I just love movies, so suddenly, you’re political about movies, and that’s dark. It’s just not fun when something you love becomes calculated.

Smith is lamenting the moment when a personal passion—watching and talking about movies—stops feeling like play and starts feeling like strategy. The quote contrasts love of the medium with the “calculated” behavior that can arise when film culture becomes entangled with status, ideology, marketing, or factional disputes. Calling it “dark” suggests a loss of innocence: once you feel pressured to take sides, signal allegiance, or treat taste as a political identity, the joy of simple enthusiasm is diminished. The underlying significance is a defense of sincerity in fandom and criticism—an argument that art appreciation becomes less “fun” when it is instrumentalized for power, belonging, or conflict rather than curiosity and delight.