Film Criticism

[domino harvey]

Rosenbaum started it and his entire post was ridiculous:



Remember when people here gave me grief here only a few weeks ago for saying Rosenbaum is just an Armond White with tastes they agree with more often?

[domino harvey]

Here are the exchanges for those without Facebook:

[domino harvey]

Oh, and here's the Trump comparison Bordwell objects to:

[Mungo]

If you're going to go that far and make ad hom after ad hom, why not go for the gold and compare Bordwell to Hitler or Satan or whatever? If anyone in this conversation thread deserves the hyperbolic comparisons, it's definitely the guy that passive-aggressively asks if something is passive-aggressive enough for someone else.

[Big Ben]

Although we can debate the merit of Jordan Vogt-Roberts' Kong Skull Island I do believe he has some merit calling out Cinema Sins here.

[mfunk9786]

I just found out about this Cinema Sins garbage today thanks to this Vogt-Roberts tweetstorm and holy shit, it might be the stupidest thing to come out of online film culture I've ever seen, and that's including Ain't It Cool News and Hollywood Elsewhere. What a misguided, mean spirited, obnoxious thing it is. Nauseating that Vogt-Roberts even needed to take a moment out to distinguish it from Mystery Science Theater 3000.

[knives]

That's why it's best to ignore the Internet.

[calculus entrophy]

I totally ignore the internet.

[domino harvey]

Charlie don't surf

[Brian C]

Oh, and here's the Trump comparison Bordwell objects to:

You know what else is Trumplike? Making a willfully ignorant social media post and then passive-aggressively backing down when challenged.

Just saying, Jonathan.

[matrixschmatrix]

I just found out about this Cinema Sins garbage today thanks to this Vogt-Roberts tweetstorm and holy shit, it might be the stupidest thing to come out of online film culture I've ever seen, and that's including Ain't It Cool News and Hollywood Elsewhere. What a misguided, mean spirited, obnoxious thing it is. Nauseating that Vogt-Roberts even needed to take a moment out to distinguish it from Mystery Science Theater 3000.

It's a shame, because there's quite a lot of really good film criticism on youtube these days, and I'm sure these assholes get far more views than (eg) Every Frame a Painting. I didn't love Kong, and it's a shame they baited Vogt-Roberts into responding on the same agonizingly pedestrian and dull level that represents their specialty, but his attack on them conceptually is absolutely correct- even if every little comment one of their videos made was technically accurate, it would still be stupid and tell you nothing about the quality of the film they're doing.

Which is actually also true of Mystery Science Theater, so I can see where he felt the need to head off that comparison- the difference isn't that they approach a movie differently (since necessarily I think they have to take movies apart and not view them as organic wholes to do what they do) but that what they create is joyful and often bears a sense that they love the act of movie watching (even if, like Mike, they don't actually care for Film all that much.) Cinema Sins is the most degraded kind of 'snark', where it's just flippancy, not actually creating jokes or finding anything worth commenting on.

It is nice to see a director engage with criticism in a way that isn't just 'ignore it', though- I feel like that Tina Fey take of just shutting yourself off to anything people have to say about your work is becoming more and more common, and while it's often understandable, I think it leads to creative dead ends. Vogt-Roberts clearly understands the value good criticism can have, and is angry not that this is a critique but that it's such a shittily done one.

[Ribs]

The most upsetting thing about Cinema Sins, to me, is that unlike any of the other "video essay" film content on Youtube (most of which I am not a fan of, either) is that they've been so wildly successful and are swimming in the money they're making, one of the biggest channels on Youtube. For pointing out that movies are movies. It just drives me up the wall.

That said, Vogt-Roberts as far as I'm aware is on a different level than the Treverrows and the like, as after his Sundance hit he went running to the studios to do any franchise. He didn't get approached and poached, he actually just wanted a ton of money to do what studios wanted on a huge scale. It's utterly bewildering.

[soundchaser]

It's tremendously confusing to me when people defend CinemaSins as "satire." If it's satire, what's the target? Pedantic critics? YouTube culture? Film making itself?

[MongooseCmr]

Although I liked the idea of the podcast more when they had two consistent hosts every week, he always made it hard to like the Canon with that awful movie nerd "I like it so it's infallible" attitude. Doubly so when the name of the game is specifically to debate the virtues of each film and he never failed to put the ones he liked on a pedestal and ruin any discussion by shooting down criticism.

[mfunk9786]

Discussion of the allegations against Alamo Drafthouse (including Devin Faraci and Harry Knowles) moved here

[Fiery Angel]

Disney's ban of LA Times critics ends

[matrixschmatrix]

We’ve had productive discussions with the newly installed leadership at The Los Angeles Times regarding our specific concerns, and as a result, we’ve agreed to restore access to advance screenings for their film critics

So they folded but still want to make it sound like they're pulling strings to kill stories?

[Big Ben]

This of course follows their rather awful screening rules for Star Wars were they are making BIG bucks off of every showing. I would imagine the criticism will continue unless they resolve their..rather awful conduct.

[Big Ben]

Check it before it's gone!

Masterful reviewer Rex Reed awards The Shape of Water one star. It's drivel apparently and is directed by the much loathed cinematic troll...Benecio del Toro.

[solaris72]

Check it before it's gone!

Masterful reviewer Rex Reed awards The Shape of Water one star. It's drivel apparently and is directed by the much loathed cinematic troll...Benecio del Toro.

Worse yet, in that piece he refers to people with disabilities as "defective creatures". Fucking disgusting.

[Big Ben]

Check it before it's gone!

Masterful reviewer Rex Reed awards The Shape of Water one star. It's drivel apparently and is directed by the much loathed cinematic troll...Benecio del Toro.

Worse yet, in that piece he refers to people with disabilities as "defective creatures". Fucking disgusting.

As someone who is disabled it's rather disheartening to see but it's unfortunately a lot more common than you'd think. That being said it appears some of the plot described in the review is flat out inaccurate which is apparently something Reed has done before. From Wikipedia:

Reed's 2012 review for The Cabin in the Woods attracted controversy, due to significant factual inaccuracies in his summary of the film, and his dismissive attitude towards anyone who disagreed with his negative opinion. The L Magazine's Henry Stewart noted "his review is literally about 50 percent inaccurate—factually, objectively wrong." His professionalism was also called into question when, in addition to the factual inaccuracies, many felt he was needlessly insulting and mean-spirited towards those who enjoyed the film.

I saw him getting roasted online by other critics and even del Toro himself struck back. I don't understand how this man is still writing and is taken seriously?

[solaris72]

Also how is he still reviewing for them? Didn't he get laid off?

[Werewolf by Night]

Maybe he got laid off as a full-time employee but now freelances for them (no benefits, paid on a per-word or per-piece basis).

[hearthesilence]

That seems to be a common "arrangement" with critics now. Such is the newspaper business these days.

[colinr0380]

A goodbye essay on the ending of the Every Frame A Painting YouTube series by Tony Zhou and Taylor Ramos.