Thanks for asking!
Sure, I like some escapist movies, even those that don't at all comment on the times, but I like for them to be fairly light. The world's scary and gruesome enough without cartoonish depictions of the exertions faced by a middle-class, beautiful American girl. When I'm in the mood for gruesome, I'll watch a
fact-based drama about the Rwandan genocide, to cite one example.
Another, even bigger test I use to judge art by is: does its tone honestly reflect the merit of its content? The new
Clash of the Titans, for example, has several similarities with
The Black Swan: it's about a sheltered young adult's quest for an epic achievement in the face of physical danger and in spite of an overbearing parent. But I loved
Titans, because it was goofy, over-the-top, and didn't get bogged down in unnecessary character detail. It
knew it was silly, from the bubblegum title on.
Black Swan, on the other hand, presents itself as a metaphor for the search for artistic perfection as if the notion weren't childishly misguided in the first place. It wants you to know that it takes its protagonists' pain and effort Very Seriously™, but not so seriously that the script bothers to provide any sense of what drives Nina, or any psychological depth whatsoever, for that matter. (
Source, see especially the Spoiler Special discussion.) And it thinks that it's being generally profound, then makes the French director a horndog and the San Francisco girl a libertine. If the movie were either played for catty, silly camp, or scripted and directed with subtlety, nuance and complex emotional relationships, I might be interested, but it seems to be neither.
Sounds like dumb
and unpleasant escapism to moi... without
Titans' ace in the whole, a "let's go find some gods and
kick their asses" plot, and who doesn't love
that?
