To discuss movies as if they were irrelevant to individual experience—just bread-and-circus rabble-rousers—breeds indifference. And that’s only one of the two worst tendencies of contemporary criticism. The other is elitism.
This schism had an ironic origin—the popularization of film criticism as a consumer’s method. A generation of readers and filmgoers were once sparked by the discourse created by Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris during the period that essayist Philip Lopate described as ìthe heroic era of moviegoing.î The desire to be a critic fulfilled the urge to respond to what was exciting in the culture. Movie commentary was a media rarity in those days and relatively principled (even the Times’ Arts & Leisure section used to present a forum for contrary opinions). And then the television series At the Movies happened. Its success, moving from public to commercial broadcast (who can tell the difference anymore?), resulted in an institution. Permit an insider’s story: It is said that At the Movies host Roger Ebert boasted to Kael about his new TV show, repeatedly asking whether she’d seen it. Kael reportedly answered “If I want a layman’s opinion on movies, I don’t have to watch TV.”
Kael’s cutting remark cuts to the root of criticism’s problem today. Ebert’s way of talking about movies as disconnected from social and moral issues, simply as entertainment, seemed to normalize film discourse—you didn’t have to strive toward it, any Average Joe American could do it. But criticism actually dumbed down. Ebert also made his method a road to celebrity—which destroyed any possibility for a heroic era of film criticism.
At the Movies helped criticism become a way to be famous in the age of TV and exploding media, a dilemma that writer George W. S. Trow distilled in his apercu “The Aesthetic of the Hit”: “To the person growing up in the power of demography, it was clear that history had to do not with the powerful actions of certain men but with the processes of choice and preference.” It was Ebert’s career choice and preference to reduce film discussion to the fumbling of thumbs, pointing out gaffes or withholding “spoilers”—as if a viewer needed only to like or dislike a movie, according to an arbitrary set of specious rules, trends and habits. Not thought. Not feeling. Not experience. Not education. Just reviewing movies the way boys argued about a baseball game.
Don’t misconstrue this as an attack on the still-convalescent Ebert. I wish him nothing but health. But I am trying to clarify where film criticism went bad. Despite Ebert’s recent celebration in both Time magazine and The New York Times as “a great critic,” neither encomium could credit him with a single critical idea, notable literary style or cultural contribution. Each paean resorted to personal, logrolling appreciations. A.O. Scott hit bottom when he corroborated Ebert’s advice, “When writing you should avoid cliché, but on television you should embrace it.” That kind of thinking made Scott’s TV appearances a zero.
Long Facsinating Essay on the Failure of Modern Film Criticism
shit sux cuz internet
tl:dr versionQuoteshit sux cuz internet
Kael’s cutting remark cuts to the root of criticism’s problem today. Ebert’s way of talking about movies as disconnected from social and moral issues, simply as entertainment, seemed to normalize film discourse—you didn’t have to strive toward it, any Average Joe American could do it. But criticism actually dumbed down. Ebert also made his method a road to celebrity—which destroyed any possibility for a heroic era of film criticism.
Wait a second this is that fucker who champions Brian de Palma isn't it? I know that fucking tone, i know that fucking tone.
yup, i was right.
“It can be said with certainty,” Armond White wrote in the weekly New York Press, that anyone panning “Mission to Mars” “does not understand movies, let alone like them.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/17/movies/17scot.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/17/movies/17scot.html)
Pauline Kael is a pleasure to read, even if you dislike her. She championed a whole lot of films that were under the radar in the 70s, and she wrote passionately and intelligently about them. You should check her out.
i'm trying to think of a brian depalma film i liked
hmm
the untouchables, even though it has fanfic levels of historical inaccuracy
hmm
maybe body double, i'd have to watch it again
"Bow down to Hollywood season is upon us. If the line, “We’re going to make you indestructible, but first we’re going to destroy you,” seems awesome, you’re probably male and more than likely a child— at least emotionally.That consumer-oriented line is from X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which, like the new Star Trek movie, is designed for adolescent awe. Problem is: It’s not just niche marketing, it’s become the way of American film culture.These action/comic book/TV/fantasy/CGI flicks are not about plot.Their only purpose: teaching audiences to watch movies crudely, as teenagers, as a boy. At that, Wolverine and Star Trek succeed damnably."
The man has a point.
