Which film critics do you trust (if any?)

"directed between naps by Rob Reiner"

But still.

Yeah, I recall a damned fine piece on Polanski's MacBeth and a great history of the Hollywood Roman Epic.

I cannot stand Catherine Tate. Shrill and witless. Gaahhh!

Damien Love has good taste by and large. He stuck his neck out for Catterick and wrote very well on the Scorcese Dylan documentary. And he always points out interesting 70s US indie films and weirdo horror flicks that are on at 2 in the morning. Only thing he loved I wasn't so keen on was the Chris Isaak show, which was trying to be Larry Sanders with surreal asides but didn't really work.

I've never missed Gene Siskel so much.

"I think it’s a major cultural disaster for the English-speaking left-wing that Cahiers du cinéma caught the fashion when it did – first with the Nouvelle Vague and then again in May 1968 – and that Positif didn’t. [...] Now I come to think of it, Positif throughout the ‘60s was fed by a double stream, of anarcho-Surrealism and of Marxism, that combined aspects of two alternative extremes — the hippie years as a kind of neo-anarcho-Surrealism, and the rebirth of Marxism. But English-speaking film criticism has been spinning between a right-bank aestheticism and a sort of bourgeois radicalism."

"Moreover, one reads against one’s own opinions, doesn’t one? Sometimes one only realises a movie is not being understood or needs defining or attacking by what one’s colleagues say. And then again some disagreements are very affectionate, you know. Grateful, like a friend whom one meets to have arguments with."

http://mattzollerseitz.blogspot.com/2006/04/cinema-dead-and-alive-interview-with.html

"The success of films like 'Crash' and 'Syriana' represent the creeping erosion of cinematic values by television values. [Judging by the Oscars,] the filmmaking community considers those films artistic. But to me, 'Crash' is the opposite of artistic. Somebody on the news pointed out that on the Village Voice Critics Poll it was #66. It was so far down. It’s not like the Hollywood community said, “Look, the critics have embraced this film!” A lot of critics cried bullshit on it. Nonetheless, that kind of value is overtaking traditional cinematic values just in terms of very basic entertainment terms Hollywood is used to dealing with. That is a terrible phenomenon, too, but it is not a matter of a fluke this year. It’s an ongoing process and the more you see this validated in forums like the Oscars, the more that will become the definition of film art."

But yr skepticism isn't always sound; opera, Broadway and jazz have gone to hell.

Has no one ever linked to Cheshire's "Death of Film / Decay of Cinema" essay from '99?

http://www.nypress.com/print.cfm?content_id=243

“Film refers to the old, celluloid-based technology; movies refer to motion pictures as entertainment; and cinema refers to motion pictures as art.”

People sure read that Cheshire interview (and his linked reviews and essays) fast...

"TV, from which (big surprise) Gaghan emerged, is all about the unintended atomization of meaning: momentary effects, big, empty gestures and the glinting impression of substance where there actually is none. As TV continues to erode cinema aesthetics, I'm afraid we'll see lots more movies like Crash and Syriana, facile mini-series crammed into two hours and pumped up on steroids of self-regard."

Hahaha ok fair enough. Who is that Buffy the Vampire Slayer dude? He's another Joel Surnow. Or Joel Surnow is another him. Whatever. Tho I have to say, you must admit that Kiefer Sutherland has the most exciting life of any man who ever lived.

xpost has Keifer had plastic surgery? Every time I look at him now his lips seem blubbery.

momentary effects, big, empty gestures and the glinting impression of substance where there actually is none.

OH WAIT WHO DOES THAT SOUND LIKE

The idea that art and entertainment are two wholly separate entities and not two circles with a central overlap kind of freaks me out, but I guess it's akin to "TV Values" and "Liberal Media."

xpost oh the Sopranos is just ok. I tried to watch it because one of my best buds was all about it bout it and I just really kind of was a little bored off and on. Sometimes interesting but definitely overrated in my opinion--though of course if I wasn't expecting it to be greatest thing ever coming into it I might've been more receptive.

This and the comment about how acclaimed show viewing isn't necessary meaning for shit are the best things said in the current discussion.

Replace "TV" with "Film" and it's just as meaningless.

In any case, it's not as if I haven't seen my share of "cinema" as being defined by Cheshire here, but like Ally, the idea that "cinema" and "movies" don't have some major Venn diagram shit going on is absolutely mind-boggling to me. And you can't seriously insist that "television values" is not a coded way of saying "LOL @ teh stupid proles."

the best films>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>the best tv shows

to answer the thread question, J Hoberman is great

"No, you're supposed to say movies don't matter, that's what you're arguing."