Which film critics do you trust (if any?)

sound pretty good to me;

anyway, that critic can't talk: she has actual commercials splattered ludicrously through her text.

the best British newspaper film writer is Romney in the IoS, I think...

...but only because David Thomson now has an American passport.

David Thomson is the king of kings but he does suffer a bit from Meltzer's disease - ie modern cinema is rub. Bradshaw continues the great Guardian tradition of utterly shite film critics (Malcolm, Richard Williams etc.) Does Nigel Andrews still write for the FT? He wrote a fantastic slag job of 'Phantom Menace' (which I know = shooting fish in a barrel, but in this case his criticisms were utterly OTM and made w/ gd humour).

Antonia Quirke in the IOS is prob. the worst 'serious' newspaper critic that I know abt.

The shark fin canapes were nice afterwards and she had a nice pink top on.

Yeah, because that's her doing, not Salon's.

Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times is pretty solid, and deserves respect for having raised James Cameron's ire for panning Titanic when it first came out. Also, Paul Tatara used to do a good job reviewing movies for cnn.com, but it appears that he's not writing for them anymore.

Not really: he is always praising new films. His sense of the moral is one thing that sets him apart from many; so, as my editor once said re. Fast-Talking Dames, is his ability with ambivalence.

>>> Bradshaw continues the great Guardian tradition of utterly shite film critics (Malcolm, Richard Williams etc.)

I don't think I see what's so awful about Bradshaw. Certainly Malcolm became a slug, but I don't think Williams awful either.

>>> Antonia Quirke in the IOS is prob. the worst 'serious' newspaper critic that I know abt.

She's still in the IoS?? I thought she'd moved on. I heard her on Stuart Maconie's R2 show (!!), where she was irritating re. S&S Top Movies etc. Is she meant to be foxy? (I am going by comments above.)

Actually, AQ's worst flaw surely = too much casual swearing in print. Unforgivable.

Surprisingly, among the NYT crew, I've really been digging A.O. Scott's writing lately. I wish he'd write about music in the same earnest, bookish way. Seriously! He's great. Elvis hasn't been doing much for me these days. End of year best-of lists comparison!

A.O. Scott

1. Talk to Her
2. The Fast Runner (Atanarjuat)
3. Adaptation
4. Far From Heaven
5. The Pianist
6. Spirited Away
7. Storytelling
8. Gangs of New York
9. Lovely and Amazing
10. Punch Drunk Love

Elvis Mitchell

1. Bloody Sunday
2. Catch Me If You Can
3. Morvern Callar
4. Paid in Full
5. Personal Velocity
6. Spirited Away
7. Talk to Her
8. 24 Hour Party People
9. What Time is it There?
10. Y Tu Mama Mambien

I haven't read him in a while. But I was always of the opinion that he was a good writer and a terrible critic -- very impetuous and hotheaded, and his theories on race were either honest and incisive or paranoid and overreaching, depending on how willing I was to go along with him. The other regular New York Press film critic, Matt Zoller Seitz, is often very good (haven't read him in a while either -- I've kinda given up on the Press because the conservatism over there is getting really out of control).

For comedic value, I like these guys. Ever wonder what the 'moral rating' of the film you were watching was?

The others are far, far too pretentious... (I'm looking at you Michael Atkinson of the Village Voice, IM LOOKING AT YOU)

Ebert can be useful to me occasionally as a buying guide but I generally don't read him for his prose. And Roeper...good god, man, how did that guy get his job?

1. SPIRITED AWAY
2. ABOUT SCHMIDT
3. TALK TO HER
4. PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE
5. TME OUT
6. IN PRAISE OF LOVE
7. I'M GOING HOME
8. MAHAGONNY
9. WINDTALKERS
10. WARM WATER UNDER A RED BRIDGE

I'm realizing, though, that in some cases, I tend to trust publications more than I trust individual critics. When I'm looking for reviews on MRQE or Rotten Tomatoes, I'll click on any critic at the New York Times, Village Voice, New Yorker, Salon, or the Chicago Reader (which is mostly Rosenbaum but sometimes J.R. Jones). Beyond that, I also read Ebert and David Edelstein (Slate), both of whom are the only critics their publications employ.

In most cases, Ebert is the first critic I'll check. Last night, looking for reviews of The Company, I read (in order) Ebert, Charles Taylor, and Elvis Mitchell.

I like many internet pseudo-critics. And reading Armond White is usually a good time, though more so after seeing the movie. Actually, to my taste in criticism-reading, the best critics are the ones to be read after seeing the movie rather than before. Maybe this is why I don't like reading Ebert so much.

Agreed. I never read full-length reviews before I see a movie -- only capsules. This, of course, is what makes Rosenbaum such a compelling critic -- if a part of the movie that would ordinarily be considered a "spoiler" is worth discussing, he'll discuss it without apology.

I don't pay much attention to actual reviews until after I see a film. I'm more interested in seeing how my thoughts compared to Zacharek, the NY Times and VVoice people, the Washington Post, Chris Vognar of the Dallas Morning News (my professor one semester) and a few others (though not all of them for every film I see).

I like reviewers who are willing to judge movies on their own merits rather than against some perceived 'greatness' standard. Zacharek, especially, is good at this, and Ebert.

