This is the thread where we discuss matters pertaining to the detrius that accompanies the "End of the Year in Cinema" -- 2007

clip from a different essay, but gives you the vibe

http://keepingmybrainalive.blogspot.com/2006/09/is-there-cure-for-film-criticism-or.html

(And I didn't mean the short reviews thing to be a dis. I am, after all, the resident De Palma nut who thinks her Dressed To Kill review is among the finest pieces of single-film criticism evah.)

(so croupier, was I reading Kael before you were a gleam in yr parents' eyes?)

my "bipolar ambivalence of the year" award wd possibly go to Colossal Youth -- did that make it to Mpls?

jmc, I only saw YCCoMe once, I'll have to pass on that level of detail. I only said it's not in the top 10 of the decade, fer Godsakes. It's very good!

Hey I'M the DePalma nut, buddy!

Film aestheticians are forever telling us that when they have discovered what the motion picture can do that the other arts can't do, they have discovered the "essence," the "true nature" of motion picture art. It is like the old nonsense that man is what differentiates him from the other animals . . . And what motion picture art shares with other arts is perhaps even more important than what it may, or may not, have exclusively. . . Except for the physical presence of the actors in a theater, there is almost no "difference" between stage and screen that isn't open to question; there is almost no effect possible in one that can't be simulated, and sometimes remarkably well achieved, in the other.

Who started this divide and conquer game of aesthetics in which the different media are assigned their special domains like salesmen staking out their territories - you stick to the Midwest and I'll take Florida?

for those who haven't read it and are interested, there's also this

this recording of Pauline Kael delivering a talk at (get this) San Fernando Valley State College sometime in 1963 does closely follow her essay Circles and Squares

Yep, Colossal Youth screened ... the week I was in Philly and N.Y.

oops! btw I have a lotta work to do today, so damn you for starting this...

(x-post) Awesome! That Charlie Parker blog also had that wonderful catty symposium with Kael, MacDonald and Simon too!

I'm staying out of the film vs. theater debate. I like that Godard rattled off a list of directors who could be considered in debt (in a positive sense) to various other arts. Of course, he was doing so in service of raging auteurism and leading up to the whole "Nicholas Ray IS CINEMA!!" thing.

I won't even mention a certain melancholy Swede.

yeah, apparently in Sweden IB is considered a better theatre director.

xp

jeez, I have a lot to listen to when I go to CT for T'giving.

I like theatrical elements of film too, and wasn't trying to set up a "vs." Count just didn't get under my skin the way it should've if it was a great film, thus my brows rose when I saw it on that list.

Linklater and effing Tu Mama got under my skin badly.

cuz they were more filmic?

"You know, like a running joke."

i thought it was. thanks!

xp

cuz they showed heterosexuality at its worst.

Anyway, gentlemen, we can't fight about the decade in here! this is the '07 thread!

You'll have to explain that one.

You want embarrassing depictions of het behavior? Try The Notebook.

I will admit that the first time or two I used "detrius," I wasn't actually aware I'd misspelled it.

So you liked The Simpsons Movie that much, huh Mobrs?

I laughed a lot, but everything after #3 is just a "B" elevated by my underwhelmed filmlog.

also, the first 2 reviews at my new outlet -- average rating: 0.75 star

weirdly enough, I'm going to be helping to contribute to the year-end music feature (at least in the singles capacity) at your new outlet this year, not movies

singles. what a concept.

Seriously, I'm worried a PR firm is going to ban me from screenings. I'm going to start walking like Peter O'Toole in Ratatouille.

Dr. M's "new outlet" = Sl@nt?

Morbs' Slant review of What Would Jesus Do is a polished compendium of his remarks on the 2008 prez thread.

This audio of Kael taking down Sarris is ... not quite as enjoyably bitchy as the symposium with MacDonald/Simon. It's sort of odd to listen to, actually, since she arguably succumbed to a lot of the stuff she complained about here.

kael is an okay controversialist but not really someone worth arguing with about film form.

mind you, i have no idea how chereau gets into morb's list of cinematic innovators.

I don't know why I'm posting on this thread exactly but here are the best movies I remember seeing this year:

Assassination of Jesse James etc.
Inland Empire
Knocked Up
Ratatouille
Zodiac

xp

he doesn't have to be an innovator, just closer to one than... whoever directed You Can Count on Me.

that's alphabetically, but shift Knocked Up to the bottom and the list is conveniently in order of preference.

oh, Lonergan directed as well as wrote. I thought he might've, then didn't.

and for you extreme fans, he has his first directorial effort since then coming out next Friday:

http://imdb.com/title/tt0466893/

it could be ok. i can barely remember YCCOM and would not put it in a list, except maybe 'us quasi-indie movies after us quasi indie movies stopped being interesting.

i like YCCOM a whole lot.

Chereau's "Gabrielle" is incredible and unlike anything i've ever seen -whether or not this makes him an innovator is moot but it does make him someone whose work i'm suddenly very interested in.

but does it posess the genius of Reno 911: Miami?

and for you extreme fans, he has his first directorial effort since then coming out next Friday:

Oh wow, that's fantastic. I was just thinking yesterday, in the midst of our debate, that he should make another movie.

where it'll be released, I don't know. Don't see a NYC venue.

I like that three cast members from YCCOM are in the new one, too (Broderick, Ruffalo, and Culkin).

Yeah, Circles and Squares is much better written than the Sarris piece that prompted it, and in general Pauline is more fun to read than Andy and does a billion times better job than him at describing what it was like to be her while she was watching something- so good in fact that she never felt the desire to watch a movie twice, never ever! And yet, it just might be possible that despite years of heavy-handed writing and proselytizing people backed down a little from that original auteurist zeal without throwing the baby out with the watering hose- the same way they backed down from the idea that the novel and the stage were dead and the film was going to replace them- and actually incorporated some of Kael's criticisms and widened the circles (and squares) to include variations, exceptions, qualifications, etc. like "The Studio As Auteur" for example. Me, I am not a good enough viewer to get everything in one sitting, I need to watch again once I know what the director is going to show to be able to see how he is going to show it. Anyway my favorite critic of the two is probably Sarris's wife, Molly Haskell.

Anyway, now that I've gone all blountastic on your a$$es, I'm gonna go check on my tcm thread and Akim Tamiroff thread and think about going home tonight to curl up with my Criterions and dream of Hollywood Babylon.

ken, will you ever use Demarest's exclamation "DAUGHTERS!" on your girls?

Haha, Morbius, I can see it coming.

This facial expression comes pretty naturally to me.
http://www.nndb.com/people/975/000078741/demarest03.jpg

Alba seems to have good taste in movies

it depends whether she finds Julianne Moore annoying.

(only in Safe)

B-b-but Alba is a man, Doctor!

OK. I don't keep track of that stuff.

anyway, did Julie Christie's perf come too early for hardware?

Are you referring to The Demon Seed?

'Cause that came out in '77.