Which film critics do you trust (if any?)

Bradshaw's had some howlers in his day. Criterion guy considers Certified Copy to be minor Kiarostami (or something like that) so maybe that's a more widely held opinion than I thought.

I used to follow Peter Bradshaw and Philip French but then one day I found Michael Sicinski's review of Certified Copy on mubi, which had me downloading the film as soon as I got to the end, then went back to read what The Guardian said and now I just can't take them seriously anymore. I did not know who Kiarostami was at the time and PB made me think the film was a pretentious cute comedy and that is just unforgivable. Never again.

― wolves lacan, Sunday, July 10, 2011 6:17 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

michael sicinski is painfully bad tho

lol the opening sentence of that mubi review - It is profoundly difficult to articulate the precise manner in which Abbas Kiarostami and his two lead actors, Juliette Binoche and William Shimell, expel the complicated emotional vapor that is Certified Copy - basically translates as "i can't review farts"

solomons is taking over from p. french? jesus wept. happened to see solomons on breakfast tv the other morning, he is a ghastly beyond belief

i finished the durgnant bk on psycho and although there are many problems with it, his STYLE is extremely seductive (and often surprisingly funny).

The best and worst of "history mayne" is to be found on this thread.

Also not a single mention of Scott MacDonald here? Sometimes responsible for some rather grand (for effect?) claims, but you can't fault his curiosity and enthusiasm.

i kinda wish Jonathan Rosenbaum would flesh this out a little:

I’ve recently been thinking that a considerable portion of what I find the most detestable in contemporary commercial filmmaking can be summed up in a single trend: exploitation movies that go out into the world as “serious” art movies,. Admittedly, two very early examples of this trend in talkies, Lang’s M and Hawks’ Scarface, are two of the greatest movies ever made, though neither of these can be accused of stroking and glorifying the audience’s hypocrisy. But ever since the Godfather pictures, it seems, artiness has been working overtime as a kind of built-in alibi for many of the baser impulses in the audience –- various kinds of cynicism viewing corruption as inescapable, everyday, and deeply profound (e.g., Avatar, The Girlfriend Experience, Contagion), extreme violence as a function of specious and hypocritical morality (or, even worse, “sensitivity,” as in Drive–or, for that matter, The Passion of the Christ), gimmicky temporal structures (e.g., Tarantino, Memento, Babel) or fatuous psychologizing that are somehow supposed to dignify various forms of boorishness or nastiness (ranging from McQueen’s sexist complacencies and brutalities in Shame to von Trier’s dubious and ongoing validation of his own depression as a practical tool for coping with glitzy catastrophes and atrocities of his own making), and even the sort of Oscar-mongering that can cast a liberal activist as a racist thug (Rampart) to show us how “complex” the modern world is supposed to be.

http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com/?p=27620

An Immodest Proposal on the Koisian Phenomenon:

http://halfaballoon.wordpress.com/2012/01/25/an-immodest-proposal-for-slate/

Pretty funny, though I'm not sure it quite gets at what's so awful about the Slate Culture Gabfest. Kois' rise to niche-prominence has been worth it for Kenny's endless Twitter axe-grinding.

Just watched a boring and wildly unilluminating roundtable on Charlie Rose with A.O. Scott (who has a Nobbs boner, apparently), Denby, and Dana Stevens. Predictably terrible.

Bought a ticket for this next month at our new documentary theatre:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1241707/

It's dated 2009, but there are only nine user reviews, and I'd never heard of it till now. Anyone seen it?

I saw it at the National Gallery with a Q&A with the director and Jonathan Rosenbaum afterward. The film is not terribly illuminating if you know about it...it's very general and also American-specific (so Cahiers et al don't really feature). Still, it's nice to see the profession get some love, even if it is only from those within the profession.

Though for me the Q&A afterwards was the best part w/ good discussion.

Thanks. There'll be a Q&A here too, with the director (good) and some local critics (maybe not).

holy shit stanley kauffmann is 95 years old. and still writing completely forgettable prose.

it pays not to have far to fall

I've got to stick up for Kauffmann. From the early '60s to well into the '80s, I think he was one of the greatest film critics ever.

Wesley Morris wins Pulitzer.

