Which film critics do you trust (if any?)

André Bazin
― Amateurist (amateurist), Monday, December 30, 2002 7:47 AM (7 years ago) Bookmark

this is a solid choice, but can the bazin fans out there read french?

i just read richard roud's review of 'what is cinema?' from 1968 and it is pretty astonishing how poor the translation was. and amazingly it's been unchanged ever since.

there are new translations for this book, no?
i read it in both french and portuguese, never looked in english.

yeah some canadian firm has done it proper. but the widely disseminated uni of cali version is still the standard in anglophone countries.

it frightens me the lack of accuracy and care in a lot of these translations.

where did you read that review, nrq?

sight and sound, spring 1968

can't c+p

ic thx!

geoffrey howell-smith goes as far as to say the translation "may have done more harm than good" here
http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/polls/film_books_full.php (and also points out the canadian edition is only available in canada due to copyright) Ian Christie also points out it's a poor translation, and rosenbaum says there's no one good volume to recommend. but a lot of anglo critics there seem as ignorant of major problems as i was (i read volume ii & some anthologized stuff), and the french of course have no compunctions.

Eberts looking for an Elvis Mitchell replacement

http://www.slashfilm.com/roger-eberts-movies-premieres-january-21-seeks-host/

Hit it, Morbs! Otherwise we're left with this:

However, the Chicago Sun-Times is now reporting that Mitchell has been dropped and they’re considering replacing him with “a young male in his mid-20s with little or no experience as a movie critic or as a TV talent.”

I think I qualify.

Qui est Christy Lemire? Is she any good?

you certainly do not, Eric. mid-20s

i, on the other hand...

anyhoo I read this as a description of an individual who is already far along in the audition process. maybe donna rouge just confessed!

i saw maybe five new movies this year which means i'm totally qualified to do this

mid-20s?

“a young male in his mid-20s with little or no experience as a movie critic or as a TV talent.”

Weird, considering how much shit Ebert gave Ben Lyons.

Qui est Christy Lemire? Is she any good?

She's the film critic for the Associated Press.

Don't really know anything about her on-air skills, but here's her 2010 top 10.

well, this is her co-host, from Mubi:

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/2723

I am curious to verify that Spread is a great movie.

As a writer I find him careless, but he's got a good eye for film. A friend sent me this post on Renoir not long ago.

it's true, Renoir was a badass.

I was amused by his Social Network aside envisioning a Marx Bros biopic where Eisenberg plays Groucho/Chico and Michael Cera plays Harpo/Zeppo.

He's good for his age.

No surprise, it was obvious this was in the works, but David Thomson has officially joined Stanley Kauffmann at The New Republic:

http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/81011/stanley-kauffmann-david-thomson-at-the-movies

I'm always a little surprised how Kauffmann seems to barely warrant a mention when those contentious Kael-Sarris arguments arise, like on the Kael thread here. Lots of people love Farber, Simon is at least infamous, but Kauffmann is generally overlooked or kept at arm's length. (Even Kael and Sarris used to keep him at arm's length to a degree.) I've long believed that his collections covering the '60s, '70s, and '80s are more or less the equal of Kael's; he couldn't have been more different in how he wrote (or, sometimes, in the films he advocated for), but he was totally great for that period of time. He's never stopped writing at TNR, although he's slowed down a lot the past decade (he turns 95 this year!). I still read him now and again, but he almost always writes about films I haven't seen and don't know, half the time you can only get part way through his reviews before you're asked to subscribe, and I just haven't felt connected to his writing in general. At some point, I'm sure there'll be a final collection, and I will catch up.

Wow--Kauffmann's Wikipedia page is epic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Kauffmann

I really dig Halliwell's old stuff, but I usually find that Ebert is pretty spot-on in most his commentary. I realize people get pretty irate at the condensation of an entire criticism into a system composed of thumbs (or as on the website, 4 stars) but the guy writes quick, entertaining and thoroughly informative reviews without being condescending. All great qualities.

This is the kind of thing that gets talked about ALL THE TIME and yet I'm always kind of happy when people point out the influence of marketing/corporate money.

I'm surprised to see Neal Gabler sounding like Palin. It's been a while, but I read books by him about celebrity culture and Walter Winchell, and remember both as being really good. Never mind Palin--he sounds just like Winchell, and I remember him being suitably horrified by Winchell's reckless populism.

... is jason solomons REALLY going to be the observer's man then

rmde

I used to follow Peter Bradshaw and Philip French but then one day I found Michael Sicinski's review of Certified Copy on mubi, which had me downloading the film as soon as I got to the end, then went back to read what The Guardian said and now I just can't take them seriously anymore. I did not know who Kiarostami was at the time and PB made me think the film was a pretentious cute comedy and that is just unforgivable. Never again.

