Mrs D reviews Sweeney Todd here.

I was very curious about her impressions, because she is increedibly qualified to judge- she has a great deal of experience in the business, so to speak, and she can definitively say what is good and what is not good.

Now. I know some great talent when I see it, to the extent of people like Lanza, or Julie Andrews. I can ONLY see that because they stick out SO much farther than any of the others, talentwise. At the level of the actors in this fim, I haven’t a clue. The singing sounded fine to me and I’m still humming “Joanna”.

My ignorance, in other words, allowed me to base my opinion of the film (I liked it a great deal) on my emotional respoonse to it. I didn’t have the luxury of seeing the play except as it was put on film (a HORRIBLE way to see a play) I also don’t have the ability to judge between the singing of one mediocre talent and another, I’m just not talented in that direction. It’s the “I like what I like” thing. (Mrs D also said of the film ‘She liked it very much”, and i think that is as much because of her knowledge as despite it)

I DO have a lot of intimate knowledge of machinery. More than anyone I know, in fact- and my knowledge is SO intimate that inventing something to perform a task is just a part of the job- my company holds buckets of patents for things I and my fellow engineers concepted, and every drawer in my toolbox holds at least one tool I made or modified to suit my purpose.

The world of people who don’t understand a thing about machinery is huge. If you have no personal experience, a Fanuc robot is no different from a Motoman. If you haven’t been under the hood a Camry could appeal to you no more than a Ford 500.

Each person who drives a car, sees a movie, whatever, judges their impressions based on their knowledge. I’m a prety good judge of motor vehicles. I’m a fair-to-middling judge of people. I judge art on a puyrely emotional basis.

Politics is like this. If you have NO understanding of the process or the mechanisms, you will naturally gravitate toward what makes you feel better, what you enjoy more, and that lack of knowledge can have horrible consequences. Without the skills and ablity to judge which candidate, for instance, has the skills to do his job as it should be done, we end up with statist assholes in charge.

My lack of knowledge lets me enjoy Sweeney Todd on a purely emotional level. a HUGE number of people vote on a purely emotional level. The one is innocuous, mostly. The other is a disaster.

And then there are those who deceive.

A politician who does what he does, knowing full well that it is wrong for the people of this country and wrong for the country itself, like a critic who badly reviews a good movie, or gives plaudits to a horrible movie, is driven by an agenda, either hidden or overt.

Mrs D gave the movie an honest and technically accurate review, based on her extensive knowledge. And that helps educate me, and I enjoy and appreciate that. it will help deepen and broaden my filmgoing experiences in future.

Pitiably, she also happens to be pretty good at educating people about the political process, as is Kim, and there are damned few who pay attention.