I won’t distress you with a guess of how – not even a ‘circa’ – late in life I confronted the fact that not everyone thinks like me.  If on occasion I sensed otherwise, I must have been sure they were just being willful and contrary for the sake of it.

Now, from the standpoint of any number of statements made in posts over the years, if I need to say that I’m sorta/kinda kidding with those last two sentences, I’m in trouble.

How e v e r, when someone whom I love and respect trashes a movie I revere, they are just being willful and contrary.  Or, they will have been deceiving me into thinking they were bright, warm, insightful, when they were but ignorant beasts.

Our friend Martin, whom I mention here rather frequently, thinks that the comedy ‘Galaxy Quest’ is terrible in every respect, when a more affectionate and spot-on sendup of ‘Star Trek’ and Trekkies does not exist.  Just Alan Rickman as a Shakespearean actor trapped in a Leonard Nimoy/Mr. Spock role is worth the ‘risk’ if you would not normally go near a picture like this.

This brings me to Wes Anderson’s perfect ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’, which in turn brings me to Peter Bogdanovich’s ‘They All Laughed’, the worst movie ever made.

Wes Anderson says ‘They All Laughed’ is one of his ‘Top Ten’ favorite movies.  This is the strongest possible argument for re-examining willfulness and contrarianism.

If you have not seen ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel‘, you need to pray for forgiveness.  However, if you have seen ‘They All Laughed’, having worn a hair shirt for those two hours, I grant you partial absolution.

By the way, Quentin Tarantino also claims ‘They All Laughed’ as one of his ‘Top Ten’, but who are you going to believe, me or those two?