Defend the Indefensible: David Denby

Mystic River wasn't that good, either.

He's not fit sit at Anthony Lane's desk, let alone sit at Pauline Kael's.

sorry, best I can do

Man, that's your own fault. Any praise based on "Mystic River was teh bomb" should be ignored.

I maintain that Denby's miniscule personality really comes through in his review-writing, but I first began hating him when I read that book he wrote about Columbia's Great Books curriculum. Early on in the book, Take Back the Night happens and Denby makes all these disapproving noises about contemporary feminism's victim complex when it's clear he's just freaked out. THEN, later in the book he gets mugged and spends the rest of the book obsessing about his mugging experience (which is understandable, of course, but IRONIC, considering how dismissive he was of the TBTN rally.) And if I recall correctly, whenever issues of race come up in students' discussions about the Lit Hum curriculum, as they're bound to, Denby trots out the fact that his muggers were black men, which is relevant how? That's just anecdotal proof of his assholery, though, it really just comes across in the tone of his writing. HATE.

= horseshoe otm: Denby's miniscule personality really comes through in his review-writing

Whereas, pace Stencil and gabbneb, the joy of Anthony Lane is that while he's a bit of a wit and that can grate his associations are usually both funny and either erudite or at least surprising and delightful. The world as he writes it seems endlessly fascinating. Plus for me he's a pretty reliable predictor of whether or not I'll enjoy a movie.

Has been known to sling some amazingly pretentious pick-up lines, but that's in his private life and doesn't bother me none.

Gangs of New York is great! But probably not for the reasons Denby said (I don't remember his review). It's Mad Max in Manhattan. Incoherent and ridiculous, of course. But man, I had a good time.

s1ocki SO FUCKING OTM, i hate that shit.

blandness = luminosity, then?

something i love about ebert: when he hates a movie, he's short and to the point. nothing makes me want to throw up more than one of those 6-page salon reviews that explains exactly why every single element in a movie somehow "feels wrong."

Ebert is a great JOURNALIST, which not all critics are.

"Crash" was kind of incoherent but it still worked for me, possibly because it was talking about things I wanted to hear (largely along the lines of "there is virulent, blatant racism in places that aren't Alabama and Mississippi")

"Ivy's tattoo, miniskirt and black fuck-me pumps are the fetishes of a naive, neurotically insecure girl." -- Poison Ivy

"With Russo, sexy, scrappy and touching as an intelligent woman tired of wearing tank tops and fuck-me pumps to scream at movie monsters -- he is all romantic longing." -- Get Shorty

sometimes he pans great films, i.e. Rushmore and Starship Troopers, and he has a tendency to underrate some of the more adventurous recent foreign films (Wong Kar-Wai, Time Out, Lilya-4-Ever, etc).

sf-j has a bit more leeway to seek out interesting stuff worth sharing with the lumpen urbanmiddlebrowiat. The film pages are obliged, by tradition if nothing else, to report on this week's major openings (more or less).

"Anderson and Wilson are good offbeat filmmakers. They fill the corners of their story with nice touches, like the details of Max's wildly overambitious stage production of ``Serpico.'' But their film seems torn between conflicting possibilities: It's structured like a comedy, but there are undertones of darker themes, and I almost wish they'd allowed the plot to lead them into those shadows. The Max Fischer they give us is going to grow up into Benjamin Braddock. But there is an unrealized Max who would have become Charles Foster Kane."

It doesn't quite seem cricket to judge Peter Travers against actual "critics". He only seems to remove the studio cocks from his mouth long enough to be fed lines by their publicists.

TS: Peter Travers vs. David Manning vs. Walter Monheit

Only because he hasn't made a better one yet.

Wes Anderson: his whole baroque hothouse aesthetic is in perennial danger of suffocating itself, but I mostly like him more than not (and Bottle Rocket is his least baroque movie, so I understand why people who go "baroque=ugh" think it's his best). All of his movies have given me enough reasons to watch them. He's an original, which is worth something.

it's definitely not bust-a-gut funny, and it's certainly less ambitious than anything else the anderson/wilson axis has put out, but it's more complex than it seems and also charming and sweet and profound in exactly the way that we've come to need-but-not-quite-get from Wes Anderson releases.

"They'll never catch me, cuz I'm fuckin' innocent," in its context, represents a Great Moment In Screenwriting. Owen Wilson's Dignan really is one of the great characters. And the use of "2000 Man" alone is worth the price of admission.

Quoting Axl Rose?

