When a friend posted the GB remark yesterday, I said the rest of the review added much-needed context. The butter line is worse.
He shouldn't have been fired, but he knows now that FB is never private.
― I like queer. You like queer, senator? (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 28 November 2018 21:44 (five years ago) link
never say anything on Facebook
― omar little, Wednesday, 28 November 2018 21:46 (five years ago) link
or don't friend Martha Plimpton
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 29 November 2018 00:22 (five years ago) link
That joke would have to be pretty awful for me not to think the firing is ridiculous.
― clemenza, Thursday, 29 November 2018 00:32 (five years ago) link
The joke sucks, and the firing is ridiculous.
As for the Green Book comment, I knew exactly what he was getting at (and agree, in theory, not having seen the film) just from having seen the film's trailer, to the point that I'm kinda surprised that it even needs explanation/defence/contextualization.
― Timothée Charalambides (cryptosicko), Thursday, 29 November 2018 00:34 (five years ago) link
The best line in the Facebook post above is "And an era so intoxicated by its own outrage that to say what I just said is to risk being accused of thinking sexual abuse is okay." It's an infinite death spiral--I paused before submitting my previous post.
― clemenza, Thursday, 29 November 2018 00:38 (five years ago) link
people looking to be offended def have a home at NPR, with their fucking Moth Hour and Terry Gross
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 29 November 2018 01:01 (five years ago) link
Yeah I don’t have anything new to add to this, but this firing is cartoonishly stupid.
― circa1916, Thursday, 29 November 2018 02:10 (five years ago) link
Having seen the tweet in question, I think it's possible that (much like his Green Book comment) he meant something that's actually in line with what snowflakes would endorse ... reducing Bertolucci's entire career down to basically nothing other than the idea he facilitated rape.
Or not. I don't know.
― I Never Promised You A Hose Harden (Eric H.), Thursday, 29 November 2018 02:55 (five years ago) link
it's been rly depressing to see ppl gloat about this on twitter
i assume if she were alive and writing pauline kael would get fired for one of her usual cracks about an actress's appearance or something
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, 29 November 2018 03:13 (five years ago) link
That'd be the down side. The upside is that John Simon would never have made it past two columns.
― I Never Promised You A Hose Harden (Eric H.), Thursday, 29 November 2018 03:24 (five years ago) link
I was thinking the exact same thing in connection to this. Except I think it would unfold like this: some interviewer in 2018 would ask Kael to "clarify" her Last Tango review, she'd respond in a way that amounted to "Oh, please," and the next day she'd be out of a job.
There will probably be a number of pieces like this in the coming days:
http://www.salon.com/2018/11/28/david-edelstein-the-butter-scene-in-last-tango-and-the-darkness-of-the-internet/
"I suspect what befell Edelstein this week is only partly about one stupid Facebook post, and has more to do with the messy process of generational change and the inevitable Schadenfreude surrounding someone who holds two prestigious media jobs, either of which many other people would kill and eat their grandmothers to get."
I don't expect I'll get much agreement here, but--conceding that they bring some of it onto themselves--I think there's an element of that behind some of the carping about Christgau, Marcus, and Bill James on ILX.
― clemenza, Thursday, 29 November 2018 03:24 (five years ago) link
no need to carp about Christgau because all of his writing is awful. that quote is OTM though
― flappy bird, Thursday, 29 November 2018 05:29 (five years ago) link
I'm sure these media companies are happy to take any excuse to axe folks with any seniority, especially who write about fiyulms, cause who fucking cares about those anymore
― resident hack (Simon H.), Thursday, 29 November 2018 06:09 (five years ago) link
Maria Schneider never said she was *actually* raped in the butter scene; she said she stayed friends with Brando, and that all the sex was simulated.
Edelstein knows that. Martha Plimpton doesn't (too busy writing about what her "favorite abortion" was, it seems).
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 29 November 2018 07:27 (five years ago) link
I think it's possible that (much like his Green Book comment) he meant something that's actually in line with what snowflakes would endorse...Or not. I don't know
I've seen the joke now, and agree with this. As humour, it's not much more than a lame reference to what I take it (I don't remember) is an old advertising slogan for butter. Not particularly offensive, definitely not funny. If you try to extract meaning from it, all I get is either a) a complete non-sequitur, prompted only by the fact that this slogan popped into Edelstein's head, or b) a dig at Bertolucci, the idea that he's getting a pass in death for this infamous scene. I don't know.
