Which film critics do you trust (if any?)

haha! xp

still hated ratatouille

ha, what a surprise!

food critic was the best part tho.

so you are not allowed to call me on that.

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb208/EdwardCopeland/foreign/wrath.jpg

Guess who:

I’m not quite sure how it happened, but after making “Magnolia” (1999) and “Punch-Drunk Love” (2002)—skillful but whimsical movies, with many whims that went nowhere—the young writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson has now done work that bears comparison to the greatest achievements of Griffith and Ford. The movie is a loose adaptation of Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel “Oil!,” but Anderson has taken Sinclair’s bluff, genial oilman and turned him into a demonic character who bears more than a passing resemblance to Melville’s Ahab. Stumping around on that bad leg, which was never properly set, Daniel Plainview—obsessed, brilliant, both warm-hearted and vicious—has Ahab’s egotism and command. As for Daniel Day-Lewis, his performance makes one think of Laurence Olivier at his most physically and spiritually audacious.

I give. Who?

AW? I know he liked the Sandler/PTA.

aah, David Denby. I am v excited about that film.

"i think quite a few critics talk about acting. i bet anthony lane does. the us ilx film snob crew do, and the vast majority of non-specialist film coverage is about actors.

-- That one guy that hit it and quit it, Tuesday, December 11, 2007 2:37 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Link"

what? i think this is totally untrue - although i don't read a lot of film crit i do read some and they almost never write about acting as far as i know.

"the vast majority of non-specialist film coverage is about actors."

of course they write about movie stars, yes, but they don't write about the actual acting.

I wonder if any of them have read any of Michael Caine's or David Mamet's books on the subject?

more and more i feel like david thomson's criticism consists of an endless stream of basically random bizarre assertions, barely masked by his beautiful style. i mean, it's funny when he says seven samurai is "too long to be a good western" or that charlie chaplin's screen persona was hitleresque, but is it insightful criticism?

I've never paid much heed to Thomson, partly cuz bites like that are so silly.

btw, NYT's Carpetbagger blogger on that PTA review: "Oddly enough, Mr. Denby noticed something about the movie that caught the Bagger’s attention — to wit, the ending stunk. Odder still, Mr. Denby thinks it doesn’t matter."

I don't think I trust someone who refers to themselves as "the Bagger" AND uses the phrase "to wit."

the proof of a good critic is when you can read one of his sentences and imagine it spoken by jay sherman.

the proof of a good critic is when you can read one of his sentences and imagine it spoken by jay sherman homer simpson.

Whatever -- when I was getting excited about film in my early twenties I used to read Thomson's Biographical Dictionary of Film in the library, wishing I could buy my own copy. He taught me the value of dialectics: how you could love a director reluctantly, like John Huston or Kurosawa. And his straightforward evaluations of Jean Renoir and Katherine Hepburn are marvelous writing.

i had the same experience (right down to the library reads), and i still think thomson's a very good writer. just saying that, for me, his insights don't always measure up to that.

One thing that seems to escape many critics is that many film roles do not really require acting, in the theatrical sense, for maximum effectiveness.

theatrical acting on film is usually rubbish -- just don't tell the academy voters.

the ending of 'there will be blood' is bad, and the film has way too much of daniel d. lewis showboating.

Anthony Lane has never talked about acting in one of his reviews that I can recall.

Film acting is very much about being able to do a line exactly the same way 20 times in a row, with exactly the same head tilt, and then coming back the next day for a reverse angle and remembering exactly how you did the line and then doing it again, exactly the same way. This is a serious, difficult skill. You may not want to call it "acting" but I'm not sure what else to call it.

hmmmm, Brando (when he cared) apparently could do it differently every take, according to his collaborators.

i have heard the same said about jack black.

but um sometimes you need them to do it the same both times, lest the shots won't cut together! tracer is right.

b-b-but Dr. Morbius, ANYBODY can do it differently each time!! it's being able to do it exactly the same, on different days sometimes, yet still feel fresh and accurate and real that is the skill that is usually called for

Tracer, are you in the UK at the moment? i'm just wondering if you saw "Boy A" on UK TV. some of the most amazing, subtle acting i've seen ever.

i remember we had similarly enthusiastic responses to the performance by the actor who played Majid(?) in Caché.

t's being able to do it exactly the same, on different days sometimes, yet still feel fresh and accurate and real that is the skill that is usually called for

Isn't this the English way? I always questioned directors who admiringly described an actor's 100 different takes.

xp: well TH, maybe that's part of why oldskool directors hated Brando so much! But John Huston said he played a crucial sequence in Reflections in a Golden Eye in two utterly different keys, and he could've used either.

http://ballsandwalnuts.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/marathon_man.jpg

one reason for doing the take the same way twice or more is that on one day ur shooting the master, on another the close-up, on another the medium shot... it kind of fucks with the rules of film continuity if the actor tries to go for something different each time.

jed I didn't see that! thanks for the tip

Alfred yeah that's the stereotype but more so for theatre -- i.e. Americans "just feel it" and Brits treat it like a sport or a craft that they hone to perfection. I guess you could say that the latter Brit way of doing things is the norm for film (and TV, though less so) no matter where you are.

Morbs yeah if you've got a great actor and enough time, you might want to see them try a couple of different directions. And really great film actors will modulate their lines a bit from take to take, knowing where to keep it the same, knowing where they can expand it a little, almost like they have a sense of where the cuts will be.

xpost right

but yeah one look at a Steven Seagal film proves you don't need good acting to make a good movie! It helps in Seagal's case that he only has one expression, so continuity is easy. You could say the same for Portman.

That's one more look than I've taken at a Seagal film.

also the Brando Reflections scene was one long master take (in a classroom), I think, so there wd be no continuity issues.

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/4/49/260px-Marathon_Man2.jpg

Steven Seagal cheat sheet:

Any Seagal movie where you can say "Steven Seagal IS..." and then the name of the movie, it's a good one.

I fear I may have lost my film critic trust forever with that one.

haha i have made that exact joke!

It was originally told to me by a surgeon from Philadelphia who was obsessed with Steven Seagal.

Maybe it comes from some standup comedian :(

http://www.chrisbeetles.com/img/pictures/artists/Snowdon/C25046-b.jpg

steven seagal IS exit wounds

I hardly ever listen to music without doing something else, but I can't imagine watching a movie and doing something else. Last time I tried was with The Life Aquatic, and while I'm pretty sure I wasn't missing out on a cinematic masterpiece by cleaning my living room while the DVD was on, I still can't intelligently talk about that movie at all, since it's just kind of blurry in my mind.

Last night I watched The Host while exercising.

'm pretty sure I wasn't missing out on a cinematic masterpiece

you weren't

Also, I've made the same complaint on ILX about how few film critics really examine acting and was met with "You should read David Thomson."

I listened to music while watching the visual for Seabiscuit on an airplane. Pretty sure I caught everything.

Perhaps it's because acting is more mysterious than the other film crafts? Also, very few readers want a technical breakdown of what you can see an actor doing (even if the critic is capable of one). Which mostly leaves waxing poetic about, eg, the performer's personality.

http://www.klubseniora.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/cybulski2.jpg

Merry Xmas, Morbius.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/158/383834728_79b63bef7b.jpg

I wonder if this is any good? http://www.amazon.com/O-K-You-Mugs-Writers-Actors/dp/0375401016

I only read Ebert out of any of the critics, and I don't often read critics. Prefer to trawl through genres and directors and avoid the reviewers generally.

Predictably, Anthony Lane and AO Scott.