"Bow down to Hollywood season is upon us. If the line, “We’re going to make you indestructible, but first we’re going to destroy you,” seems awesome, you’re probably male and more than likely a child— at least emotionally.That consumer-oriented line is from X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which, like the new Star Trek movie, is designed for adolescent awe. Problem is: It’s not just niche marketing, it’s become the way of American film culture.These action/comic book/TV/fantasy/CGI flicks are not about plot.Their only purpose: teaching audiences to watch movies crudely, as teenagers, as a boy. At that, Wolverine and Star Trek succeed damnably."
The man has a point.
I was complaining to a friend yesterday... Hollywood used to demand a permanent adolescence from its moviegoers in the 90s, but at least we got original IP. Nowadays, we're supposed to be permanent 9-year-olds, we have TWO movies this summer based on Hasbro action figures. That plus a PG-13 Terminator sequel, and anything that's not a romantic comedy is a "reimagining" of a perfectly fine 80s movie.
I don't think it's just me getting older. Action/mainstream "popcorn" movies from the 80s were so much better than those from the 90s, too.
Speed Racer was awesome.
"Bow down to Hollywood season is upon us. If the line, “We’re going to make you indestructible, but first we’re going to destroy you,” seems awesome, you’re probably male and more than likely a child— at least emotionally.
i'm trying to think of a brian depalma film i liked
hmm
the untouchables, even though it has fanfic levels of historical inaccuracy
hmm
maybe body double, i'd have to watch it again
i like de palma, but it's similar to my enjoyment of coppola, i don't worship him
Sisters, Carrie, The Fury, Mission Impossible (really), Black Dalhia.
I liked the opening for Femme Fatale (hubba hubba)
Did you read the essay?I skimmed over it. But how does that dispute the fact the guy is insane? Why should I read an essay from a guy who spent the majority of his review of the wrestler talking about how much more eloquent death race with jason statham was and thought the main characters name was "ram jam"? And claims "White Chicks" to be one of the best comedy films of all time?
yeah, i guess i like a few, but i don't go out of my way to see a depalma movie
Did you read the essay?I skimmed over it. But how does that dispute the fact the guy is insane? Why should I read an essay from a guy who spent the majority of his review of the wrestler talking about how much more eloquent death race with jason statham was and thought the main characters name was "ram jam"? And claims "White Chicks" to be one of the best comedy films of all time?
Strawman etc.Strawman? Look at all of his reviews
He is the reason we get films like white chicks and the like.
Wait, he makes a good point, but he is not qualified to make that point because he is what he is talking about? Ideas aren't people and vice versa.
Wait, he makes a good point, but he is not qualified to make that pointYes. It's like if Joe the Plumber in one of his rants about not wanting gays around his kids and nonsense actually slips in something halfway understandable. It doesn't mean I'd decide to take what he said seriously.
A lot of people enjoy engaging in the exchange of ideas.I'm fine with that, but he isn't someone who is trying to exchange ideas. I am fine with that with critics I'd disagree with on nearly everything. But he doesn't taking reviewing seriously. He writes reviews just to get attention from being outrageous.
A lot of people enjoy engaging in the exchange of ideas.
A lot of people enjoy engaging in the exchange of ideas.
Speed Racer was crap. Just because it was an actual reimagining doesn't mean that it was actually good.
Speed Racer was crap. Just because it was an actual reimagining doesn't mean that it was actually good.
Also, Cheebs is dumb but I'm with him on this. Armond White clearly has shit taste which preclude him from having a legit discussion on the proper reviewing of films.
Cheebs is right, but this is still a shoot-the-messenger affair. He may be a shitty critic - in fact he's clearly worse than I am - but that doesn't disqualify him from having a broad opinion on what film criticism is.No you really are that bad.
Cheebs is right, but this is still a shoot-the-messenger affair. He may be a shitty critic - in fact he's clearly worse than I am - but that doesn't disqualify him from having a broad opinion on what film criticism is.No you really are that bad.
I think that's a gay porn star?
i have no idea who that is
Usually I just write down what I like about a movie, what I don't like. I'm not getting payed for my shitty reviews, which is why this guy has a leg up on meThis reeks of the 'noble amateur' sentiment that has swept over society in recent years.
Usually I just write down what I like about a movie, what I don't like. I'm not getting payed for my shitty reviews, which is why this guy has a leg up on meThis reeks of the 'noble amateur' sentiment that has swept over society in recent years.
