Which film critics do you trust (if any?)

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(The potential for reviews by key critics increases, too, if they don't have to wait for a screening that might never happen but can review from wherever they happen to be via DVD.)

that's interesting. in the uk lots of films get a nominal theatre release just so the film will get reviewed: my hunch is no-one bothers to review dtv stuff unless the marketing dept gets their act together.

― 25 yr old slacker cokehead (Enrique), Tuesday, 18 April 2006 13:56 (twenty years ago)

well, no, because the studio system wouldn't have made a film involving lesbianism, modernism, or aids.

The studio system would definitely have made a film in which AIDS is barely mentioned and the lesbianism is "tasteful" (see The Children's Hour)

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 18 April 2006 14:00 (twenty years ago)

exactly!

― 25 yr old slacker cokehead (Enrique), Tuesday, 18 April 2006 14:00 (twenty years ago)

Re: Carole Lombard > Nicole Kidman: The Hours = Vigil In The Night.

This looks like a terrific fite, I wish I had got in earlier. On the TV / Cinema ?Mobile Phone debate, I think that certain media tend towards certain shot choices (TV is almost by nature more close up friendly) but this does not apropos lead to firm TV / Cinema / Mobile Phone / Play aesthetic choices when it comes to storytelling. Nevertheless, the play - cinema/TV dynamic does lead to certain ways of telling a story which cannot be done easily on stage (time lapse, multiple viewpoints, close-up) which can influence the semantic language of the presentation.

― Pete (Pete), Tuesday, 18 April 2006 14:13 (twenty years ago)

Right, but The Hours is part of that tradition (which I forgot to mention in my last post)

xpost

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 18 April 2006 14:15 (twenty years ago)

loosely, maybe, i dunno; i *do* know that 'the hours' could never have been made under the studio system, even if it has affinities with older films.

― 25 yr old slacker cokehead (Enrique), Tuesday, 18 April 2006 14:18 (twenty years ago)

All that, too, is eliding the fact that a lot of these movies are far, far, far from "too good" for theaters

But those aren't the ones he's talking about. That Assayas' Clean -- an English language film, with 2 different types of 'names' in Maggie Cheung and Nick Nolte -- took THREE YEARS to get distributed here is a scandal.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 18 April 2006 15:04 (twenty years ago)

two months pass...

I get the feeling that the target male demographic for the movie may not be 100% anti-Sarkozy anyway.

what the fuck?

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 7 July 2006 08:19 (nineteen years ago)

three months pass...

Dennis Lim and Michael Atkinson let go from Village Voice. Can J. Hoberman be far behind?

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Monday, 9 October 2006 05:08 (nineteen years ago)

you wanna really be sad, click on all the alt-weekly logos at the bottom of this page. first of all you get the cookie-cutter websites; then click on the movie reviews. looks like l.a. weekly got to keep its own critics (must have been a deal someone worked out once upon a time), but pretty much everyone else is using the same rotation. and why pay for, i don't know, 7 critics when you can make do with 3 or 4?

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 9 October 2006 05:33 (nineteen years ago)

Oh I know. I used to freelance (occasionally) for one of those alt-weeklies. Not that I particularly enjoyed the experience, truth be told, but I did see a lot more movies those years.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Monday, 9 October 2006 05:38 (nineteen years ago)

Roger Ebert's religiosity makes him a sucker for movies with any sort of redemption theme, so we part ways a lot there, but he does have a pretty good nose for what's fun in the action/adventure genre. He genuinely loves movies and doesn't affect curmudgeonly disapproval like every reviewer who's ever written for the New Yorker. Not that it isn't rewarding to read A.L. taking down some piece 'o shite in his inimitable snotball style.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Monday, 9 October 2006 12:39 (nineteen years ago)

if Leonard Maltin hates it, I trust that I will find it enjoyable, and vice versa.

― autovac (autovac), Monday, 9 October 2006 14:56 (nineteen years ago)

I don't know, Beth. "Curmudgeonly" is the last adverb I'd use to describe Pauline Kael, Michael Sragow, Terence Rafferty, and (especially) Anthony Lane.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Monday, 9 October 2006 14:58 (nineteen years ago)

that's fucked about atkinson and lim. i'm not a major fan of theirs but you don't need a weatherman to, etc.

― benrique (Enrique), Monday, 9 October 2006 17:45 (nineteen years ago)

I only trust Christopher Mulrooney.
http://www.imdb.com/user/ur0945281/comments?order=alpha

― theodore (herbert hebert), Monday, 9 October 2006 18:09 (nineteen years ago)

I'm sort of sad for some of my friends who were invited to the "Take #" poll in the last couple years, as it's hard to imagine it will actually be held given how many of the film critics involved aren't working film critics anymore. (Maybe I exaggerate, though. It was mostly New Times editors and I think basically all of them still have jobs.)

