you know, i'm not really sure, but i do remember loving pretty much any movie that you'd put in front of me as a kid—the very idea of movies being "bad" hadn't entered my brain until i saw the Super Mario Bros. movie from 1993
i saw it very young, maybe 9 or 10, and i wanted to love it, because the idea of adapting a video game series that i was such a huge fan of to film was the most exciting thing ever
i had my dad pick up a VHS tape of it from blockbuster, and he must have known how bad it was, because he wouldn't even watch it with me (and we watched everything together)
and as i'm watching it, it was probably the most baffling headfuck piece of media i had ever seen up until that point, such that i genuinely did not know how to respond—it felt to me how i imagine losing your virginity to your elementary school teacher would feel, or something, where even if i had the vocabulary to describe what i had just experienced, i wouldn't even be able to, because my mind would not have been developed enough to even comprehend it
"what WAS that? did i enjoy that? why was it so weird? i don't think i enjoyed that, actually—i don't think i enjoyed that at all"
you know, just completely dumbfounded
that's when i learned that not all movies are good—but it's kind of hard to pinpoint when i started to develop a sense of criticism, or an understanding of what makes good/bad filmmaking