Mark Kermode

I don't think he's a very good film reviewer at all, but listening is a ritual.

I quite like it when he fills in as film critic for the Observer, if only because he's a lot better than Phillip "give the whole fucking plot away, why don't you" French.

Happy birthday Mark Kermode! A bouncing 45 today!

I guess Kermode and Lamarr will be fighting over the last skiffle box set in the shop.

it's funny this whole 'is he frank's son' business. i don't think he is anymore, but he *is* manx, i'm pretty sure (like frank and me), and his real name, acccording to wiki (fairey) is also kind of manx-y.

definitely a revolutionary communist though.

(xpost) Kermode can distract Lamarr by pointing across the room and saying "hey, isn't that a rare King Tubby 12" over there?"

dear Mark Kermode, shit being "dark and edgy" does not equal shit being good. kthxbye

im reading his book, its only a movie.
some amazingly boring/dull passages.
quite a lot actually. it might be funny to you mark, but to the rest of us its just painfully ordinary.
its good when he actually talks about films, but even then, its often blurred with a load of other stuff which isnt THAT amusing
in a way it might have been good if he talked about his actual life outside of movies more but im thinking maybe there isnt that much to tell?
either way, he shuold probably just stick to writing about movies. when he tries to write about himself, it quickly becomes ho hum.

just waste

everything about him

everything he speaks to in british culture

http://i1354.photobucket.com/albums/q686/tinyservants/fadetoblack_zps029fe225.gif

http://i1.cdnds.net/11/02/movies_mark_kermode.jpg

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/aug/17/mark-kermode-film-critic-observer

Join us for a brand new quarterly BFI strand hosted by popular film critic duo Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo, in which they ask a special guest from the movie world: ‘If you had control of a cinema for one day, which five films would you show?’ Their choices must fit distinct categories: kids, family, main event, and a late-night double-bill.Featuring clips and plenty of Kermode and Mayo’s trademark ‘wittertainment’ banter, this promises to be a very special evening.

no way bfi

does anyone have a word for this fellas defence

jesus what an awful presence

I was gonna say I'd rather go outside and lick the pavement than watch his show tonight so maybe somebody else

Let me put it this way: I was excited for a second to see this bumped

the clips are excellently chosen but fuck me what keeps this guy in work

What show are you guys talking about

mark kermodes something or other

i asked the wife

A BBC 4 thing - his second series of it I think - where he explains his basic thoughts about how films work, for basics

very much so

the links are imaginary except in his head, where i imagine they are also instructive and interesting as opposed to thinks mark kermode is just saying over good clips

elizabeth the first was henry viiis daughter

this is one of mark kermodes secrets of cinema

the fuck ever told this fool he had insight in him

He hangs out with Simon Mayo, the intellectual equivalent of having an ugly best mate to make you look hotter

I might rewatch the story of film, that had good clips and also a mark whose thoughts/voice I can stand to listen to

he gets the work from the bbc bcz the bbc gives work to ppl who work for the bbc (= mark kermode, for more than 25 years iirc)

he's bad not good also his real name is mark fairey use his real name

(i know momus mentioned this upthread but it's true anyway)

xp is that mark me?

I have issues with Cousins but he's a titan compared to Kermode

mark s go on the story of film an odyssey

they're both bad but the thread-kid is definitely MUCH worse

MK aka MF is married to a critic who is quite interesting not least bcz her work is very knottily BDSM-adjacent which ALWAYS LEAVES ME WONDERING WHAT LEATHERBOY KERMODE etc

kermode the flog

in the S&S office we used to make speculative jokes abt why one or the other's copy was late, jokes involving fisting, i'm sorry this is just the historical facts from a vanished and lamentable time

I loved tsof:ao even when I thought he was being a wally (which was sometimes)

i think i got attacked for hating, hating cousins in tsof in the relevant thread

The speculation of fisting: age-old I mean, that wasn’t an xpost

I think Cousins is a good close reader but a bad theorist, whereas Mr Fairey is just bad all over

I just think he has a nice voice

kermode the flog

You guys... I thought I was the only one who couldn't stand him. Brought a tear to my eye it has. Cannot think of a critic who gets more wrong.

I read most or all of one of mk’s books in a pub once, speaking of masochism

what does he say in the first place to get wrong, i ask

here is the thread, i am surprisingly pro MC (given me) and chairman alph says his voice is "lovely": Mark Cousins' The History of film: An Odyssey

I was just about to mention that Kermode's wife is a much more interesting critic on some of the same 'edgy' material, but thought it would be a kind of reverse sexism, or something.

The defense of Kermode is that he often promotes good/interesting films to 'mainstream' audiences - much more than Barry Norman etc ever did. I imagine that, like Peter Bradshaw, he is well liked by arthouse film distributors and cinemas.

His BFI book on The Exorcist is a decent piece of film history/research (less so as a piece of critical thinking); some of the commentary tracks he has conducted - on The Wicker Man and The Devils - are pretty proficient. You don't work for the BBC for 25 years without learning some basic interviewing/moderating skills.

His radio show w/ Mayo is horrendous.

here is the thread, i am surprisingly pro MC (given me) and chairman alph says his voice is "lovely": Mark Cousins' The History of film: An Odyssey

― mark s, Thursday, 26 March 2020 bookmarkflaglink

In my defence I am a foreigner who still finds some charm in the accents from this rainy fascist island.

careful now

😬

much of the detail of me on the other thread is bcz i was alone finally closing up my mum and dad's house after dad died (mum died some years before) and had a lot of time on my hands in the evening and was often QUITE DRUNK as is very evident at one point (ie i say so out loud)

i think i got drunk enough to go liveblog THIN RED LINE on one of morbs's malick threads not devoted to thin red line and he got cross with me

I wonder now if the idea for MUBI basically came about because of that series. It certainly seemed to open up the space for these films outside your arthouse cinema (I have my struggles with MUBI/watching really demanding film outside of the cinema but I am also very glad it exists)

The vast majority of them are.

Has the fact that Kermode is a convert to Anglicanism been mentioned?

some actors are brilliant, even in average stuff like Alec Guinness for example. But Gary Oldman more often than not is the main reason lots of movies are bad imo

there were suggestions of god-bothering tendencies upthread, didn't know the details. figures he'd be into the worst branch of Christianity.

i'm usually with Hitch as far as actors are concerned.

yep Hitch was right, there should be a maximum wage for these fuckers and they should be thrown off the set if they come with attitude and ego and should be treated like shit!

they should be on apprenticeship wages when they are shit, not easy money for just turning up!

i dislike the whole premise of the series, him demystifying cinema, spilling the secrets. the magic is part of why i watch films, i don't want them unmagiced.