In e-mails and forum posts, I've gotten a lot of response to my negative thoughts about Stan & Ollie, the new film that purports to tell us the story of the latter days of Laurel and Hardy. A number of folks have agreed with me, though some of them said something like, "Everything you said about the film is true but I enjoyed it anyway." That's fine. I'm not out to change anyone's mind about it. In a way, I envy those who liked it because a couple of hours of their lives were happier than the corresponding hours in my life.
And a couple of folks didn't get the fact that my displeasure was not all about how the film departed from the truth. I understand that movies do that, especially biopics. I love Yankee Doodle Dandy despite the fact that its storyline resembles George M. Cohan's actual life about as much as it resembles mine. I just didn't like the story that Stan & Ollie presented and thought it did not make The Boys look as good as anyone who knew them said they were.
I acknowledge my views seem to be that of a teensy minority. They occasionally are.
Unlike what feels like a lot of people on the Internet, I am fine with you liking a movie that I don't like or vice-versa. I do not understand why anyone thinks that opinions of books, TV shows, movies, pizza or anything need to be unanimous.
As you may know, my favorite movie is probably It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Note that I always say "my favorite," not "the best." I love the film in part because of what it is and in part because of what it meant to my life and in part out of love for the cast list. About four times a year though, I seem to run into someone on some forum who wants to argue that it isn't funny the same way they'd argue that the square root of 25 is not 11. If we've all learned nothing from the World Wide Web, we should at least have learned that whatever your opinion of something is, there are plenty of people out there who disagree. Why, there are even people who profess to like cole slaw.