Here's Owen Wilson on the subject, from a profile in Texas Monthly:

the line that may be his most quoted, “They’ll never catch me because I’m f---ing innocent,” from Bottle Rocket, is lifted from a Guns n’ Roses song. “Scorcese wrote in Esquire that that was one of his favorite lines, and it’s from ‘Out ta Get Me,’” he said. “Obviously it’s used very differently in the film from what Axl Rose did with it.”

And here's Scorsese (I'll admit I love it when he agrees with me, the great thing about the line is the way it deftly sums up the character without crossing the line into On The Nose.)

http://www.esquire.com/features/articles/2000/scorsese/000301_mfe_scorsese_wanderson.html

I'd like to hear evidence for either the 'snobby' or 'hack' charge. Does he not like enough Will Ferrell films or sumpin?

If you want to see how good he can be, read his book on the Great Books of Western Literature. The essays on Virginia Woolf, Homer, and the culture of vicitimisation are rather fine.

double d i have no time for; lane is fun but still somehow ephemeral despite the obvious erudition, etc. i don't think he knows much about film, still.

any love here for the voice's critics?

Ahem.

Actually, if anything, while they're very different writers, I think of Rosenbaum and DeRogatis much the same way.

Denby, on the other hand, occasionally lands a good review though is largely light on true perception. Lane tends to favor punchlines over strong points, but his "Sith" review was hilarious.

did you read his kill bill reviews? total decline and fall of western civilization trip. i thought i was reading an ilx thread.

I have to confess: I love it when big movie stars talk dirty. Their
images are so sanitized, and besides, they can't say anything naughty
on television or the FCC will stomp all over them. And it's not like
there's much sex talk in mainstream American movies. Audiences are
comfortable with four-letter words hurled in anger in the course of
hideously violent acts, but used to express love or desire, they're a
little, uh, icky, and they also threaten our moral values. That's why
it's fun to hear Clive Owen interrogate Julia Roberts about how she
fellated Jude Law, or see Owen being straddled by Star Wars' icy
princess Portman in a G-string spewing four-letter anatomical
references. What a happy voyeur am I.

I like his tone here, because he's not waxing about the carnality of the flesh or anything, he's just saying "Hey, you know what? This kind of stuff is kind of exciting to watch!" The "I have to confess" line is pretty typical Edelstein: one of the things I like about him is he's always catching himself whenever he gets too high-minded, and then does this little nebbish act. He seems extremely likeable.

on this discussion, i am shocked he hasnt been brought up

from this weeks issue:
In The Brothers Grimm, Gilliams batty historical fracture-fairy-tale, lollapalooza, he comes on as if he were Jean Cocteau attempting to make The Mummy Returns, Gilliam has reimagined the Grimm brthers, those interventors of Victorian bedtime myth s, as Will (Matt Damon), a cheeky lady-killing skeptic, and dour, mystical ake (Heath Ledger) making their through an early-19th-century Germany over run by French millitar men with atrocious accents,

that one sentence, its name dropping, its mad flury, its breathlessness, its joy, its lo/hi vocab--

or in his review of dark city (maybe something else), when he talked about a crew of nosfertuas playing hamlet.

best writer on film today, not sure hs a critic, but fuck can he write, its like michelle kwan skating,

and this:

"batty historical fracture-fairy-tale, lollapalooza"

just won't do. oh no, i'm so sorry.

but whateves...if nothing else the guy deserves a salute for making fuckin' Chuck & Buck his movie of the year awhile back! in Entertainment Weekly no less. don't haveta be a media insider to realize that took cojones.

Also, yeah, I fail to see what's great about that sentence, unless masturbatory, overwrought nonsense is your thing. I prefer my writers (on film) to actually say something about the film they're talking about.

Edelstein is probably my favorite writer (for the reasons jaymc referred to) on film right now, even if I don't pay much attention to his opinion of the films themselves.
Ebert is definitely the best reviewer - as Dan said, whether he gives it a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, the average person is going to know where they stand on the movie.
Rosenbaum is well-meaning, but I rarely take anything away from his reviews - either in the prose styling or critically. He gets points for making 25th Hour his co-best film of 2002, though.

Charles Taylor was asked to leave a few months ago. Stephanie Zancharek is one of the few post-Kael critics who loves films with an almost sensual abandon and has the writing chops tooo.

i guess "hack" is too strong, but rosenbaum's just maddening - his style is stiff, fussy and self-regarding, he opens half his reviews by reviewing the other reviews (see his piece on "sideways"), he throws grotesque sub-chomsky political analogies into virtually everything he writes. he's good when he's writing about orson welles, but dave kehr (who he replaced at the reader) is about 200 times the critic and writer he is.

http://www.newyorker.com/critics/content/articles/050912crat_atlarge

This is both mean and vituperative, but I don't care about David Denby's big crush on Susan Sontag. That profile was fine, but I couldn't help imagining Sontag sneering at Denby's unnecessary asides about what a hottie she was.

