Which film critics do you trust (if any?)

bone-gurgling slackers >>> bong-gurgling slackers

absolutely baffling.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2174814,00.html

film critics live on another planet.

but also get everything wrong.

"The Deal, it seems to me, is a perfect example of what television does best and the fact that its unofficial sequel, The Queen, ever found its way into cinemas remains a source of bafflement and irritation. Film and television are not the same thing and despite Helen Mirren's Oscar success, it's impossible to shake off the sense that The Queen, like The Deal, was tailormade for the small screen. Why? Because its guiding aesthetic is primarily televisual, full of intimate scenes of people talking in rooms which gain nothing from being projected on to the vast screen of a cinema auditorium. No matter how much you blow up the picture, The Queen still looks like a TV show."

millions of films are just people in rooms talking and whatnot. 'the queen' is no more or less 'cinematic' than 'high fidelity' or 'dirty pretty things'.

"There are even hints [in 'The West Wing'] of Rob Reiner's featherlight The American President, in which Michael Douglas played the eponymous dashing hero, breezily blending personal politics and romantic intrigue."

hmm, wonder that could be?

I think David Thomson is really great, because he can really open out the way you think of a film sometimes. His writing on acting is fantastic, just reading something by him can give you such beautiful flashes of insight on things. Even when he criticizes something you like, it can make you like it even more for the very he's attacking it!

"absolutely baffling."

OTM.

FWIW i'm totally in favour of people not having tv's, it can be a huge waste of time, but the notion that it's inferior to film, of all things, is fucking bizarre.

TVs

i don't watch much tv as in property shows and reality tv now, haven't for a long time rly and i don't mean to disparage people who do. but just thinking of a whole load of areas of modern film that i like -- there's so much traffic between them and television. kermode thinks it's silly to link actors' tv work to their film work but often their film roles are sort of weak versions of their tv stuff. i just saw a film where jeremy piven is basically doing ari gold.

but going beyond that i think for a lot of 'serious' directors (and probably crew too) feature films are something you do when it comes up. a lot of them do adverts but a fair number do films. hollywood cinema is not a round-the-clock production factory, but television is. and a lot of television is made in studios in hollywood...

kermode's idea of the cinematic comes precisely from the era of hollywood (post-'the robe') when hollywood had to go for wide formats and spectacularity (probably not a word) in order to compete with television.

the notion that it's inferior to film, of all things,

"of all things," *fart*. Imagine someone writing that about music here.

This always happens.

Which critics seem to be levitating in a realm of their own creation with their backs arched like serpents, and which seem the most plain-spoken and least pretentious?

wtf?

Well, how dare those Slant douchebags give 1-1/2 stars to Big Fall Movies?

RIP Joel Siegel: NOT 'ARCANE'

(btw Eric, is it just list-neglect or have you not liked anything this year but the Grindhouse trailers?)

Not really. I just really haven't seen that much this year, tho.

well, we have the same #1 thus far...

I know, it's so much better a "not really 2007" 2007 movie than Army of Shadows was a "not really 2006" 2006 movie.

on the Armond!

also, I am heeding yr warning on Once.

the 'everyone loves raymond' line is funnier if you recall rudd having a tape of 'everyone loves raymond' in his porn stash in '40 year old virgin'.

i can hear a morbius sneer on the horizon, but seriously, if you read ye olde truffaut or godard, that's exactly the kind of shit they'd write at cahiers.

I am not sneering at any such thing til I see Knocked Up, probably around 2014.

However bad movies are… criticism is worse! It’s gotten worse because people who call themselves critics have ceased to be… critical. I fear that they feel it’s their duty to promote Hollywood.

...from the reviews that I read almost everywhere, it’s like they feel their mission is to transcribe the movie for readers rather than interpret or critique it. I think that’s useless, frankly, because you can’t do a better job of transcribing movies than advertising. So if that’s what most critics are doing, then they’re just furthering the advertising, or as its commonly known, repeating the hype.

Hollywood films look like Before the Devil Knows You're Dead and The Sopranos. If you want to talk about what has changed things and ruined the culture, its not the current administration, its television.
It's fucked things up. It especially fucked up the critical profession, because people can't tell the difference between television and movies anymore.

http://bigmediavandal.blogspot.com/2007/12/in-world-that-has-darjeeling-limited.html

Dr Morbius

If you want to talk about what has changed things and ruined the culture, its not the current administration, its Judd Apatow. It's fucked things up. It especially fucked up the critical profession, because people can't tell the difference between Apatow and movies anymore.

truedat

Kenan, you meant to put that on this is the thread where you impersonate other ilxors

or just retire the worn-out joke and accept that "quality" TV and film at its best look different?

lol Look who's thinking it's worn out now!

I can't think of a damn one at this point. I've kinda given up on Zacharek.

It's fucked things up. It especially fucked up the critical profession, because people can't tell the difference between television and movies anymore.

well indeed, it's as if (some) (scripted) television shows were made and viewed in exactly the same way that films are or something.

welcome to 1956, toots.

TS: The Sopranos v Analyze This/Analyze That

well indeed, it's as if (some) (scripted) television shows were made and viewed in exactly the same way that films are or something.

