12 bad reasons to call a film great

1. It’s ambitious, epic and grand – Properly defined, these things are not necessarily awful traits. Too often, however, people mistakenly assume that “big” stories about wars, economic crises, or civil rights movements are greater and more ambitious than stories about two or three people in a room talking about or hiding the subtle, little emotions we go through in the ridiculously complex minefield that is human interaction. This is one of the fallacious reasons some favor Renoir’s ‘The Grand Illusion’ over ‘The Rules of the Game.’ There may be valid reasons for...