Perfeckt Dept.

Between cleaning up one thing and another, I stumbled across a bunch of notes I'd been putting together for prospective fellow critics/reviewers. One of the little bylaws-to-self written there was: "Don't look for 'perfect'."

Part of the problem I have with a term like "perfect" is that it's so charged with potentially misleading meaning that using it brings too much additional baggage to the table. Your idea of a "perfect" movie is probably nothing like my idea of a "perfect" movie, so unless you want to get into a discussion about your "perfect" vs. my "perfect", it's better to talk more about the work in other ways. (This goes, I think, hand in hand with avoiding superlatives in general. If you say something is "the best XXX" or even "the best XXX since YYY", then all that does is date your decision.)

No creative work is free from flaws, because every reader brings their own sensibilities and expectations to the table. Everyone wants something different, even people who are ostensibly going to the same work for the same reasons. It's probably better to talk about what people expecting going in, and how those expectations are going to be satisfied or defeated. Nobody goes to see Machine Girl for the quality of the acting, and nobody is going to watch Last Year at Marienbad to see stuff blowed up real good. Not unless they've been sold some seriously out-of-whack expectations about them.

Don't look for perfect, if only because everyone's looking for something different anyway. Look for satisfying, look for what works and why, and just go from there.