National Review’s film critic, Ross Douthat, in response to a current Twitter meme, has named his seven favorite films. I praise him for his courage in putting Titanic on the list. It’s an excellent melodrama with fine performances and first-class production values, and yet very few films have attracted such a legion of cultured despisers: Hating it is a cheap way to signal one’s superiority to popular tastes. Now, I take second place to no one when it comes to desiring to signal my superiority to popular tastes; but I draw the line at hating an excellent movie just because teenage girls happen to go to see it 27 times.
I cavil, though, at Tootsie. Thanks to my ’70s upbringing, I had already internalized feminist values, and thought Tootsie, in 1982, was insufferably preachy on the subject. (I think it’s a sign of how culturally awful the ’80s were that people managed to convince themselves that Tootsie and Ghostbusters were great movies. Great decade for the economy, not so great for movies.)