Rosenbaum, I feel mixed. The moralistic tone he takes on some films (Mystic River comes to mind) bothers me. It's too simplistic and black and white for me.

usually, the more I read of a critic's work, the less interesting I find them, eventually. even a lot of Pauline Kael's stuff doesn't hold up as well as I'd like it to - good as the writing is, a lot of her reactions to movies seem flaky and ill-thought-out.

(I think for the time being it should only be applied to food, at least until everyone straightens their heads out)

A nice surprise. I thought this series was about to stall out not even halfway through:

We're delighted to finally answer the question we're asked most often: scroll below to discover the five titles that will complete the Decadent Editions! pic.twitter.com/bAXDY5EILa

— Fireflies Press (@firefliespress) November 22, 2023

This is a really good piece imo, and its author was getting swarmed on earlier this week: https://www.vulture.com/article/renaissance-a-film-by-beyonce-review.html

With “Formation” from 2016’s Lemonade, Beyoncé alchemized the aesthetics of Black radicalism. In the video, she is splayed out on a cop car in New Orleans that descends into murky waters. In her Super Bowl performance from that year, she and her dancers were decked in an all-black ensemble with raised fists meant to evoke the style of the Black Panthers without the group’s moral clarity and political conviction. When Beyoncé uses their aesthetic along with the words of Malcolm X, it behooves audiences and critics alike to hold her to a greater standard. Her apoliticism should not slide by. It should be noted that Renaissance is playing in Israel, which has led to “Break My Soul” becoming an anthem of sorts for Israelis waving their flag in screenings. Beyoncé has yet to make a statement about Palestine. But this silence is itself a statement. Perhaps she isn’t apolitical so much as an emblem of Black capitalism and wealth that seeks to maintain its stature. Renaissance: A Film demonstrates that Black joy isn’t inherently radical. In fact, without a sense of materiality, Black joy becomes directionless and easy to co-opt by the varied forces of power that are fueled by anti-Blackness. Beyoncé is an icon who has carefully maintained a sense of accessibility to anyone, anywhere, for any reason. Black musical traditions may have the potential for radicalism, but Beyoncé’s neutrality demonstrates they aren’t inherently that way. More than anything, Renaissance is a testament that Beyoncé is a brand that stands for absolutely nothing beyond its own greatness.

AGreed.

Yeah, AJB is definitely among the most interesting critics working today.

Since the thread was bumped, I’ll use this as an opportunity to look for recommendations: who are your favorite critics interested in and writing about experimental film? I really liked a lot of Artforum’s film criticism in the 2000s because, while their film focus was experimental film, they didn’t distance experimental film from art film and usually tried to contextualize experimental film in an art film context. The criticism was essentially the film equivalent of The Wire. I still like the writing in Artforum but the writing has returned, especially for film, to its academic roots. I really miss the connections to popular filmmaking.

Not a film critic, but I think Greil Marcus has been more or less saying the same thing about Beyoncé for a while. From a column last June: "Remember all that nonsense about Beyoncé as 'Sasha Fierce' and hoisting up behind her onstage as if you could reduce philosophy to branding and lived history to an ad?"

I don't trust Marcus, though; he has a tendency to be very prescriptive about Black artists' politics, whether overt or just as he perceives them. He famously went after Anita Baker in a very ugly manner in the 80s, and before that wrote a pretty uncouth review of Bob Marley's Exodus, which, to be fair, he apologized for on his Substack this week:

Now, I have to say that reading this is somewhat embarrassing, as re-reading so many old record reviews, mine and others', can be embarrassing. It's that the form itself is boring. Even if what's being said is somehow invigoratingly right, or rightly dissenting, it can die in its box. Obviously, I didn't know that "One Love" would go on to become a sort of anthem, or to stand in for everything the group ever did—but I should have caught on to that ambition in the song, what today we would call its attempt at self-branding, and then gone on to try to explore what was cheap and pandering in the song, in its embracing music even more than its I'll-tell-you-what-you-want-to-hear words. But I do have to mention that the review brought forth a phone call from Nik Cohn, the first music writer I admired unreservedly, who taught me so much, the only time we ever talked, with he telling me how uncomfortable the piece made him, with a white American writer telling a black Jamaican musician what to say and how. He didn't condemn me. He just wanted to say, think before you do that again.

But, you know, as they say in journalism, three is a trend. And his being right about Beyoncé ("Beyoncé is a brand that stands for absolutely nothing beyond its own greatness" has been true all the way back to Destiny's Child) is more coincidence than anything else.

Made the mistake of reading tweets reacting to the AJB Renaissance review. Stan culture is the worst. Someone posted a screenshot of their request for Rotten Tomatoes to take down the review, good Lord.

What really boils my blood is when stans complain that a review isn't valid because the critic is bringing their personal opinion into it. Like ... yes???

The individuality buck stops there, evidently

Oh Paul pic.twitter.com/iBlRvd2Qsc

— Conor (@sadfilmcritic) January 18, 2024

I need a proofreader here; he needs a proofreader there.

pic.twitter.com/lkLKuhKbRs

— Cinema Scope (@CinemaScopeMag) January 24, 2024

As Peter Labuza pointed out on Twitter, there are now exactly zero North American magazines devoted to film as an art

(I suppose one could count Film Quarterly yet, but still)

(Ope, Cineaste is still around too)

I had two pieces in there early on. They seemed to become all about festivals and films no one had yet seen at some point, and I lost interest in them and they lost interest in me at exactly the same moment.

That’s unfortunate. In general the EIC seems a little insufferable but he did create a magazine as good as if. Or better than Film Comment imo