I think that's a gay porn star?
looks like a vg journo
Cheebs is right, but this is still a shoot-the-messenger affair. He may be a shitty critic - in fact he's clearly worse than I am - but that doesn't disqualify him from having a broad opinion on what film criticism is.
This is the point I was trying to make, but made far better than I ever could.Cheebs is right, but this is still a shoot-the-messenger affair. He may be a shitty critic - in fact he's clearly worse than I am - but that doesn't disqualify him from having a broad opinion on what film criticism is.
That actually does disqualify him. If he can't tell a good film apart from a bad one, how can I trust what he says about others' perceptions of films?
You can't tell people how to watch a film unless you knew how to do it yourself.
What we don’t talk about when we talk about movies these days reveals that we have not moved past the crippling social tendency that 1990s sociologists called Denial. The most powerful, politically and morally engaged recent films (The Darjeeling Limited, Private Fears in Public Places, World Trade Center, The Promise, Shortbus, Ask the Dust, Akeelah and the Bee, Bobby, Running Scared, Munich, War of the Worlds, Vera Drake) were all ignored by journalists whose jobs are to bring the (cultural) news to the public. Instead, only movies that are mendacious, pseudo-serious, sometimes immoral or socially retrograde and irresponsible (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Army of Shadows, United 93, Marie Antoinette, Zodiac, Last Days, There Will Be Blood, American Gangster, Gone Baby Gone, Letters From Iwo Jima, A History of Violence, Tarnation, Elephant) have received critics’ imprimatur.
That reads like a fatwa, not an opening for a dialogue.
Print publications restructuring to keep up with the web have dismissed or offered buyouts to noticeable numbers of employees, including critics. Trimming these fatted ranks is a result of basic disrespect for criticism as both a true journalistic profession and a necessary intellectual practice.
That reads like a fatwa, not an opening for a dialogue.
:lol
I always felt that film critics were people that wanted to make films, but just weren't good enough.
wow i killed this thread
sorry :-\
wow i killed this thread
sorry :-\
wow, this article was amazing
Instead of shouting, “Eureka!” Rick Marshall (Will Ferrell) exclaims, “Capt. Kirk’s nipples!” Is that enough to ride the coattails of the much-inferior Star Trek movie?
Yet pop-culture affection is felt consistently from Ferrell’s homages— to both A Chorus Line and Cher’s “Believe”—to McBride (the white Mike Epps) enjoying a time-warp benefit that could have come from a classic Hope-Crosby road movie.
All this deflated cinema and Pixarism mischaracterizes what good animation can be, as in Coraline, Monster House, Chicken Little,Teacher’s Pet,The Iron Giant).
This way, Pixar disgraces and delimits the animated film as a mushy, silly pop form.What used to be ridiculed as sentimental excess in old Disney animation now comes disguised in the latest technology— which excites consumerist audiences who revere technology as the true achievement of capitalism, if not Americanism.
We’re way beyond film noir here. The Dark Knight has no black-and-white moral shading. Everything is dark, the tone glibly nihilistic (hip) due to The Joker’s rampage that brings Gotham City to its knees—exhausting the D.A. and nearly wearing-out Batman’s arsenal of expensive gizmos. Nolan isn’t interested in providing James Bond–style gadgetry for its own ingenious wonder; rather, these crime battle accoutrements evoke Zodiac-style “process” (part of the futility and dread exemplified by the constantly outwitted police). This pessimism links Batman to our post-9/11 anxiety by escalating the violence quotient, evoking terrorist threat and urban helplessness. And though the film’s violence is hard, loud and constant, it is never realistic—it fabricates disaster simply to tease millennial death wish and psychosis.
Watching psychic volleys between Batman, Dent and The Joker (there’s even a love quadrangle that includes Maggie Gyllenhaal’s slouchy Assistant D.A., Rachel Dawes) is as fraught and unpleasurable as There Will Be Blood with bat wings. This sociological bloodsport shouldn’t be acceptable to any thinking generation.
There hasn’t been so much pressure to like a Batman movie since street vendors were selling bootleg Batman T-shirts in 1989. If blurbs like “The Dark Knight creates a place where good and evil—expected to do battle—decide instead to get it on and dance” sound desperate, it’s due to the awful tendency to convert criticism into ad copy—constantly pandering to Hollywood’s teen demographic. This not only revamps ideas of escapist entertainment; like Nolan, it corrupts them.
But how great of an actor was Ledger to accept this trite material in the first place?