Denby is pretty mediocre, useful if you're wondering "what does the average crabby & clueless 60ish Upper West Sider think of movie X?"

I know `humor' is subjective and all that, but `humorless' is the very last thing Charles Taylor is.

Man, Charlie Rose really gave Denby a hard time last night. Denby said some critical things about Mo Dowd, and Rose is not going to stand for that.

I was actually going to revive this the other day to post this paragraph, from a review of Denby's Snark:

Take this small example from Denby’s book: In pining for the tough-talking wit of Rosalind Russell and her ilk, he writes, “Whatever its miseries, the country in the thirties and forties was at peace with itself spiritually: We were all in the same boat.” Now, you could calmly point out Denby’s lazy generalization as he reimagines a time of widespread inequality as an idyllic epoch of snappy-pattered togetherness. Or you could respond, “Denby, you dumbass, not only were we not all in the same boat, we weren’t even at the same water fountains.” Sometimes the snarky response is the correct response.

I've nothing against taking down Maureen Dowd and John Simon. Denby is the wrong guy to play Gatekeeper of Cultural Acceptance, though.

who wrote that review, john? also, fuck this dude for real.

Anyone read Denby's On Dom Passantino?

i pretty much hate all 'well-known' movie critics, they're either smarmy kael wannabes like denby or snobby hacks like rosenbaum

whoa, i must've been having a bad day -- i love some of rosenbaum's writing. i think i just got sick of reading the same diatribe against contemporary cinema/contemporary politics (especially in the context of, like, a review of "sideways" or something). but he's a great writer.

i pretty much only read new yorker movie reviews if it's lane, not denby writing.

OK, fuck Denby: according to the Rose interview he sees a connection between the death of print journalism and the rise of snark.

What did Denby say about John Simon? Simon was never a fan of his, anyway.

Never mind, decided to watch it.

Denby's entire argument seems confusing. Dowd is bad but Stewart is fine. Why? Well, Stewart is fine because he's a comic engaging in satire and blah blah (or, we could be honest and say that making fun of Stewart isn't nearly as fashionable as mocking Dowd, and that's why he's fine and won't be argued against by Denby). There also seems to be a settling of vendettas taking place - Simon, and others, have ridiculed Denby throughout the years. Is Denby going to argue that Simon isn't very witty (untrue, as anybody who's read him could argue well) but just a mere "snark"? Simon's always had a problem with the mindlessly smartass anyway, he'd probably agree with Denby's thesis about snarkiness.

This is another example of the chickens coming home to roost in the media. For years the media has championed the questioning of authority and power by whomever wants to do the questioning, and for whatever purposes. Now, with the rise of the internet and the lowering of educational and cultural standards, anybody and everybody thinks they're a critic and they have just as much of a right to speak their mind on an issue as any expert. You can now voice whatever opinion - however wrong, ignorant or rude - and say, in your defense, that it's "a valid opinion." What moral authority have they built to tell "bloggers" that there's something to be said for writing for a print magazine? Something that makes it more respectable than a mere blog. Have they not always championed the weak over the strong, regardless of the context? They never thought that doctrine would ever effect their work, and now it has. Can't feel too much sympathy for them.

Pile on! Here's what pissed off Scott:

“Constantine” turns Catholic doctrine, ritual, and iconography into schlock. God’s warrior wins, but is that enough to justify the tawdry, promiscuous borrowing? Will the trashy exploitation of Catholicism in movies ever end? Imagine a Jewish version of the spectacle—“Angel,” starring Vin Diesel, in which God’s messenger stays Abraham’s hand in mid-sacrifice and then earns His approval by lowering himself into cursed pharaonic tombs with tied-together prayer shawls. In a Hindu version—“Vishnu,” with Nicolas Cage—Shiva unleashes his snakes on the outskirts of Poughkeepsie and starts a war between truck drivers and apple pickers. Somehow, I think these projects might be shelved. Yet terrible movies like “The Exorcist” and “The Passion of the Christ” and “Constantine” get made and become enormously popular. I will leave the issue of blasphemy to experts. But maybe some of the audience should wonder if they aren’t performing the Devil’s work by sitting so quietly through movies that turn wonders into garbage.

