Some movies are cinematic benchmarks. Movies used as standards for merit and excellence for years following their release. Films such as Citizen Kane, The Third Man, The Godfather... films from the oeuvres of masters of the craft such as Hitchcock or Kubrick.

On the other hand, there are movies like Steven Spielberg's The Fabelmans. Did I just say "movies"? Use of the plural here implies that there are other movies out there as bad as this one. Maybe there are, but I'm hard pressed to name one off the top of my head. Even when judged solely on the basis of the leviathan that is the director's self indulgence, The Fabelmans earns its place at the very apex of bad movies, Sadly, that self indulgence is just the tip of the iceberg. An iceberg larger than the one sent the Titanic plunging to the bottom of the sea, carrying thousands to their deaths. If that comparison seems overblown than I must ask, have you no sympathy in your heart for the MILLIONS of movie viewers who died figuratively from soul-crushing boredom brought on by The Fabelmans?

Say what you will about supposedly bad movies; films ranging from 1959's Plan 9 From Outer Space to a more contemporary film like Tommy Wiseau The Room, at least they didn't induce a 2 and a half hour long coma in the audience.

In all seriousness, it took me three days to watch The Fabelmans. Even while using a generous shot of whiskey as a chaser, I could only swallow 10 to 15 minutes of it at a time. While little Sammy Fabelman obsessively crashed and filmed his train set, I obsessively fought the urge to check my watch, fearing that my already challenged sense of reality wouldn't be able to cope with knowing only 3 minutes had passed since the last time I'd checked. And seriously, Judd Hirsch got an Oscar nod for this? As best I could tell he was just reprising his role as Jeff Goldblum's dad in Independence Day. For me, the high point of the film was when Sammy's mom was doing her dance in front of the headlights, which gave me a momentary urge to check online to see if Michelle Williams had ever done any nude scenes.

So why didn't I just stop watching? Because it is a Spielberg movie so surely it has to get better.

PS: It never did get better.

In 1851, Herman Melville gifted us with his classic novel Moby Dick. A man vs nature story in which Captain Ahab, acting with equal measures of obsession and hubris, pursues his nemesis, the great white whale. That story ends with Ahab's death. In 2022 Spielberg provided us the dubious gift of a story that served as a metaphorical fight between a movie director and his own ego. That story ends with the death of Spielberg's reputation.

For me, The Fabelmans has become the benchmark to which all other movies will be compared - just not in a good way. Like Diogenes, lamp held high and fated to wander through Athens in search of an honest man, I will devote myself to seeking out a movie worse than The Fabelmans. Wish me Godspeed and good luck in my quest.