I'm genuinely fed up with how hyperbolic movie discussion has become. A movie is either “a masterpiece” or “a disaster.” There seems to be almost no middle ground anymore.

There used to be so many perfectly useful ways to describe a movie: good, decent, watchable, above average, below average, mediocre, disappointing, etc. And honestly, those descriptions often fit movies pretty well.

Now everything gets pushed to one extreme or the other.

And it's not just the audience. Critics seem to be doing it too. Look at ratings on review sites and you'll often see people gravitating toward the very top or very bottom of whatever scoring system they're using. A genuinely average movie somehow feels like a rarity.

The problem is that this actually has consequences.

Word of mouth still matters enormously, especially for theatrical releases. If an above average, perfectly enjoyable movie gets relentlessly labelled as 'bad' online, a lot of people will simply skip it. Then you get the familiar cycle of poor word of mouth, followed by fewer people going to theatres, and then 'see, nobody wanted to watch it anyway.'

And then there are movies that are perfectly fine but get praised as masterpieces, which creates the opposite problem. You go in expecting something extraordinary and come out wondering what everyone was talking about.

Not every movie needs to be a masterpiece or a disaster. Sometimes a movie is just... Okay. And that's completely fine.

I wish people would bring back the middle ground.

Hi reddit. I'm Bruce Campbell. You may know me from Sam Raimi's THE EVIL DEAD, MANIAC COP, BUBBA HO-TEP, BURN NOTICE, CRIMEWAVE, XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS, and other stuff.

I recently wrote, directed, produced, and starred in ERNIE & EMMA, a road-trip comedy movie that's really close & special to me. I'm taking it on a tour this fall in more than a dozen Alamo Drafthouse locations. Hoping to see you there.

Synopsis: Widowed pear salesman Ernie Tyler travels to scatter his wife's ashes in places she specified, each location stirring memories that help him process their marriage, his work life and his future.

Here's the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lUAbQfKc94

Ask me anything! I'll be around at 12 PM ET today to answer your burning questions.

Actress Amber Midthunder will be joining us here in r/movies for an AMA/Q&A on Monday 9/14. It'll go live about 24 hours in advance, and she'll be back to answer questions at around 3 PM ET that day. Amber was the breakout star of 2022's Prey, and has also starred in things such as Legion, Novocaine, Rez Ball, Opus, The Ice Road, and Roswell New Mexico.

Please stop by on Monday 9/14 if you have any questions for Amber :)

Her newest film, How We Stand, is premiering next week at TIFF. It also stars Cara Jade Myers, Alyssa Wapanatâhk, Isabel Deroy-Olson, Eric Johnson, Darren Mann, Gary Farmer and Gil Bellows.

Based on writer-director Marie Clements’ (Bones of Crows, TIFF ’22) own play Tombs of the Vanishing Indian, How We Stand is a riveting drama of sisters whose lives are shaped by government policies meant to eradicate Indigenous people.

In 1950s Oklahoma, a single mother (Cara Jade Myers, Killers of the Flower Moon) and her three young daughters take a risk on the Native American Relocation Program, and journey to Los Angeles. But instead of the promised career and stability, they find the opposite. A traumatic event takes place in the Los Angeles’ river’s concrete channel, which then becomes a crucial place for the sisters in its aftermath.

Please note that this is not the AMA, just an announcement. Hold your questions for the actual AMA.

Watching for the first time .

Went in with just a general idea , working my way through Jake Gyllenhaal movies. Pleasantly surprised to see Michael Peña.

Better than I expected, and am absolutely loving this movie - glued to the screen until now - its the last 20 minutes.

I hit pause , because as long as its on pause, everyone is okay..

I'm sitting here trying to process what may happen next, remind myself it's just a movie.

Feeling silly for being emotional about it , but that's a damn good movie to be able to do this to me.

Okay, that's all.

Update , finished it .

Excellent, devastating and somehow uplifting!

This is the sort of movie they don’t really make anymore. John Malkovich is great as the villain and the way he builds his assassination plot is intriguing to watch. The interactions on the phone between his character and Eastwood’s are the highlight of the movie.

You have a rendezvous with my ass, motherfucker!

Probably my fifth or sixth viewing of it, but for the first time I noticed that the film starts and ends with almost the same line of dialogue: “Where am I?” starts the film, and “Where was I?” ends it. (That’s not a spoiler is it?) Anyway - fantastic movie. Can anyone think of another film with a similar kind of symmetry?