I've never read him. He had some segments in the film-critic documentary mentioned above--seemed pretty level-headed.

ive never read him either but i just googled him and he sounds cool:

The Lucky One movie review -- The Lucky One showtimes - The ...
www.boston.com/.../lucky_one_is_an_unfortunate_union_for_zac_e...
4 days ago – Seeing her and Efron fumble at each other is like watching a stick of butter and a bag of flour not turn into cake. (101 min., PG-13) (Wesley Morris)

who are some cool critics i should be reading. ive never been a guy who reads many reviews, so i dont really know my denbys from my scotts.

David Edelstein (heretical Paulette).

stay far, far away from anyone who has ever been called a 'paulette.'

dave kehr is good.

Hoberman still writing here and elsewhere:

http://www.tabletmag.com/author/j-hoberman/

i've been getting hoberman and rosenbaum mixed up for a zillion years. rosenbaum's retired right?

He has a blog.

stay far, far away from anyone who has ever been called a 'paulette.'

Majorly disagree. The more important question is, did they stay there or eventually break away? If they took the good stuff and then moved on, that's a positive.

He has a blog.
--World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius)

Yup: http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com

Edelstein and Zacharek of the glossy critics; Rosenbaum, Thomson, Taubin, Kenny, and the Slant crew elsewhere.

david bordwell's blog is gd

usually enjoy jonathan romney's contributions to sight and sound

yeah ive been reading bordwell's blog lately. that guy knows his shit!

Bordwell is great for a specific thing. It's funny how much academics hate him though.

what specific thing is that

afaik academics partic hate the classroom popularity of bordwell's Film Art: An introduction bk, and esp the 'formalist'/historical approach to film reading offered therein (as opposed to the more politically engaged/textualist wing of robin wood, andrew britton etc). for me, film art is a p valuable introductory text to certain questions that are worth raising and thinking abt in relation to film, but obv its not the whole story, doesn't pretend to be, tho' it is polemical in intent, i guess (it also has some v well chosen images/examples that have, along w/ the relatively accessible content/style, made it a popular film studies 'tool'.) i really like bordwell's bk on ozu, and in the 80s i attended a personally revealatory ozu season at the nft that he curated and introduced. so yay.

oh and tim lucas usually writes abt interesting films on his blog:

http://www.vwpro.blogspot.co.uk/

David Hudson, keeper of the Mubi Notebook, will now be giving you essential daily news (ie, Sl4nt links) here:

http://www.fandor.com/blog/welcome-to-keyframe-daily/

Stephanie Zacharek deep6'd at Movieline

Found out yesterday – it sucks.

also, Jim Emerson slaps around this David Carr person who I'm glad I've generally ignored up til now:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2012/06/ao_scott_on_criticism_this_is_.html

Carr is the primary subject of that Page One doc about the NYT, IIRC.

He's also awesome in that scene where she smacks down the Vice assholes.

well now we know he likes to say ridiculous things about film criticism.

yeah. Carr is worth reading though.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/scottharris/100064232/lets-drag-film-criticism-out-of-the-snark-ages-2/

One email even linked to its author’s “takedown of Paul Blart: Mall Cop”, a piece that had been posted about three months after that movie was released, which is to say about two months after it was forgotten.

Way to avoid open-mike-night stylings.

Should he even be calling it criticism since he is mostly referring to internet flash mob? Also, lol at someone writing in Britishes newspaper complaining about snark.

post in here in case people missed the other thread: RIP Andrew Sarris

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/movies/andrew-sarris-film-critic-dies-at-83.html?pagewanted=all

I admired AS's unapologetic Francophilia. In '96-97 he even did top-10 French lists for the year.

http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~ejohnson/critics/sarris.html

Also, he helped me learn to love silents, screwball, and Fassbinder.

Andrew Sarris RIP

Didn't realize Hoberman has a new collection coming out:

http://www.versobooks.com/books/1042-film-after-film

(Big photo.) He's going to be in Toronto for a signing on the 9th, so, even though I hate getting mixed up with that whole film-festival crowd, I will make an effort to get out to that.

First Andrew Sarris, then Judith Crist also died this summer.

podcast with extensive interviews with film critics/bloggers. i've listened to the Keith Uhlich one and it was enjoyable. http://www.thecinephiliacs.net/