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Monday, 9 October 2006 19:44 (nineteen years ago)

I think Hoberman stays on as the token 'name.' He's one of the ones getting syndicated all over hell and back.

I'm not sure how the syndication model works for New Times - I can read most of next week's Dallas Observer reviews today on the Voice site. If I don't need to pick up their paper, how's that going to effect their hooker-ad sales?

― milo z (mlp), Monday, 9 October 2006 19:47 (nineteen years ago)

three months pass...

There is a blog devoted to parsing Armond, right or wrong:

http://armonddangerous.blogspot.com/

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 21:28 (nineteen years ago)

that better-than list was pretty interesting. maybe i have start paying attention to this dude again.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 21:46 (nineteen years ago)

if only it didn't have white text over black, this could be the next Fire Joe Morgan

― milo z (mlp), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 21:51 (nineteen years ago)

i think every other armond white review has a line where he does a horrible pun on the movie's title. "This movie is an example of (x). Call it: 'De-Volver'". or something

― ‘•’u (gear), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 21:56 (nineteen years ago)

"Oliver Stone's film was a great act of empathy and facilitated catharsis. Those who saw it were healed..."

― ‘•’u (gear), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 21:58 (nineteen years ago)

oh god i clicked on a film thread

― tony conrad schnitzler (sanskrit), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 22:28 (nineteen years ago)

This is splendid:

And we'll never know -- unless he chooses to elaborate on it elsewhere or at some late date -- what exactly Armond means when he describes Children of Men's aesthetic as "resembling the surreally distanced, uninterrupted viewpoint of a videogame." Which videogames? Certainly not first-person shooter videogames (which Elephant mimics at one moment in order to make a connection to the fps games the teenage killers play at home) because the film's celebrated long takes are not pov shots. The long takes' panoptical surveys -- with action occurring on multiple planes and often disappearing beyond the scope of the lens -- would only resemble videogame aesthetics for the most unsophisticated and -- dare we say -- cynical viewer. For one thing, the moviegoer cannot interact with the image in the same way a videogame player can -- an obvious point that White conveniently ignores. For another, the film maintains spatial integrity in presenting and exploring its realistic environments, an integrity that stands in sharp contrast to the comic book nonsense of V for Vendetta, the film that Armond White compares to Children of Men without properly explaining thier distinctions.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 22:48 (nineteen years ago)

oh no, not cynicism!

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 22:50 (nineteen years ago)

people like the guy cuz he's a bitch, but he's a willfully obtuse hack writer

― ‘•’u (gear), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 23:01 (nineteen years ago)

would only resemble videogame aesthetics for the most unsophisticated and -- dare we say -- cynical viewer

seems like this guy makes the leap that "resembling a videogame" automatically = "shitty movie"

I thought parts of CoM were gamelike in a good way

― dmr (Renard), Thursday, 11 January 2007 00:20 (nineteen years ago)

haha my emoticon up top! i wz starin at it for three or four mins b4 i twigged

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 11 January 2007 00:24 (nineteen years ago)

i hated him because he was a bitch, but not i'm starting to think he may be a pretty good critic

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 11 January 2007 01:16 (nineteen years ago)

he can be a pretty great contrarian but too often that's all he is (it's his M.O. as proven by that foolhardy "better than" list) - he's got me thinking quite a bit and nodding in fierce agreement more than any other critic other than, maybe, Gilbert Adair but when it comes to praising stuff like "world trade center" you have to cut him loose. i enjoy his writing but i don't think even he really believes more than about 50% of what he writes.

― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 11 January 2007 02:05 (nineteen years ago)

~~other~~

btw i really like that blog!

― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 11 January 2007 02:07 (nineteen years ago)

from the blog's comments section:

Anonymous said...
Rivette is a bore.

January 10, 2007 12:19 PM

C'mon Morbius at least sign your name to it! besides doesn't it bore you to say how boring he is all the time?

― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 11 January 2007 02:09 (nineteen years ago)

His expectations of liberal filmgoers (and filmmakers) is too chimerical if not incoherent to take seriously. I mean, this is a man who takes Stanley Kramer's politics seriously, never mind his films.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 11 January 2007 02:11 (nineteen years ago)

what are 'chimerical expectations' exactly?

― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Thursday, 11 January 2007 10:32 (nineteen years ago)

"i expect this lion to have the head of a goat" -- it is an expectation which only makes sense if your view of what exists (ie chimeras) is wack

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 11 January 2007 10:41 (nineteen years ago)

well in that case i must not take him seriously.

― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Thursday, 11 January 2007 10:44 (nineteen years ago)

I thought parts of CoM were gamelike in a good way

hahah the accidental truth revealed!

