . It's a personal definition because...well I need to tell the story in order for it to make sense.
First, rewind to approximately 1 year ago. My life had just sunk to new lows. I won't go into details, but the end result was that I became morbidly depressed and highly, nay, DANGEROUSLY cynical. It got to the point where I pretty much couldn't enjoy anything. Not my favorite food, movies, friends, anything.
So, my life was cruising along on its Dead Reckoning (nautical term, look it up) until I decided to hang out with my friends sometime around august. They decided on a whim to rent The Boondock Saints. We watched it.
Sufficed to say, it was the first thing I laughed at in months. Willem Dafoe's performance cracked me up, and the shenanigans, however unoriginal or "bullshit" they might be was surreal and strangely pleasant to watch.
And then...I find out that just about every critic (whom I respect/watch anyway) out there despises that film on principle, because they've "already seen it done before, and done better" elsewhere.
They then produce other "better alternatives". I go out and watch them.
I recognize that the movie has serious flaws and that there are better Vigilante movies out there, but my mind was already made up due to the context in which I saw the film and because I saw it BEFORE the others.
So, I'm kind of flying in the face of Bob's logic here. If I've seen the Boondock Saints, why do I not hold up other, better vigilante movies? Objectively, I try to. As a hobby, I evaluate cinematography, plot writing and logic. It's fun (though sometimes painful).
However, given the time frame, I can't pin my love for the movie strictly on "nostalgia" (and why on earth would I WANT to remember that horrible time in my life?). For a while, I couldn't really rationalize it beyond that.
But then the bleeding obvious hit me: This is subjective reasoning at its purest.
It's also why I stopped trash-talking the audience for seeing movies they thought they might like (and why Bob's review of the Expendables provoked a largely polarized reaction, at least from me). As much as I despise a number of these remakes, reboots and nostalgia-exploitation films I feel that if the movie pleases the audience; then fine.
It doesn't mean I won't give my opinion on a piece nor make comparisons, but when we start insulting the audience for not having "refined taste", I think we're missing the point of reviewing movies as a form of quality-control.