I don't care for snark either but writing a book complaining it about is a waste of time.

B-b-but it's obviously his duty! Just like saving the Church from The Exorcist!

who wrote that review, john?

Some guy named Adam Sternbergh in New York magazine.

Also, apparently everything Denby said about Wonkette in the book was factually incorrect.

Wow, something good in New York magazine [/snark].

Snarf by David Denby

http://www.purrsiathunder.net/thunderpedia/images/b/b2/Snarf.jpg

hoo boy

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2012/10/whatever-happened-to-movies-for-grown-ups.html

I still love going to a theatre with strangers—even a screening room with near-strangers—and submitting to an overwhelming experience in the dark.

lolllll

I really don't care for Denby's style, or many of the arguments that are made in these types of pieces, but is anyone challenging the idea that the % of Kiddie Shit filling multiplexes is at saturation point?

He wrote that article in spring '98, one of his first New Yorker pieces.

The range of films made by the studios has shrunk—serious drama is virtually out of the question. A good, solid movie like Tony Gilroy’s “Michael Clayton” (2007), with George Clooney, wouldn’t have a shot at being made now.

http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/goodynewshoe/goodynewshoe0804/goodynewshoe080400083/2956932-cute-little-boy-laying-head-on-fist-thinking.jpg

is anyone challenging the idea that the % of Kiddie Shit filling multiplexes is at saturation point?

― kizz my hairy irish azz (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, October 3, 2012

nah, that's surely not up for debate, but isolating the multiplexes from the broader entertainment ecosystem is pretty rookie. Denby still believes that the cinema is somehow a privileged medium and that choosing to watch The Wire on your 55" flat-panel with a glass of wine is somehow a "retreat to television." But the whole thing is classic Denby: if there's anything resembling an argument here, it boils down to "Realities that I can’t accept" with some post hoc ergo prompter hoc and ps buy my book thrown in.

also, i mean, come on:

I suspect “The Social Network” got made only because Aaron Sorkin wrote the script

Really? Because Sorkin's such a draw with the kids? Because anyone cares who wrote the script? Or maybe, just hear me out here, maybe because all the kids are talking about this facebook thing and we need a scenario?

there's the FB factor sure, but a trophy-bait 'adult' movie like that also needs a prestige factor, and the combo of Sorkin and Fincher gets all the over-30 Quality Mainstream fans to absorb the making-of promos and feature articles and put it on their must-see lists. That's how you get to $97 million US gross.

That's how you get to $97 million US gross.

That's one way. Going prestige turned out to be a good move, but they could have just as easily brought in the Weitz brothers.

we have a subscription to the ny'er, so i end up reading denby and anthony lane every week. this has been happening for 5–6 years. and yet, i could scarcely describe the sensibility or writing style of either of them. they are not idiots, they are reasonably literate, and yet they have no particular perspective or expertise that would make their reviews the slightest bit memorable.

that's a real achievement in grayness/mediocrity, i suppose.

i know one's more glib than the other

Whenever Lane reviews books or writes an at-large piece, I wonder why he wastes time on filmcrit.

lane is so much more funny than denby i kind of cant imagine finding them indistinguishable

plus: Lane was pretty hot as a young man whereas Denby looks like he was 13 and already a greybearded crank.

lane is great, denby is terrible.

also, (vague generalization coming) many adults generally don't have the time or inclination to go to movies like teenagers do. whenever we want to see a flick there are generally enough grown-up options (Moonrise Kingdom, the Master, docs at the local Ritz, whatever) that we rarely have to pass. but we don't go every weekend bc it's hard to get a babysitter and when we can, sometimes we're just exhausted and want to grab something to eat instead etc. teenagers (at least when i was one) have much more endurance and also buy those super super sized sodas + popcorns + chocolate nacho gummies whatever.

right. denby's point is, adults would flock to the plexes again if only there were more movies like Michael Clayton.

i was gonna say, lane is legit funny and denby tries and faceplants. even if their judgment on which movies are good or bad may be indistinguishable.

but they're totally distinguishable! Lane likes to go to the movies and be entertained. Denby likes UP IN THE AIR and FUNNY PEOPLE.

i honestly cannot tell the difference.

i just saw funny people. man, that is a long movie. like a wim wenders bromedy.

is that the one where Adam Sandler is not funny

i finally saw spanglish too. that was long too but i enjoyed it more. david denby probably liked that one a bunch.

spanglish had actual funny moments.

funny people is just long.

denby treats movies as an excuse to construct clever reasons for liking or disliking things that even he doesn't really seem totally persuaded by.