I'd have to check it (I might be misremembering), but I suspect that Kael's review of Straw Dogs is another one that'd get her fired today.
― clemenza, Thursday, 29 November 2018 12:36 (five years ago) link
Maybe this one moment in film and social history isn't really about Pauline Kael.
― I Never Promised You A Hose Harden (Eric H.), Thursday, 29 November 2018 13:44 (five years ago) link
Actually, I think it very much is in a way.
― clemenza, Thursday, 29 November 2018 13:51 (five years ago) link
Well, good luck convincing your kindergartners of that.
― I Never Promised You A Hose Harden (Eric H.), Thursday, 29 November 2018 13:55 (five years ago) link
In a both a broad sense--what could you write or say 40 years ago that you can't today?--and also very specifically (Edelstein was once viewed as a "Paulette," Last Tango is Kael's most infamous review). We bring her up all the time (not just me) where she's not really relevant, but this time she is.
I am going to talk about this today as a good example of why kids have to realize that anything they write online never goes away. (Grade 3/4, by the way.)
― clemenza, Thursday, 29 November 2018 13:57 (five years ago) link
That's not the whole issue, though. The sex was simulated, but she clearly felt coerced and humiliated in doing the scene. She says she "felt a little raped." I get why a joke that takes that cavalierly wouldn't go over well.
― jmm, Thursday, 29 November 2018 14:08 (five years ago) link
Kinda surprised that Martha Plimpton never said Schneider was raped, but that she was sexually assaulted, which she definitely was? It's ironic that it's the commenters angry at 'rape' being brought into this, who are in fact the ones who brought 'rape' into this.
― Frederik B, Thursday, 29 November 2018 15:12 (five years ago) link
Oh wait, Salon didn't have all of her tweet. Ok, everyone is bad, sigh.
― Frederik B, Thursday, 29 November 2018 15:32 (five years ago) link
but that she was sexually assaulted, which she definitely was?
not touching this
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 29 November 2018 15:40 (five years ago) link
http://www.startribune.com/star-tribune-film-critic-resigns-after-ethics-breach/502410192/
― I Never Promised You A Hose Harden (Eric H.), Tuesday, 11 December 2018 05:06 (five years ago) link
If you're gonna plagiarize, don't choose Kael, for chrissake.
seems like a weird kind of plagiarism
― j., Tuesday, 11 December 2018 06:00 (five years ago) link
Trying to figure out what Kael called "self-glorifying masochistic mush" in 1974.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 11 December 2018 13:04 (five years ago) link
Plagiarisers are idiots but they're the creation of a maniacal industry that gives its staff constant & un-meetable deadlines, little job security, shitty wages and zero though to work-life balance. By all means blame this idiot writer, but the structures of newspaper and digital journalism are built for plagiarism.
― Chuck_Tatum, Tuesday, 11 December 2018 13:13 (five years ago) link
The Little PrinceUK (1974): Musical/Dance The Saint-Exupéry book, the first of the modern mystic-quest books to become a pop hit, is a distillation of melancholy, and it comes close to being self-glorifying, masochistic mush. Possibly something might have been made of the material if Alan Jay Lerner, who wrote the movie script, along with the lyrics for Frederick Loewe's music, had a more delicate feeling for spiritual yearning. The director, Stanley Donen, is handicapped by the intractably graceless writing and by the Big Broadway sound of the Lerner-Loewe score. Bob Fosse's snake-in-the-grass dance number is the film's high spot, and Gene Wilder, as a red fox, triumphs over some of his material. As the child Prince, Steven Warner holds the screen affectingly; as the author-aviator, Richard Kiley is pleasant enough but colorless.
