Film Criticism

[swo17]

That's it, I quit watching movies.

[Brian C]

I actually watch the show now and again, but it pretty much sucks these days. I don't even mean that as a criticism of Scott or Phillips, really. It's just that the format has been dumbed down to the point of uselessness, and while the guys try to be serious it feels like there are guys with dogcatcher nets just off camera waiting to take them away if they start getting too smart about stuff.

[swo17]

It was like the only way for me to keep up to date with the kinds of movies that my wife is willing to watch. Now I suppose I'll have to go back to reading [shudder]IMDb News[/shudder].

[triodelover]

It was like the only way for me to keep up to date with the kinds of movies that my wife is willing to watch. Now I suppose I'll have to go back to reading [shudder]IMDb News[/shudder].

Perhaps this will spare you that awful fate.

[swo17]

All right, maybe I'll keep watching movies then.

[triodelover]

Not sure where else to put this. Ebert blasts 3D on Twitter.

[dx23]

Ebert also announced that he has a show in the works called Roger Ebert presents At The Movies. Hopefully this replaces the now cancelled At the Movies and gets back to the original formula that made the show a success. It should also have a permanent home at Reelz Channel.

[Brian C]

Hopefully this replaces the now cancelled At the Movies and gets back to the original formula that made the show a success.

That may be difficult, as Gene Siskel has been dead for years now.

[bearcuborg]

Anyone who has ever read or listened to Schickel knows that his professional life has been a complete waste. It's a shame he's just now realizing it.

I came late to this realization. I don't think I ever gave him much thought until I attempted to listen to his unfortunate commentary track on "Unforgiven," and then ran into the same problems with what he thought was the complete version of "The Big Red One." His disdain for Altman put it over the top though...

[Dr Amicus]

Claudia Winkleman to become most visible film critic in the UK.

No idea if this is a good thing or not - anybody out there actually know if she knows much about film?

Jonathan Ross maybe a bit of a prat, but he did have a background in making programmes about films - and did realise there was more to cinema than the latest multiplex offerings (although whether he could help make an arthouse hit in the way that Barry Norman apparently could is another matter).

[broadwayrock]

anybody out there actually know if she knows much about film?

Her husband produced some films that Jonathan Ross' wife co-wrote: Stardust and Kick-Ass.

[Duncan Hopper]

She has hosted SKY's coverage of the Oscars for the last few years, she showed no more knowledge beyond the very basic facts.
In fact, I skip her bits as I always find them depressingly stupid.

The BBC must really want to axe this show by giving Winkleman the job.

[colinr0380]

Wow, just...wow. I never thought anything could make me pine for the days when Channel 4 were grooming Johnny Vaughan as their face of film criticism, but the BBC have managed to fall even further.

It also shows the BBC aren't learning from the Jonathan Ross situation - not that they shouldn't pay massive amounts for an entertainment presenter, but that they shouldn't manufacture 'faces of the channel' and throw them across as many programmes as possible in order to get their money's worth out of them without considering whether the star name currently in favour has any aptitude for the role or not. Winkleman's apparently been a big name host of various spin off shows from the BBCs Staurday night light entertainment Strictly Come Dancing show for a while, so they're likely looking to push her into different stuff. (I feel so old now - I remember when they were trying to do that with Gaby Roslin a decade ago!)

What's next - an ITV interview show hosted by Vernon Kay as the new Michael Parkinson?

Some choice nuggets from wikipaedia's Winkleman bio:

Winkleman also appeared as a reporter on other shows, most notably This Morning, on which she interviewed various celebrities, including Michelle Pfeiffer, Tony Blair, Sir Alan Sugar and Harrison Ford, (of whom she has often since referred to as "my least favourite interviewee, because his hair is like nylon. I hate him... and only interested in carpentry")

During the late 1990s, Winkleman presented a number of programmes on smaller digital channels. She had a stint on the cable channel L!VE TV, run by Kelvin MacKenzie and Janet Street-Porter, but soon left to pursue other projects. One programme made during this period was a short series titled Toilets shown on BBC Choice, which drew upon her supposedly extensive knowledge and experience of toilets, and ironically attempted to examine the "design, etiquette, psychology and hidden culture behind the humble loo".

In March 2008, Winkleman rekindled her partnership with Patrick Kielty when the pair hosted the final leg of Sport Relief 2008, announcing £19,640,321 as the final amount raised through viewer's donations. She has since spoken of how much she was moved by the experience

In February 2008, she appeared on the British version of the comedy improvisational show Thank God You're Here, hosted by Paul Merton. In it she had to improvise a scene in which she played a boarding school girl who had been called to the headmistress's office. It signalled her first foray into televised acting.

EDIT: The reactions to this debacle on the Guardian blog are quite amusing.

That should urge everyone to record their voice in case they lose it!

No way! Haven't you seen The Stepford Wives? Recording your voice, especially if asked to do it by others, is the seemingly innocuous first step towards entirely being replaced by a robot version of yourself!

[Brian C]

Found this bit by Jonathan Rosenbaum to be amusing:

Some months ago, I was shocked when my editor at the Chicago Reader, a weekly “alternative” newspaper where I’ve worked since 1987 (and from which I’m preparing to retire as a staff member in early 2008), eliminated a phrase from an article in which I asserted that Iran was just as multicultural and as multiracial as the U.S., telling me that I couldn’t make such an assertion unless I could back it up. When I countered that my own visit to Iran in 2001 and many conversations I’d had with Iranians and Westerners who’d visited the country supported my impression, making it a commonplace observation, and cited the Kurdish, Afghan, and Turkish characters in Taste of Cherry as one everyday illustration of what I meant, she replied that none of this constituted hard evidence, and simply to cite subjective experiences was irresponsible. In other words, I wasn’t even entitled to be wrong about making my assertion.

