Here.
Anthony, it's so ironic that you wrote about "Inside Man" just recently. It's one of my favorites of the past few years and one I own and seen multiple times. I was just thinking about it the other day when I ran into one of my bosses in the men's room at work. We made the usual chit chat and started talking about movies. He said how much he liked Denzel Washington and I insisted that he check out "Inside Man." (I might bring it in for him to borrow sometime.)
One of the things about the film that I like the most is that it's so different than any other film Spike Lee has made. It's his first thriller and genre picture. All of his other films are either a drama, comedy, or documentary. It's nice for well known directors to step out of their comfort zones and usual territory because it really shows the pure filmmaker within. Another example of this idea in a different film is David Cronenberg with his recent Eastern Promises. (I mention it in my review here.)
Your point about film as a timeless art is also important. Recently my editor gave me a blog so I could write DVD reviews and thoughts on older films. I really love having it. My most recent post ranks the films of 2008 that I've seen so far. Right now The Dark Knight is at the top, followed by WALL-E and Iron Man.
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It's great when directors, and even actors, step into new territory. I especially remember Training Day where Denzel Washington is a corrupt cop with a thug personality. It was enough of a surprise that he won an Oscar for it.
And speaking of film as timeless art, don't you love the freedom of reviewing anything you want? There's no pressure necessarily to keep up with the newest releases. :-)
I like having both freedom and guidance. I like being able to post onto my movie blog about whatever I want whenever I want. I also like the regularity of seeing a new release each week, though. Sometimes I almost wish my editors gave me more instruction, like if they said "You're seeing this movie this weekend." And then I just had to see it. I might see more crappy movies that way because right now I have the tendency to see what I want to see so my positive reviews outnumber the negative ones since I usually try not to see the movies that I know will likely be bad. Sometimes I'll intentionally see bad movies if I know I'll be able to get a good review out of it.
Regarding bad movies, being a critic takes away the pain of watching a bad movie. In other words, even if you don't enjoy the movie, you can still enjoy writing about it.
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