The critics have spoken

STIPIMM: “I Like Mike,” by Jay Spears

It’s been a nerve-wracking couple of days for Ian Allen (the director of Trapped by the Mormons) and me; tonight, the film opens for a week-long run in New York City, which earns it the cred to get reviewed by the big boys. And so, we’ve been waiting anxiously for those reviews.

The anxiousness came not from the need for validation. Ian has the thickest skin of anyone I know, which came from years of enduring the barbs of the Washington, D.C., press. As for me, having been a movie reviewer myself, I know how these things work, and I can easily take whatever they say about my work with a big grain of salt. What we were anxious about was the potential impact these reviews would have on the audiences. A good review in a prestigious publication can bring lots of people into the theatre. A bad review can shy people away, but that’s only a net negative if your movie was well known to begin with. In our case, even a horrible review is still publicity our movie wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. Still, good reviews are better, of course.

They started trickling in on Tuesday. They were all good, but none of them were effusive with praise. The Village Voice was certainly the most interesting, including the line, “…this must be the first movie in which an LDS pamphlet is used as a masturbation aid.”

Then, late Tuesday, came surprise word that the New Yorker magazine (of the snooty commercial: “the best magazine in the world… probably the best magazine that ever was”) had put a paragraph review of the film in its calendar section. Huge and unexpected. What was even better was what they said:

This silent film tells the cautionary tale of Nora (Emily Riehl-Bedford), a dutiful young Englishwoman who jilts her officer fiancé for Isoldi Keane (Johnny Kat), a Mormon proselytizer who is also a hypnotist and a vampire. The film is a conceptual gag (the director Ian Allen based it on a 1922 silent film of the same title and substance); if it occasionally falls flat, it nonetheless plays for high artistic stakes—for who has not at some time been possessed by love, religion, or some other passionate delusion? Allen and his D.C.-based theatre company, Cherry Red, prove that the silent cinema derives its deepest inspiration from the dance: the startling gesture repertoire with which Allen invests his performers makes even a faked resurrection seem true to life.—R.B. (Pioneer Theatre.)

Wow! The most intellectual mainstream magazine in America not only took our film seriously on its own terms, but gave it its approval. We were bowled over with glee.

The glee got diffused a bit the next evening when the New York Times review went online. Let’s just say it was… negative:

These are (for some reason) vampire Mormons whose baptismal ritual transforms nice English girls into furious face-eating zombies. No, it doesn't make sense. And no, it isn't as fun as it sounds.

I actually surprised myself in my reaction to reading the review. I wasn’t sad, morose, self-defeatist, deflated, whatever… in fact, it made me laugh in a morbid sort of way. I shook my head and thought, “Man, you just don’t get it, do you?” In contrast to the reviewer from the New Yorker, the Times’ reviewer had taken it seriously for about five seconds, formed an opinion early on, and let the rest of the movie inform that opinion. It’s how it works, for both positive and negative reviews – you don’t know what side of subjectivity you’re going to get.

The only thing that bothered Ian and me, and indeed the only reason I would be mentioning it, is the fact that it is the New York Times, the paper of record and the cultural touchstone for the city. All the other reviews could have been negative, but if the Times had come through, we would have been dancing. As it was, the Times was the only negative review (unless you count the New York Sun, which I don’t; long story why), and that significantly dilutes the positive effect of all the other reviews in the public eye.

But, like I said before, it’s still a review in the paper of record. For that reason, I’ve still been trumpeting the review to everyone I know. “Look, the Times hates us! Isn’t it awesome!” And the review fulfilled a long-time fame fantasy I've had (along with winning an Oscar and bagging Kate Winslet): it referred to me as "Mr. McKenzie." It's a silly little thing, but it's the Times' unique policy to call people by a formal title on the second reference to them in a story, and it's kind of a snooty "I've arrived" thing for me to see myself referred to in that way by the Times.

Today, however, came an even bigger surprise than all the rest of them. We got reviewed on Salon.com, which is a nationwide daily Internet publication, one that I and lots of people I know have read for years. It was part of their weekly “Beyond the Multiplex” feature, and was very positive. A sample:

Director Ian Allen (a longtime playwright and stage director) has lovingly re-created the look and indeed narrative style of silent film -- and he's from Salt Lake City, so if he says Mormons are vampires with hypnotic powers, who am I to argue? I suppose this is a one-note joke, more in the style of '70s avant-garde camp than anything else. But, hey, at least it's a funny joke.

And so, with the exception of the New York Times, our movie has been “hailed by critics” (if you will). Go to our pages on Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic and you’ll see the way the reviews are leaning. And if you want to read the reviews themselves, here are some helpful links:

New Yorker (only good ‘til Tuesday the 20th)

New York Times

Salon.com (scroll down to the bottom of page 4 [you may have to watch an ad to see this])

TV Guide Online (huh? really?)

New York Post

Village Voice

FilmThreat.com