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 11 January 2007 10:45 (nineteen years ago)

Jed, wasting more than 4 words on Rivette, never mind registering to sign my name (what name? Dr Morbius?), would bore me.

Alfred, what were Stanley Kramer's politics, aside from decent mainstream liberalism of his era?

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 11 January 2007 14:31 (nineteen years ago)

Lou Lummenick, you are an idiot. I mean, obviously he sucks, but.. i mean
http://www.nypost.com/seven/12292006/entertainment/movies/a_maze_ing_movies_lou_lumenick.htm

― poortheatre (poortheatre), Friday, 19 January 2007 05:11 (nineteen years ago)

this guy is a total douche:

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/film/features/article2160412.ece

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/film/2007/01/the_great_unseen_films_of_2006.html

― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Friday, 19 January 2007 10:42 (nineteen years ago)

From the beginning of cinema, film artists working in the new medium understood that its strength was not in straight narrative, something literature or the theatre could do better.

Good lord that's a wrong sentence.

― chap (chap), Friday, 19 January 2007 15:21 (nineteen years ago)

on so many levels. if anything it'd probably be more accurate to say 'from the beginning of cinema, film artists tried to find ways of contructing narratives.'

― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Friday, 19 January 2007 15:24 (nineteen years ago)

two months pass...

What every film critic should know

Well, I knew I wasn't one.

They should know their jidai-geki from their gendai-geki, be familiar with the Kuleshov Effect and Truffaut's "Une certain tendance du cinéma français", know what the 180-degree rule is and the meaning of "suture".

They should have read Sergei Eisenstein's The Film Sense and Film Form and the writings of Bela Balasz, André Bazin, Siegfried Kracauer, Roland Barthes, Christian Metz and Serge Daney.

They should have seen Jean-Luc Godard's Histoire du Cinema, and every film by Carl Dreyer, Robert Bresson, Jean Renoir, Luis Buñuel and Ingmar Bergman, as well as those of Jean-Marie Straub and Danielle Huillet, and at least one by Germaine Dulac, Marcel L'Herbier, Mrinal Sen, Marguerite Duras, Mikio Naruse, Jean Eustache and Stan Brakhage. They should be well versed in Russian constructivism, German expressionism, Italian neo-realism, Cinema Novo, La Nouvelle Vague and the Dziga Vertov group.

― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 17:21 (nineteen years ago)

They should be well versed in Russian constructivism, German expressionism, Italian neo-realism, Cinema Novo, La Nouvelle Vague and the Dziga Vertov group

Not much different from an English grad degree!

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 17:31 (nineteen years ago)

"I believe that every film critic should know, say, the difference between a pan and a dolly shot, a fill and key light, direct and reflected sound, the signified and the signifier, diegetic and non-diegetic music, and how both a tracking shot and depth of field can be ideological."

what the fuck is reflected sound? srsly. but anyway the guy is fairly obviously a 70s throwback.

imo film critics

They should know their Bill Pullman from their Bill Paxton, be familiar with the Vertigo shot and Beynayoun's "Les Enfants du Paradigm", know what the truffle-shuffle is and the meaning of "blue steel".

They should have read Paul Rotha's 'The Film Till Now' and the writings of Raymond Durgnat, Michel Ciment, Edgar Morin, David Bordwell, William Empson and Manny Farber.

They should have seen Michael Mann's 'Crime Story', and every film by Alain Resnais, Andy Warhol, Stanley Kubrick, Francesco Rosi and Humphrey Jennings, as well as those of the Berwick Street Film Collective, and at least one by Wong Kar Wai, Jim McBride, Antoine Fuqua, Thorold Dickinson, Olivier Assayas, Jonas Mekas and William Klein. They should be well versed in British documentarism, the New American Cinema, the Frat Pack, the Left Bank Group, London Filmmakers Co-op and SLON.

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 17:52 (nineteen years ago)

I don't care what film critics know or don't know. I don't care whether or not their tastes are similar to mine. I don't even need them to get the basic facts right.

I want them to write well, in a manner that somehow engages my interest. And I want their writing to cause me to think about things that would never occur to me otherwise. That's it.

― Pye Poudre, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 17:56 (nineteen years ago)

it's all very arbitrary in the end--academic film studies are not the same thing as film criticism, though there is overlap; but ye gods a qualification in film studies in no way qualifies you to write about film professionally. not really sure what it *does* qualify you for, but this guy is equally confused, mixing up technical terms about filmmaking (180-degree rule -- does anyone even follow this rule now? they don't on 'the shield') and structuralist bullshit (signifier/signified). radically different discourses involved. and he doesn't see it.

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 17:59 (nineteen years ago)

Beales OTM

― jaymc, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 18:10 (nineteen years ago)

I just wanna know HOW you see all the Straub-Huillet films.

― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 19:06 (nineteen years ago)

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