The Saint-Exupéry book, the first of the modern mystic-quest books to become a pop hit, is a distillation of melancholy, and it comes close to being self-glorifying, masochistic mush. Possibly something might have been made of the material if Alan Jay Lerner, who wrote the movie script, along with the lyrics for Frederick Loewe's music, had a more delicate feeling for spiritual yearning. The director, Stanley Donen, is handicapped by the intractably graceless writing and by the Big Broadway sound of the Lerner-Loewe score. Bob Fosse's snake-in-the-grass dance number is the film's high spot, and Gene Wilder, as a red fox, triumphs over some of his material. As the child Prince, Steven Warner holds the screen affectingly; as the author-aviator, Richard Kiley is pleasant enough but colorless.
― Number None, Tuesday, 11 December 2018 13:16 (five years ago) link
“Just like real soldiers who are numb to war” Reading these tweets one can imagine how it must have felt to be a tea boy in the offices of Cahiers du Cinéma circa 1954 overhearing a conversation between André Bazin and Éric Rohmer. pic.twitter.com/RcJgGE4fQc— David Franklin (@davefranklin) December 16, 2019
― Greta Van Show Feets BB (milo z), Monday, 16 December 2019 23:50 (four years ago) link
David Edelstein is now behind a pay wall--only critic I checked regularly.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 21 January 2020 02:40 (four years ago) link
richard brody used the word "dinosaurically" in his latest column. i trust him to write things that are readable.
― treeship., Tuesday, 21 January 2020 02:47 (four years ago) link
i often do not agree with him, but he's more interesting than more "measured" critics. in my view.
It's not really part of my criteria for judging a critic, but I do find myself in sync with Edelstein more often than not. But not always--he put Uncut Gems in his Top 10, as a recent example.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 21 January 2020 02:53 (four years ago) link
did u not like it? i'm interested in seeing it
― treeship., Tuesday, 21 January 2020 02:56 (four years ago) link
See it. I'm a dissenting minority of one.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 21 January 2020 02:58 (four years ago) link
Vulture seems to waft back and forth with their paywall / article limit, but private browsing is all it takes to get around it.
― don't care didn't ask still clappin (sic), Tuesday, 21 January 2020 03:06 (four years ago) link
Hey thanks--works!
― clemenza, Tuesday, 21 January 2020 03:10 (four years ago) link
Kenneth Turan stepping down as LA Times film critic after 30 yrs
― Josefa, Wednesday, 25 March 2020 23:01 (four years ago) link
no films to critique
― Dollarmite Is My Name (sic), Wednesday, 25 March 2020 23:21 (four years ago) link
it's hard out here for a critic
― Josefa, Thursday, 26 March 2020 00:06 (four years ago) link
James Cameron won.
― coronoshebettadontvirus (Eric H.), Thursday, 26 March 2020 12:56 (four years ago) link
Not sure if this was posted elsewhere but Film Comment being mothballed after next issue. https://www.filmlinc.org/daily/covid-19-update-from-film-at-lincoln-center/
― Alba, Friday, 27 March 2020 23:29 (four years ago) link
Last issue: First Cow
― Vegemite Is My Grrl (Eric H.), Saturday, 28 March 2020 00:08 (four years ago) link
I actually came on here to see if Peter Bradshaw was any good (there's a discounted collection on the book-clearance site I buy from)--the very first post tells me no.
― clemenza, Monday, 10 August 2020 16:15 (three years ago) link
I've been listening to the Unspooled podcast, and it's odd, I really enjoy it and their perspectives but I don't trust *either* of them. Not their opinions, not their tastes, not much of anything. But I do like their general positivity and respect for one another even when they clearly disagree, and perhaps because of that I've learned a few things and learned to reassess a few things despite how often my own preferences and opinions diverge.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 10 August 2020 17:09 (three years ago) link
very first post otm
― Steppin' RZA (sic), Monday, 10 August 2020 19:53 (three years ago) link
I like Peter Bradshaw. I would take his reviews over most other newspaper critics. He often likes what I would like, and the other way round, and that is enough for me.
― Eyeball Kicks, Wednesday, 12 August 2020 06:39 (three years ago) link
Has David Edelstein left New York? I was hoping to find a Mank review from him, but he hasn't reviewed anything since September (many reviews since by other writiers). His Wikipedia page doesn't mention him leaving.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 24 November 2020 00:13 (three years ago) link