Bradshaw's had some howlers in his day. Criterion guy considers Certified Copy to be minor Kiarostami (or something like that) so maybe that's a more widely held opinion than I thought.

I used to follow Peter Bradshaw and Philip French but then one day I found Michael Sicinski's review of Certified Copy on mubi, which had me downloading the film as soon as I got to the end, then went back to read what The Guardian said and now I just can't take them seriously anymore. I did not know who Kiarostami was at the time and PB made me think the film was a pretentious cute comedy and that is just unforgivable. Never again.

― wolves lacan, Sunday, July 10, 2011 6:17 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

michael sicinski is painfully bad tho

lol the opening sentence of that mubi review - It is profoundly difficult to articulate the precise manner in which Abbas Kiarostami and his two lead actors, Juliette Binoche and William Shimell, expel the complicated emotional vapor that is Certified Copy - basically translates as "i can't review farts"

solomons is taking over from p. french? jesus wept. happened to see solomons on breakfast tv the other morning, he is a ghastly beyond belief

i finished the durgnant bk on psycho and although there are many problems with it, his STYLE is extremely seductive (and often surprisingly funny).

The best and worst of "history mayne" is to be found on this thread.

Also not a single mention of Scott MacDonald here? Sometimes responsible for some rather grand (for effect?) claims, but you can't fault his curiosity and enthusiasm.

i kinda wish Jonathan Rosenbaum would flesh this out a little:

I’ve recently been thinking that a considerable portion of what I find the most detestable in contemporary commercial filmmaking can be summed up in a single trend: exploitation movies that go out into the world as “serious” art movies,. Admittedly, two very early examples of this trend in talkies, Lang’s M and Hawks’ Scarface, are two of the greatest movies ever made, though neither of these can be accused of stroking and glorifying the audience’s hypocrisy. But ever since the Godfather pictures, it seems, artiness has been working overtime as a kind of built-in alibi for many of the baser impulses in the audience –- various kinds of cynicism viewing corruption as inescapable, everyday, and deeply profound (e.g., Avatar, The Girlfriend Experience, Contagion), extreme violence as a function of specious and hypocritical morality (or, even worse, “sensitivity,” as in Drive–or, for that matter, The Passion of the Christ), gimmicky temporal structures (e.g., Tarantino, Memento, Babel) or fatuous psychologizing that are somehow supposed to dignify various forms of boorishness or nastiness (ranging from McQueen’s sexist complacencies and brutalities in Shame to von Trier’s dubious and ongoing validation of his own depression as a practical tool for coping with glitzy catastrophes and atrocities of his own making), and even the sort of Oscar-mongering that can cast a liberal activist as a racist thug (Rampart) to show us how “complex” the modern world is supposed to be.

http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com/?p=27620

An Immodest Proposal on the Koisian Phenomenon:

http://halfaballoon.wordpress.com/2012/01/25/an-immodest-proposal-for-slate/

Pretty funny, though I'm not sure it quite gets at what's so awful about the Slate Culture Gabfest. Kois' rise to niche-prominence has been worth it for Kenny's endless Twitter axe-grinding.

Just watched a boring and wildly unilluminating roundtable on Charlie Rose with A.O. Scott (who has a Nobbs boner, apparently), Denby, and Dana Stevens. Predictably terrible.

Bought a ticket for this next month at our new documentary theatre:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1241707/

It's dated 2009, but there are only nine user reviews, and I'd never heard of it till now. Anyone seen it?

I saw it at the National Gallery with a Q&A with the director and Jonathan Rosenbaum afterward. The film is not terribly illuminating if you know about it...it's very general and also American-specific (so Cahiers et al don't really feature). Still, it's nice to see the profession get some love, even if it is only from those within the profession.

Though for me the Q&A afterwards was the best part w/ good discussion.

Thanks. There'll be a Q&A here too, with the director (good) and some local critics (maybe not).

holy shit stanley kauffmann is 95 years old. and still writing completely forgettable prose.

it pays not to have far to fall

I've got to stick up for Kauffmann. From the early '60s to well into the '80s, I think he was one of the greatest film critics ever.

Wesley Morris wins Pulitzer.

I've never read him. He had some segments in the film-critic documentary mentioned above--seemed pretty level-headed.

ive never read him either but i just googled him and he sounds cool:

The Lucky One movie review -- The Lucky One showtimes - The ...
www.boston.com/.../lucky_one_is_an_unfortunate_union_for_zac_e...
4 days ago – Seeing her and Efron fumble at each other is like watching a stick of butter and a bag of flour not turn into cake. (101 min., PG-13) (Wesley Morris)

who are some cool critics i should be reading. ive never been a guy who reads many reviews, so i dont really know my denbys from my scotts.

David Edelstein (heretical Paulette).