lane treats movies as an excuse to display his impression of what he imagines 'new yorker' humor was like back in the day.

after reading Kael in her last 15 years, much as she drove me nuts sometimes, hard to read NYer filmcrit since.

i can't think of anyone writing about film now that i enjoy reading. but i don't read everything.

since I have been retired for 2 weeks I won't object

Response to Denby's similar piece in TNR: http://vrizov.blogspot.com/2012/10/denby-david-doomsday-something.html

i kinda think that criticism in all the arts is at an all time low. not that i read a ton of art crit or dance crit or opera crit, but when i do catch things i'm never impressed/invigorated/envious/in awe. people are too dumb these days to write good criticism of anything. they don't know enough. i could be wrong, i guess. maybe their are tons of young brilliant minds out there that i just haven't run across. in some ways i don't think people ever recovered from the pOm0 80's. 10,000 wrong turns.

wait, i just had lunch. i've changed my mind. people are cool.

or people never recovered from the death of Mary McCarthy.

EXHUMING MCCARTHY

James Wolcott, with no patience for Denby.

yay!

http://blogs.indiewire.com/criticwire/david-denby-is-out-at-the-new-yorker-20141213

I'll deliver a mild defense. When I watch an eighties film I'll consult this nine-volume set at the library, one for each year, collecting every major review of a film, local or foreign. Denby's New York clips are in there, and I don't mind them at all in a Kael Lite sort of fway.

oh goddammit

Denby will remain as a staff writer with an office at the magazine's new location, focusing, as he said in an email, on "longer pieces on movies and other things," and "contributing to the web when I have something juicy to say."

i would read this guy in early high school, when i would also read klosterman. i liked movies and reading the new yorker seemed like something i should do, as a pretentious teen sophisticate. didn't mind him then and have a sort of mild affection for him now, even though i never seek out his opinions. my sense of him now is that he is like kael, in that he wants to riff on culture using films as a starting point but he lacks the talent to pull this off effectively

dude has always been a drag. i like richard brody a lot at the NYer though.

So does Lane have twice as much work? I'm surprised they aren't using the opportunity to anoint a new critic. I thought the New Yorker post was a big deal.

tom carson posted about this on facebook and then glenn kenny chimed in so i put in my vote on there for tom carson and glenn kenny to write about movies for the new yorker.

haha this guy is such a turd. no one better for an occasional hate-read though.

let's all email the new yorker about this young new proto-denby they really must hire goes by the name "amateurist"

The Greil Marcus site had a nasty takedown of Denby from 2004 posted the other day (#3 on the list):

http://greilmarcus.net/2014/12/09/real-life-rock-top-10-021104/

I used to read him semi-regularly, basically just skim occasionally now. He strikes me as basically okay--I prefer him to Anthony Lane, anyway.

Lane and Denby are equally horrible. Denby is a pathetic moralizer, and I can't get through a sentence of Lane without picturing him laughing at his own jokes. Except for that profile of Scarlett Johansson he wrote recently—in that case, I could picture him typing with one hand the whole time.

contributing to the web when I have something juicy to say

haha "juicy" isn't the first word that comes to mind w/r/t denby's pronouncements. guess he wont be blogging much

would love to read tom carson in the new yorker but could definitely live w/o his sidekick

though i'd bet that tom has aimed a few shots at the new yorker's bow over the years that would prevent him from ever working there

My own choice would be David Edelstein. I think he may have already had a stint there, though, when they moved a few people in and out after Kael left. I haven't read much of Carson's film stuff--I remember a long dismissal of Nashville he wrote--but I always liked his music writing.

only film pieces i read there are Brody's.

lol hire a new one? you guys do know what year it is, right?

there's no richard brody thread but i needed somewhere to c&p this -

His most personal work, “Norbit,” a psychodramatic outpouring of bile, pain, conflict, and sheer comedic invention, which Murphy starred in and wrote, deserved to be hailed as a masterwork.

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/why-is-eddie-murphy-in-cinematic-exile

i revived the eddie murphy thread to talk about it. that article is bonkers.

why is there no brody thread. i just read this

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/jared-hesss-spiritual-gross-out-comedy-in-masterminds

Brody is def off the deep end. In his Rogue One pan he praised the prequels as the best the Star Wars movies.

#wow #starwars

Someone start the thread!!!!!

I have my issues with Brody but he knows a ton about movies (unlike Lane or Denby) and I don't think he should necessarily faulted for having unorthodox views, which he comes by honestly afaict

kidding aside, intheblanks p much otm tbh

but he's been getting weird lately