Which film critics do you trust (if any?)

I also checked out that book, and first read the Mandingo chapter -- he calls it the best Hollywood film about race. (def see it then read)

Attention, Eric: there's a Leo McCarey chapter w/ emphasis on Make Way for Tomorrow.

(hence Wood featured in upcoming Criterion booklet)

Slant and the House Next Door blog, now one stop for big-time trust.

http://slantmagazine.com/film/

co-sign and co </shamless>

er, shameless

</shamwowless>

Really annoyed about the merger.

do ... tell?!

Well, I was annoyed when it started and wasn't working properly because I really didn't care for the old Slant site. This one is better, but as far as HND I still prefer the old blog style.

just looked nicer on my browser, really.

I'm mostly just excited to bring two reader bases I assume are somewhat separate together.

Or two readers, as the case were.

what merged with what?

Slant and The House Next Door (a blog started by Matthew Zoller Seitz but now edited by Keith Uhlich)

oh dear, did they need to put a redirect on the house next door? unless it's just temporary - or did you carry over all the old content? (i hate redirects..)

anyway, if this is where your trustworthy critics are, i'll be reading. decided to spend time catching up on a lot of cinema i've missed in the past few years.. in the first few of the 00s i watched everything i could (usually getting advice from village voice, some film comment), but not since.

They did port over all the old posts (and there were many). Some are still being reformatted for the new, um, house.

(And, in the interest of full disclosure, daria, Slant isn't necessarily where my "trustworthy critics are" so much as it is where Morbs and I contribute. Which isn't to say I don't trust a lot of their takes, et al.)

^guy who likes a lotta French cinema <3

We will catch you up on the '00s shortly, sort of.

still typing 'www.thehouse..' automatically. old dog and all.

You type "www"?

even i know how to bookmark!

like i said, old dog. quick browse of sites including thehouse are part of my morning ritual, along with a cup of tea. it's just ingrained in me now.

if i type 'sl' into the browser it comes up with the new house site straight away, but it's just not the same.

Just asking for feedback now, but does the merger bother you strictly from a functionality standpoint or do you think there's a clash of sensibilities between the two segments?

functionality mostly. I don't read Slant enough to have an opinion on its sensibilities, but presumably nothing will change content wise as far as The House is concerned. Even if there is, the Zoller Seitz -> Uhlich transition went well.

I just liked the aesthetic of the blog site. It was clean and simple, and I think to some degree a blog suggests an easy-going nature as far as content goes. There were never really straight up reviews and the topics covered were varied.

I'm really not bitching about the move. It's just that every day since it happened I've gone to the old site having completely forgotten that it's elsewhere, and I'll continue to do so for weeks to come no doubt.

I actually did the same thing last time it changed urls. So no actual complaints at all.

Fair enough. I'm obviously doing some first-hand focus-group-type questioning.

i'm just posting this friendly reminder in every film thread. ^__^

~~~~The Top 75 films/movies of the 2000s/oughties VOTING THREAD~~~~ BALLOTS DUE FEBRUARY 2

Often funny:
http://ilovemovies.blip.tv/rss

ok, backing up on the House Next Door. I know Vadim would occasionally do music write-ups, and is currently doing his singles of the oughties, but a single review for Stylos?

So I gotta ask: is there a new editor and/or does the blog have a new remit in regards to what it covers?

not being bitchy fanboy or anything. it's all cool, but ever since your 'sensibility' comment I'm wondering what's changed.

Honestly, I don't think anything has changed with regard to editorial policy, other than to include the sort of material that would've been included in Slant's old blog -- which, yeah, included singles reviews, Oscar predictions, political commentary, et al.

J. Ross. I trust he fired if he not die soon.

hope he die soon.

"I trust he fired if he not die soon."
tempting username

richard schickel droppin' truthbombs WTFbombs at a post-screening Q&A in LA:

"Watching all these kind of earnest people discussing the art or whatever the hell it is of criticism, all that, it just made me so sad. You mean they have nothing else to do?" asked Schickel before adding, "I don't know honestly the function of reviewing anything."

...

When asked by Thompson if he ever read criticism online, Schickel gave a forceful "no," before explaining "Why would you do that? I don't actually read many reviews. I never did. But I'm not going to go around looking for Harry Knowles [the portly Ain't It Cool News founder who is featured in the documentary]. I mean look at that person! Why would anybody just looking at him pay the slightest attention to anything he said?!? He's a gross human being."

http://www.ifc.com/news/2010/03/nothing.php

Is he going all Brian Williams and making fun of "bloggers in bathrobes"?

"The poll's imperfect. We never get out the hip-hop press. Our rolls are larded with part-timers who buy many records and miss many more. And they're joined annually by newbies who learned to write from literary theorists and honed their opinionizing skills in the dog-eat-dog cenacles of college radio."
--You Know Who

"I remember talking to Paul Schrader once about how when he came into movies, he thought he entered what was the natural state of movies, which is you got to make 'Taxi Driver.' You got to make all these weird, interesting movies and Hollywood wanted you to do it and it was only when it began to stop he realized he was living in the historical aberration. And for a lot of film critics, we are living in the historical aberration probably in the history of the arts where you got to make a lot of money, write about an art form at its peak and actually not only have it at its peak, but the public in general was going to that art form for ways of understanding the world. It's not that way now."

totally OTM

could not agree more about harry knowles!

paul schrader is fucking lying there. he knew full well that 'taxi driver' was unusual even in 1976. that said, he was a film noir aficionado (arguably there are elements of film noir in 'taxi driver'). he also knew that hollywood had produced exceptional work in the past.

Paul Schrader only kinda incidental to the main point, which is that the medium and the discourse around it have changed irrevocably, and that the previous state of affairs was by and large a historical abberation.

which is that the medium and the discourse around it have changed irrevocably, and that the previous state of affairs was by and large a historical abberation

p much could have been written at any time in the last 80 years.

rly tho.

1930s: sound has destroyed the medium
1950s: the reaction to tv has brought about giganticism
1960s: the golden era has ended
1980s: boo hoo it isn't the 1970s
2010s: we ah doolee appointed fedural mahshuls

more like

00s to 1900s: ownership of cultural artifacts largely restricted to an educated, wealthy elite
early 1900s: mass media invented
1930s: studios/major labels/publishers control their industries
1950s: studios/major labels/publishers control their industries
1960s: studios/major labels/publishers control their industries
1970s: studios/major labels/publishers control their industries
1980s: studios/major labels/publishers control their industries
1990s: studios/major labels/publishers control their industries
2000s: studios/major labels/publishers get a little worried, attempt to freeze industry at previous state
2010s: internet destroys industry, money/jobs evaporate, mass media hopelessly splintered into a billion little pieces

yeah, plucky lil myspace movies like avatar just have to deal with the new paradigm as best they can

avatar, the most expensive movie ever made but still can't sell as many tickets as Gone With the Wind. there's behemoths on top and a million ants on the bottom, what's been carved out is the middle.

making Taxi Driver for a studio was unusual in '76, now it's unthinkable.

(btw "the middle" there = things like Taxi Driver, weird/innovative/unconventional movies that were bankrolled with big money, made by someone with a fair degree of well-honed skill, and distributed to the mainstream)

http://thecitylovesyou.com/cinerex/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/the-box-movie-poster-final-richard-kelly.jpg

Death to art