I think they may be allowed to define "Criterion" however they feel like
I think you're right. Chasing Amy is a terrific movie, but the excellence is all in the screenplay and performances; Kevin Smith has admitted he pays no special attention to the visuals, the way a lot of commercial writers aim for workmanlike transparent prose that neither gets in the way nor detracts. I have to admit to not noticing the lack of visual flair either time I saw it in the theater because I was too busy laughing sundry body parts loose. I think it helped that I had seen neither Clerks nor Mallrats and was hence being exposed to his style of humor (really witty, really crude) for the first time at the point where he had perfected it. It was much like seeing Face/Off as my first John Woo film; depending on your point of view, it's either blatantly self-derivative or a master class compendium of tropes and riffs he had already perfected.
Armageddon is notorious as one of the least scientifically accurate / plausible sf movies of all time, but I imagine it has good SFX, so I suppose there's an argument that it works as mere spectacle.
no subject
I think you're right. Chasing Amy is a terrific movie, but the excellence is all in the screenplay and performances; Kevin Smith has admitted he pays no special attention to the visuals, the way a lot of commercial writers aim for workmanlike transparent prose that neither gets in the way nor detracts. I have to admit to not noticing the lack of visual flair either time I saw it in the theater because I was too busy laughing sundry body parts loose. I think it helped that I had seen neither Clerks nor Mallrats and was hence being exposed to his style of humor (really witty, really crude) for the first time at the point where he had perfected it. It was much like seeing Face/Off as my first John Woo film; depending on your point of view, it's either blatantly self-derivative or a master class compendium of tropes and riffs he had already perfected.
Armageddon is notorious as one of the least scientifically accurate / plausible sf movies of all time, but I imagine it has good SFX, so I suppose there's an argument that it works as mere spectacle.