poseurs, amateurs and other movie buffs

Woody Allen enlists Marshall McLuhan to help deflate the obnoxious pontifications of Russell Horton in "Annie Hall" (1977) 

“Hello.

 “My name is Joe.

“And I am a ... movie buff.”

Once upon a time, I was a member of a small, select, rather surreptitious subdivision of the moviegoing public.

As originally perceived, a movie buff was a solitary individual who was unlike your average moviegoer in two distinct ways: He (film buffs have historically been mostly guys) was known to attend movies alone and often saw certain movies multiple times, more than once. In less enlightened times, it was considered suspect, even undesirable, to watch a film without a companion - or to watch a movie more than one time!

Yes, friends, times have clearly changed. Case in point: the on-going, seemingly never-ending "Star Wars" craze, now 40-years-old.

A movie buff also was not discriminatory about film genres; he would sit through anything and everything. And true buffs would read movie reviews at a time when no one else read movie reviews - or was even aware that there was such a thing as movie reviews.  And, yes, they actually read the review, not just glance at the headline or the tell-nothing star-rating. 

Originally, there were no star-, numerical- or lettered-ratings. (Or thumbs!) There were no short cuts. One actually had to read the review.

I know. Crazy.

Finally, the original movie buffs learned how to “read” the movies that they watched – and if you don’t know what that means, look it up.

Movie buffs, as I knew and admired them, were curious and open-minded about film, two very important, crucial qualities.  They were adventurous.

This type of moviegoer – my type of movie buff - still exists but is quickly fading.  Frankly, we’re dying off.  And, during the past few decades, we’ve been supplanted not by a single new breed but by a few variations that have compromised the notion of what a movie buff can and should be.

First, there are what I call The Franchise Geeks, a brainless but dangerous group of moviegoers - dangerous because they are what drive the film studios.  The original Franchise Geek was born in the late ‘70s in response to such blockbusters as “Jaws” (1975), “Superman” (1978) and especially “Star Wars” (1977).  The second-generation Franchise Geek made his debut 1989 in tandem with the Burton version of “Batman,” and the millennial Franchise Geek is the target audience for series inspired by the comics of Marvel (“Spider-Man”) and D.C. (“The Dark Knight Rises”). 

The Franchise Geek cares about one thing and one thing only – the latest franchise CGI extravaganza – and is not really a movie buff at all.  But these geeks have power and influence.  The studios court them and some critics have lowered their standards to keep in step with them.

In their own simple(-minded) way, they're opinion-makers. Scary.

Next, we have The Siskberts, those people who suddenly discovered film and film criticism with the advent of “Sneak Previews,” the syndicated movie-review show hosted by Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert that ran on PBS from 1975 to 1983 before morphing into other versions (“At the Movies,” “Siskel & Ebert” and “Ebert Presents: At the Movies’). 

Gene and Roger (who I remember as good friends, as well as colleagues) did something crucial:  They brought movie criticism out of the closet, so to speak. To reiterate, few people paid much attention to movie reviews but Gene and Roger popularized the form.  A movie critic was formerly seen as some grumpy old professorial type, deserving of his misery. 

But here were Gene and Roger, two regular guys just sitting around and jawing – not about sports but about film.  And they made it look easy.

And, in turn, they inadvertently created a lot of little Siskbert monsters – clueless people who pontificate about movies and who now think they are experts on the subject.  Woody Allen anticipated this phenomenon with his astute and hilarious Marshal McLuhan sequence in "Annie Hall" (1977).

 As a personal experience, I recently met a Siskbert who complained that "Manchester by the Sea" has "serious editing problems." Huh?

I'm willing to wager that your average Siskbert has never heard of Pauline Kael or Andrew Sarris - and probably doesn't even read movie reviews at all.  Why bother?  They're their own critic, see? I mean, they are the critic.

Our next group, The Movie Bloggers, is a hybrid of the Franchise Geek and the Siskbert.  Because their views on film are presented as written words (on a computer screen, not a newspaper or a magazine), they actually perceive themselves as movie critics, not knowing that someone has to actually hire you and pay you before you can present yourself as such.  Some have also identified themselves as “film historians.” Oy.

But I’ve a hunch if you asked any blogger about their favorite Glenda Jackson movie, they’d look at you with a confused glazed expression.

Finally, there are two groups more closely related to the Original Movie Buff. The Graduates are film freaks from the 1960s who became hooked on the film of the same name, as well as “Midnight Cowboy,” “Easy Rider,” Medium Cool, “M*A*S*H” and “Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice” – just a few of the titles representing the then-New Wave in American filmmaking. 

Some of them may still be around – I’m certainly still a member – but they were drowned out by the Franchise Geeks when “Jaws” and “Star Wars” took over. The New Wave was suddenly finished. Stone. Cold. Dead.

Which brings us to The Codgers, who were among the Original Movie Buffs but refused to evolve. Your average Codger doesn’t like anything new and thinks that anything made after 1970 isn’t legitimate or worthwhile.  They sit symbolically on the porch in their rocking chairs complaining that no one makes musicals like the ones that Judy and Mickey made for Metro.  In their tiny universe, MGM is sacred.

BTW, one doesn't necessarily have to be old to be a Codger, whose beginnings can be traced to 1994, the year Turner Classic Movies debuted.  Many of them are devotees of TCM's Robert Osborne.

What all these subgroups lack is something that I alluded to earlier – curiosity and an open-mind.  One really doesn’t have to be fanatic about film or even well-versed in it. But a sense of adventurousness is crucial – a desire to see “The Lobster” and “Paterson,” as well as “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” and “Dr. Strange,” an enthusiasm for “La La Land” and “Our Kind of Traitor,” as well as “Singin’ in the Rain” and “Casablanca.”

There's no room for any kind of snobbery among movie buffs and when I use the word snobbery, I'm not strictly referring to an elitism.

Snobbery can come in all forms, both high-brow and low-. It's too restricting. Too exclusive. The hobby, pastime, avocation of being a movie buff must be rescued from exclusivity and anything restrictive. It must!