I know this is an important hobbyhorse of yours, but it's not really true. Many people watch both movies and television on DVD now, yes, but there are still huge differences in how movies and television programs are structured, how they look, how they're produced etc (and this is ignoring the differences between theatrical viewing and watching a tv set, because "everyone" just watches DVDs now). AW's comment is obviously banal and thoughtlessly snarky, like almost everything he writes, and I'm sympathetic with the impulse against blind pro-film/anti-tv snobbery, but I don't think it's going to go away by pretending they are the same thing.

most theatrical releases, especially of non-english language films, are loss-leading promotional tools for dvds.

there is an obvious difference in narrative form between serial television drama and the classical 'well-made film', but a lot of hollywood cinema has -- in important ways -- abandoned classical narrative.

some of the old verities of 'proper' filmmaking, like 'well-rounded characters', do better on television than in films.

do films and television look so different? it depends on the film, or the television, i guess. but AW's definition of 'cinematic' is likely the definition of 'cinematic' that the industry came up with to combat television. i don't think US indie movies look much different than TV.

similarly it's hard to generalize about how TV *or* films are produced, but the same kind of business structures and institutions, from the studios to the agencies seem to operate across both in hollywood.

most theatrical releases, especially of non-english language films, are loss-leading promotional tools for dvds.

Most filmmakers, especially of non-english language films, are making films for a theatrical context. This is basically TS: the maker or the industry. (Note: this isn't about authorial intent either. There's a drastic difference between how projected film (and to a smaller extent video)looks and how video on a monitor looks. There's been a lot of talk about Hollywood films being shot to look good for the dvd rather than the release, but to the best of my knowledge the theatrical print is still the main concern in questions of lighting etc.

there is an obvious difference in narrative form between serial television drama and the classical 'well-made film', but a lot of hollywood cinema has -- in important ways -- abandoned classical narrative.

Sure, there are important ways in which this is true, but feature films are still feature films and serials are still serials, so even if certain ideas about narrative (and the importance of things like spatial construction) are moving into film from tv (and have been for years and years), there's still a huge gulf between how the two things are experienced despite the fact they can be played on the same machine by the same disc. Are novels and short stories the same thing?

some of the old verities of 'proper' filmmaking, like 'well-rounded characters', do better on television than in films.

Painting didn't cease to exist because photography blah blah blah. Sure Hollywood will probably abandoned film as-we-know-it when they can figure out how to make enough money from the internet, but video-making is only getting cheaper and there are enough people committed to the theatrical mode of film production and consumption to keep it around in some form or another.

similarly it's hard to generalize about how TV *or* films are produced, but the same kind of business structures and institutions, from the studios to the agencies seem to operate across both in hollywood

Again, this speaks only to one kind of film production.

I'm still not sure what you think we gain from talking about film and television as the same thing. I've probably gotten more from The Wire than from any film released in the past couple years, but a huge percentage of that pleasure is tied into the serial television format and how The Wire uses it.

who's more annoying and incoherent, Armond White or Christopher Hitchens?

Christopher Hitchens if only because we know so much more about his scrotum.

More than White's scrotum, I mean. Not that the ball-shaving piece is Hitchen's Peeling the Onion.

i don't trust any critics in the sense that if they like it, I imagine I'd like it. But I trust a lot of critics to write provocative and interesting essays on movies. Armond White, for all the obvious frustrations, is still one of them.

The difference between movies and TV is that people will watch four, five, six episodes of The Sopranos in a row via Netflix, but probably wouldn't do the same for Berlin Alexanderplatz.

The problem is that White is rarely provocative or interesting, he just finds a way to harp on whatever he was harping on last week and makes some lame, accusatory jabs at whoever he imagines disagrees with him. He's written a few really interesting longer form pieces, but 95% of the time he's basically a Jonathan Rosenbaum parody.

argh, "make".

i'll read a critic if i like their writing and they don't come across as pretentious. that's pretty much david edelstein at this point. i used to love rosenbaum but he bugs me now. never got with man0hla's style, anthony lane david denby LOL. the onion guy's ok (i think he writes for times new media now right?). still like ao scott, love hoberman but he's been a little eh lately. always LOL at peter travers bites, he turns whoring into an art form. slate lady is AWFUL though troy patterson the tv guy there can be OK.

since i never see movies anyway "trust" doesn't matter, i mean i'll probably dislike most movies if i'm sampling from weekly reviews anyway.

yeah so basically i think of film critics as guess who tiles.

i've been enjoying this antagonie.blogspot.com guy over the past few days. well, reading back over some of his earlier stuff.

mark kermode harps on about films that are really only tv-movies, like the Queen (which I think originally was meant to be a tv-movie). I can see the difference between No Country for Old Men and pretty much any TV show, visually at least. narratively you can't escape the aforementioned serial v feature film difference. Still, very few movies look as good as No Country For Old Men, but I do think that it is TV getting better and not films getting worse. If one medium is improving, and this guy finds it to be a problem, then he is a fuckwit (although his writing style pretty much confirmed that already).

ColinB OTM re: the Wire. It's going to take a hella good film to overcome the inevitable "well, it isn't the Wire" funk I go through when a new season starts.

The difference between movies and TV is that people will watch four, five, six episodes of The Sopranos in a row via Netflix, but probably wouldn't do the same for Berlin Alexanderplatz.

-- Eric H., Tuesday, December 11, 2007 3:10 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Link

what? 'berlin alexanderplatz' was a television series.

that was the point

so the difference between tv and film is that people watch numerous episodes of one tv show in a row, but not of another.

Basically yes.

how is it possible that no one has mentioned margaret and david

Of course, you could swap out Berlin Alexanderplatz with even a 90-minute Fassbinder film.

many of which were funded by tv stations... but i'm still not getting your point there.

is it something like, RWF's individual episodes are like movies-in-themselves, whereas episodes of 'the sopranos' only make sense as part of a series (ie like 'les vampires' and 'judex' and numerous other films)?

sort of, yeah, but it's more a matter of the ease of flowing into the TV series format and remain inside. TV rhythms are addictive, whereas movie rhythms (which Fassbinder, funded by and even directing for television) are not.