Which film critics do you trust (if any?)

And, as far as the latest Armond kerfuffle goes, I have to say that Lumet's 12 Angry Men feels a lot more like great television than great film. But I don't really want to examine that empirically, either.

a lot of fassbinder 'feels like' television, and was television. also lots of loach, frears, leigh, etc. or the 1966 oscar-winner 'the war game', also made for tv.

I only know that I find myself helplessly watching episode after episode of series TV whereas I have to make a committed effort to sit down for a movie much of the time. I don't even know if you could call it lower standards for TV, since one of the reasons I refuse to watch movies is I know I stand roughly an 80 percent chance of it wasting my tim

So you can't passively enjoy movies? If I've rented a movie, I'm puttering around the house more than half the time.

really? wow, no. i never do that. i actually tried it with a garrel film recently since i couldn't understand it anyway (no subtitles) but it didn't work. i always give a film my whole attention but i can "putter" around during coronation street, much as i love it.

.) I only know that I find myself helplessly watching episode after episode of series TV whereas I have to make a committed effort to sit down for a movie much of the time.

Are James Bond marathons on Spike TV or movies?

reading david thomson's column in the guardian i was thinking about how he seems to be one of the few, very few, critics who ever talks about acting. beyond the standard "____ _____ is superb in the leading role" or mentioning if someone is particularly bad they just never seem to talk about it. maybe acting is just a hard thing to think around but it seems like a huge gap, to me.

I find myself helplessly watching episode after episode of series TV whereas I have to make a committed effort to sit down for a movie much of the time. ...one of the reasons I refuse to watch movies is I know I stand roughly an 80 percent chance of it wasting my time.

All that is exactly the reverse with me. I instinctively vet films so I wdn't classify more than 5-10% of what I see as total time wasters. I can't be bothered taping TV series and won't schedule myself to watch them "live" (and the only one I've gotten into via DVD is Deadwood).

12 Angry Men feels a lot more like great television than great film. But I don't really want to examine that empirically, either.

Well, because perhaps it WAS, first. (I saw the TV orig long long ago, can't swear if it was superior -- Fonda was not the lead, obv.)

If I've rented a movie, I'm puttering around the house more than half the time.

I find this literally obscene.

i think quite a few critics talk about acting. i bet anthony lane does. the us ilx film snob crew do, and the vast majority of non-specialist film coverage is about actors.

I find this literally obscene.

Good for you. Why? Watching a movie at home isn't the same as sitting in a dark theatre (for one, the only phone ringing is yours).

I guess you have that luxury. It is true that I probably need to rent less movies, but there are other reasons for it.

i think i read that scorsese wandered round the house with multiple movies on in different rooms.

Time to put him in the home.

Are James Bond marathons on Spike TV or movies?

I'm the wrong person to ask. Some would say all movies view on television are television.

xp: But they were probably all films Scorsese had seen before.

I don't even play CDs anymore, on the rare occasions that I do, without listening attentively. (Although if you guys only listen while multitasking, it explains why yer so fond of that "pop" garbage.)

http://www.filmkrant.nl/av/org/filmkran/archief/fk204/peeping.jpg

sez the guy who agreed that Dylan made pop singles.

(xpost)

You are positively Zen in your snobbery.

Thanks! It's the sound of one reel leader snapping.

http://manoloshoeblog.com/images/sunset.jpg

No, I really have given up on the notion that there is something of value in every film, so long as you are an active viewer.

http://www.celtoslavica.de/chiaroscuro/films/bluegardenia/blue9.jpg

I think that means I'm no longer a cinephile, but I'm cool with that.

i wuv reading david thomson

_jed maybe he talk about acting so much because his current series of columns focuses on individual actors? i haven't read more of him than what i've read in the papers over the last few months though - i don't know.

what he does is in some respects more difficult than "simply" talking about acting - he talks about the personas and career arcs of these actors and how their script choices change the way we think about them

xp: oh, I never accepted that notion for every film. (Tony n' Tina's Wedding is proof enough.) I just can usually smell the ones that'll be worthless to me.

http://filmjournal.net/mike/files/2007/10/bn2.jpg

I just can usually smell the ones that'll be worthless to me.

