Welcome to my blog about all things movie and media!  My name is John Meehan, and I’ll be using this blog as a way to pretend I know things about film, television, and popular culture.  Make no mistake, you can read far better-informed opinions on these subjects from a variety of other sources, but I hope I can bring something new to the conversation from time to time.

My aim is not necessarily to review movies, but instead to analyze and discuss them.  A film can mean many things to many different people; my experience can be completely different from the person sitting next to me.  However, like any art, film has its own language, and interpreting that language can give insight into the authors’ intent.  I approach film discussion the same way I’d approach any argument. I can claim the movie means whatever I want it to mean, but I’d better be able to back it up with “facts,” meaning elements that objectively exist within the movie.  I’m free to say “Citizen Kane is an allegory for Tibetan Buddhism in the contemporary world,” but unless that view is supported by the film’s text, I’m going to look like an idiot.  So that’s the goal: find elements of movies that I think are unique or interesting, and explain what I think they might mean in the context of the movie’s themes.

A major part of my brand of film criticism is recognizing when something doesn’t quite work for me.  Usually this happens when I personally disagree with a film’s message, or, worse yet, I might feel a film’s text is saying something that actively clashes with its central theme.  As a result, I’m sometimes going to be unfairly critical about the hard work of hundreds of talented individuals, despite my clear lack of qualifications.  I apologize to those people in advance; I doubt you will ever read this or care at all about what I say, but if you do, please don’t take it personally.  For other readers, if I say something mean about your favorite movie, I would like nothing more than to hear the other side of the argument.  Just, you know, defend your point of view rather than going all 12-year-old-on-Call-of-Duty.

In my opinion, you can’t truly discuss a movie without discussing the entire movie.  We live in a spoiler-averse world (one I appreciate and enjoy), and thus movie reviews are usually confined to talking about the generalities of the plot while dancing around the third act.  Because I am not reviewing movies, I will be referencing spoilers early and often.  However, I intend to start all posts “spoiler-free,” and will do my best to tag spoiler content accordingly.

Finally, if you ever read my posts and think “my god, this guy sounds pretentious” or “he has no idea what he’s talking about,” just remember that the blog is for fun, the posts are just opinions, the writing is mediocre and the content is free.  Frankly, I’m just thrilled you’re reading it, and I sincerely hope you enjoy.