12 Common Movie Criticisms That Make No Sense

2. "It's Pretentious"

Thanks to Family Guy, there's an entire generation of people who unironically use the phrase "it insists upon itself" to dismiss films that they believe to be "pretentious."

Pretentious has to be one of the emptiest criticisms you can level against a film, and it so often ends up translating to "a film that I didn't get or didn't like but can't explain why."

The typical conception of a pretentious film is one which presents a false sense of loftiness which it doesn't live up to.

But many use this criticism against bold films which swing for the fences, and while many of these types of movies don't necessarily always achieve their goals, should we really be ridiculing filmmakers for trying to do something different with the medium?

Ultimately art is subjective and one person's pompous tosh is another's affecting masterpiece, but flippant use of the word has become insufferable in recent years, with too many using it as a catch-all to shut down intelligent discussion about a movie, regardless of whether you actually liked it or not.

Not every movie is made for everyone, and it's totally fine for a film not to be for you without needing to trash it as self-important dreck.