Then I don't see what you're trying to tell me. If anything, I'd bet your ratio of films you know to be worthless is even higher than 80 percent.

http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/lang/images/thousandeyes-185.jpg

from thomson's biographical history of film, #27:

"There are people in the picture business who say it can't last, that Portman has been a star for more than half her life already and enough is enough. There is little about her that's bound to disagree, no matter her education, her stage credits (Anne Frank and The Seagull) and her involvement in the world of politics and ideas. She has already been the scene-stealing kid in pictures that supposedly starred the powerhouse actresses of the age - Nicole Kidman in Cold Mountain, Julia Roberts in Closer - and she is smart enough to know that real superstars simply don't bother with getting older. They stay or they go away. They study silver-backed gorillas in remote jungles. Being 30 has no future at all. You might as well be dead as pitied and patronised.

The most interesting question of all may be: is this a way of putting Natalie Portman down - or is it the most accurate way of getting at her very modern identity? What I'm suggesting is that she is less an actor than a modern photographed face. She may be known best for a fragment of film, a provocative section from a work never finished [Hotel Chevalier]. I still don't know whether she can act, or just be photographed. But I think it's clear that there are careers to be had either way, and maybe the most telling and prescient are the ones that look like nothing so much as a string of broken bits and pieces."

she was not the 'scene-stealing kid' in closer, she was one of four stars.

i think that's a pretty terrible, sexist, and untrue piece of writing, on the whole.

http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/lang/images/spies-185.jpg

xp to EH

well, I don't know either. I don't suspect everything I don't see to be worthless, just the ones I don't have to consider seeing. (As in, I will see The Devil's Rejects one day, but not any Dane Cook vehicles.)

I want to see how long before Ken puts up Rondo Hatton.

"maybe the most telling and prescient (careers) are the ones that look like nothing so much as a string of broken bits and pieces."

this, i guess, means he hasn't fit nat into a narrative yet? that he doesn't see a link between her different roles? going on form, i doubt thomson has seen any more than the films he mentions in that piece.

'sexist" because Thomson sees her as a pretty face rather than an actress?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/FluellenKnight.jpg/225px-FluellenKnight.jpg

in a word.

xpost

I guess you don't want to know what I think of Jake Gyllenhall then.

are you gonna putter around the house during Rendition?

you can call it puttering.

dt's weirdly coy style ("what i am suggesting") is what bugs me rly.

morbius have you ever been surprised by art?

to be honest i find the idea of pre-judging films based on vague snobby criteria more obscene than ironing while a rented video plays or whatever alfred does. talk about closing yourself off.

xp: Of course. The last time was last week: Letter from an Unknown Woman. I was going to ask what is the assumption behind yr question, mark, but you just answered it. Maybe you should get up with Mrs. Ebert at her husband's next special award ceremony and emotionally blackmail/hector the audience for complaining that Rog "likes too many movies."

You "prejudge" (wrong word) art by some criteria, too, otherwise you'd have to watch everything.

On a less futile topic, One thing that seems to escape many critics is that many film roles do not really require acting, in the theatrical sense, for maximum effectiveness.

http://www.filmreference.com/images/sjff_01_img0127.jpg

Roger Ebert and James Berardinelli for now, Pauline Kael for older stuff.

One thing that seems to escape many critics is that many film roles do not really require acting, in the theatrical sense, for maximum effectiveness.

OTM. The problem is how the Method has, years later, become cemented in celebrity culture: we have to endure Portman-esque blank Brad Pitt earnestly discussing the "acting process" with James Lipton.

On a less futile topic, One thing that seems to escape many critics is that many film roles do not really require acting, in the theatrical sense, for maximum effectiveness.

-- Dr Morbius, Tuesday, December 11, 2007 3:50 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i totally agree!

and letter from an unknown woman is one of my favourite movies ever! good one.

http://www.helmut-zenz.de/ruhman1.jpg

what! how can the food critic and the closed-off snob agree?

http://z.about.com/d/kidstvmovies/1/0/e/B/RAT_111.jpg

Giada Di Laurentiis is related to Dino.

haha! xp