I recently went and saw Vanilla Sky. I thought it was a great movie, probably one of the best I've seen. Why then, did it get bad reviews across the board? (29% at Rottentomatoes) Well, I decided to figure it out in the old Frank Klobucar fashion of jumping to conclusions. First I thought it was because people knew the plot previously, so they were expecting all those weird flip flops. Well, wait. That's not it, because many people didn't even realize it was a remake of Abre Los Ojos (which we still can't get a hold of - ed.). Then I figured that it was because people were unable to get over Tom Cruise, because he's a pop culture idol (yes he is! think about it) and people don't like pop icons. Well, that wasn't really it, because most of the badmouthing was going towards Cameron Crowe. Then I had to stop jumping to conclusions. So, I sat down and waded through webpage after webpage devoted to movie reviews. I started to notice something. People were complaining about the same things. This might not seem like a revelation to many, but I started because they were so obvious: people wanted a clever sleek movie. What they got was a slower paced, well written but unclever script. (Don't think that I'm implying that an unclever movie is a bad one, In fact, in this case I'm implying that clever is bad - there should be more to a movie than wit and quick one-liners). Movie critics and goers go into a movie hoping not to be entertained, but to have witty jokes or "thought provoking cinema" hurled at them at a beat poet's pace. They want this every time. These are the same people complaining about robotic culture and redundant pop music. They wanted it in Fight Club, and got it (Now Fight Club was a cool movie!). They wanted it in Vanilla Sky and were upset when they got a movie not thought provoking (although I got the idea that they slipped and tried to make it "profound" at the end - ed.) or emotion instilling. Vanilla Sky was great because it made me laugh some parts, made me drop my jaw at others, and split my brain and whisper mindfuck to myself repeatedly. Also keep in mind the lack of clever humor and thought provocation in movies such as Casablanca or the original Oceans Eleven. Yet, these are universally heralded as great movies (well, the rat pack was more cool than great, if you get me) I didn't mean for this rant to be a movie review, but I really liked that flick!