Which film critics do you trust (if any?)

(certainly better than Jason Biggs)

it's not biggs's fault that allen sucks.

Also the point of the C. Thomas Howell anecdote seemed pretty clear to me to be more like "actors are such a special breed than some lameo 80's comedy dude that noone respects as an actor has an 'it factor' that the camera loves" than that C. Thomas Howell is secretly brilliant. Get one reading comprehension.

Grace and Kutcher have actual comedic talent, but perhaps not perceptible to Arrested Development fans.

oh BURN

thanks for the advice, Alex. I hope to receive your SAT scores shortly.

oh BURN

I see what you did there.

Chris Walken gets to display a lot of his dancing talent surreptitiously through the body language of bizarre characters in SNL sketches, such as the Dead Zone office worker or the sympathetic Jenny Jones audience member.

walken lacks the charm and populist appeal of gene kelly. oh wait maybe that was kael's point!1!!?1!!? clever.

I had the misfortune to watch Walken in 'Romance and Cigarettes' the other day - judging by that, it's a small mercy he hasn't done more musicals.

(Incidentally, I rented it on the basis of this review - http://movies.nytimes.com/2007/09/07/movies/07roma.html?ref=movies - so, re the thread title, Mr Holden can safely be scratched off the list.)

The only hoofin' I've seen by Walken is in Pennies From Heaven and the Fatboy Slim video.

(Actually I now realise that it was actually this pash-note in Salon that I read -http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2007/09/06/btm/index_np.html - so O'Hehir is for the chopping block too.)

Wait, is Morbs seriously saying That 70s Show > Arrested Development?

Based on my viewings, certainly, but I was valuing those 2 actors for other things to (tho I've yet to see Grace in a comic film part that's better than what he did on T70S).

You AD ppl are responsible for getting Jason Bateman back in films that actually get released; thanks.

xp

Disagreeing with a critic once -- or even 200 times -- is no reason to 'chop' them.

you're ignoring the comic nirvana in making a film with Jason Bateman, Topher, and Michael Cera.

It's kind of hard to compare That '70s Show with Arrested Development: they're doing such different things. Part of what a lot of people (including myself) think is so brilliant about the latter is how densely layered it is: there are jokes that call back to earlier episodes, there are blink-and-you-miss-'em visual gags, etc. Whereas That '70s Show is a fairly conventional sitcom. Nothing wrong with that, but the appeals are in the acting and the comforting familiarity of the structure rather than in the dizzying innovation.

I just saw dizzying unfunniness. But anyway, fuck TV.

It's kind of hard to compare That '70s Show with Arrested Development: they're doing such different things.

yeah respectively: sucking balls and being awesome.

hey, to all the sane guys on this thread, i take it "that 70's show" is fairly mundane, dated bullcrap, no?

But anyway, fuck TV.

dude you just invalidated your own opinion of AD

I hate the way this sounds, but I don't think you can judge Arrested Development based on a few scattered episodes: you really have to watch them in sequence, or else half the pleasure is lost.

Shh! You're ruining the surprise!

I don't like AD much, but no way is it less funny than 70s.

Yeah, I should've watched lots more of a show that made me chuckle twice in a half hour.

GUYS, CAN'T ARGUE ABOUT WHAT PPL FIND FUNNY

Paging me on screwball to thread!!!!!

"I don't like AD much, but no way is it less funny than 70s The Awful Trurh."

Roffles

(x-post) Absolutely true and unarguable.

Walken is great in Pennies From Heaven - easily the best thing about the American version

Arrested Development has never made me laugh, so why would I want to watch a whole bunch of episodes of it...?

Why do people keep returning to ILX?

Because I just said, it's funnier when you get all the references and inside jokes. It's just not a show that's meant to be watched in a stand-alone fashion, which is part of the reason it got such lousy ratings.

Anyway, enough people whose judgments I trust said that the show was worth it, so I started from the very beginning. If the first disc of Season 1 isn't up your alley, then that's fair. And I totally understand not wanting to even expend the effort (life's too short), but know that your criticism is kind of unfounded.

Haha, that was an xpost, although there's some truth to that first sentence.

http://blogs.chicagoreader.com/film/2007/09/19/s-not-funny/

that guy hates fun

if he has such a problem with witty dialogue perhaps "Man Gets Hit With Football in the Groin" is more his style

WTF, MGHWFITG = LOL!

i don't want to get all morby esp. because i have liked some of his work, but the last thing i need to hear about is another apatow-related project. i will never get sick of tyra gifs, however.

Eric, the link's down.

here you go

Still works for me (not having cleared cache, et al). Essentially it says "Apatow doesn't make me laugh, Breillat is funny, wah wah wah."

has there really been a critical "canonization" of "everything Apatow touches"? Seems like a bit of strawman baiting, or are box office receipts what he's going by...

film comment and the new yorker and a shitload other publications have 'canonized' him, ie written nice things about him.

this happens all the time, it always has, it always will, and apatow deserves it more than most. i'm sorry if people are burned out on a guy who has directed two films and produced a few others and did some cancelled tv shows a long time ago, it must be hard for you.

I'm not burned out, tho Knocked Up is probably the first thing of his I've seen in its entirety.

wait the NY piece I saw was highly critical of Knocked Up and longed for the days of Katherine Hepburn and sassy girl heroines etc.

hmmm. i heard denby gave it guarded praise. the fuck would i read it for anyway -- but compared with, say, 'anchorman', 'knocked up' has had huge middlebrow praise.

he did give it guarded praise. the tone of his review was like, oh judd apatow if you just apply yourself you'll make a film as good as the philadelphia story! or something.

yeah that's true, it is guarded praise - more like backhanded compliments than being "highly critical"

to wit:
Apatow has a genius for candor that goes way beyond dirty talk—that’s why “Knocked Up” is a cultural event. But I wonder if Apatow, like his fumy youths, shouldn’t move on. It seems strange to complain of repetition when a director does something particularly well, and Apatow does the infantilism of the male bond better than anyone, but I’d be quite happy if I never saw another bong-gurgling slacker or male pack again.

I totally don't trust David Denby, btw.

fucking denby. go back to internet porn addiction or whatever it was.