In a new foreward to the piece, he says:

Incidentally, any Americans who might still be skeptical about the multiracial and multicultural composition of the Iranian population are urged to check out the CIA’s web site on this matter: page down to Iran’s ethnic groups, where you’ll find “Persian 51%, Azeri 24%, Gilaki and Mazandarani 8%, Kurd 7%, Arab 3%, Lur 2%, Baloch 2%, Turkmen 2%, other 1%,” and compare this to their 2007 estimates for the U.S. (”white 79.96%, black 12.85%, Asian 4.43%, Amerindian and Alaska native 0.97%, native Hawaiian and other Pacific islander 0.8%, two or more races 1.61%” — something I wish I’d known about when I was having my editorial dispute at the Reader.

Well, then.

It seems to me that what he's saying actually translates thusly:

Once upon a time, an editor of mine did her job and refused to publish an assertion that I presented as fact but could not actually support. And then she had the gall to tell me that my own conjecture did not constitute evidence. I later found out that if I had spent literally five minutes researching the matter, I would have found the statistics I needed. But I was too lazy to do that, and instead of admitting that now, I'm going to persist in my implications that I was somehow a victim of censorship.

[eljacko]

That is very true, but on the other hand I found this little bit rather interesting.

Another unproven piece of common knowledge about Iran which my editor didn’t object to me citing is that most of the films seen today in Tehran are pirated, unsubtitled videos of brand-new Hollywood features.

Doesn't excuse his laziness (makes it seem worse I bet), but it does some give credence to his point.

[John Edmond]

Actually I'd argue those statistics refute his point. I'm not trying to downplay the differences between mainstream Persian and Baloch culture, but there's lot more diversity just within America's "white" populace* (which covers people ranging from Argentina to Norway).

*as an example, there would also be more diversity within America's black, asian, or amerindian sections than all of Iran.

[eljacko]

Oh sorry, I wasn't particularly clear before. I meant his overall argument, that US media tends to adhere to certain national stereotypes. Since the editor demanded evidence to a claim suggesting similarities between the US and Iran but did not for a claim about rampant piracy in Iran, I got the impression that even accidentally they're adhering to some negative stereotyping of Iran, which (I think) was Rosenbaum's point.

[MichaelB]

Jonathan Ross maybe a bit of a prat, but he did have a background in making programmes about films - and did realise there was more to cinema than the latest multiplex offerings

I've met Ross on two occasions and can confirm at first hand that he really does know his stuff - we spent most of the time chatting about obscure films. He's also on record as saying that his wonderful Channel 4 documentary on Aki Kaurismaki is the single thing he's proudest of ("even though only about twenty people actually saw it") - and when we worked with him on this interactive Ealing Studios guide, he seemed genuinely interested in the subject in a way that's hard to fake.

(although whether he could help make an arthouse hit in the way that Barry Norman apparently could is another matter).

Bazza definitely could - his good review of Man Bites Dog (which I was involved with premiering in Britain) took us all by surprise, not least because we had no idea he was going to review it at all!

[colinr0380]

And of course Ross's comic book love (even down to making a passionate documentary on Steve Ditko, probably the best and most in depth piece he did for the BBC), stood him in good stead for tackling the wave of Hollywood superhero films over the last decade. I was never left with the impression that he had the widest range as a film critic (or if he did, he had to hide it well during his BBC years) but you could really tell that he knew his stuff when completely dissecting things like the colour scheme of the latest Astro Boy film, when he finally seemed energised by a subject that captured his interest.

I'm still reeling from Winkleman. At this point Graham Norton would seem preferable.

[TMDaines]

If you just listen to his radio show or even his Friday night chat show, despite them not being about films, he still comes across as very knowledgeable when he has film related guests on.

[Camera Obscura]

Jonathan Ross maybe a bit of a prat, but he did have a background in making programmes about films - and did realise there was more to cinema than the latest multiplex offerings

I've met Ross on two occasions and can confirm at first hand that he really does know his stuff - we spent most of the time chatting about obscure films. He's also on record as saying that his wonderful Channel 4 documentary on Aki Kaurismaki is the single thing he's proudest of ("even though only about twenty people actually saw it") - and when we worked with him on this interactive Ealing Studios guide, he seemed genuinely interested in the subject in a way that's hard to fake.

The Kaurismäki interview for One Week Only (which is also included as an extra on The Aki Kaurismäki Collection: Vol. 3 from Artificial Eye) is wonderful indeed, with Ross travelling all the way up North to this filmfestival in Lapland, with Kaurismäki drinking and smoking. Back then, he really came off as a moviegeek, brimming with enthousiasm (which he still shows, if something interests him) and he clearly loved Kaurismäki's films. Definitely not some 'assignment' and his enthousiasm and knowledge really pays off, especially since Kaurismäki doesn't like to talk about his films at all, but Ross so desperately tried to keep the conversation going, I wonder how much footage they shot. They probably edited, what, 50 minutes, out of a day long of smoking and boozing. When he said goodbye, I think he could barely stand on his two feet! Wonderful stuff.

[MichaelB]

I worked for the distributor of the bulk of Kaurismäki's films in the late 80s/early 90s, and vividly remember what a fan Ross was - he first tried to get him to appear on The Last Resort (his original Channel 4 chat show), but Kaurismäki refused, so Ross ended up making the documentary for his own production company Channel X. It's very obviously a complete labour of love.

The second time I met him was for a special 60th anniversary screening at the Everyman Cinema, where we invited local celebs to choose and introduce a favourite film. Ross cheerfully confessed to the audience that he totally abused his position and picked the William Burroughs version of Häxan because he'd never seen it and had wanted to for ages (this was nearly a decade before Criterion released it) - and at about the same time his book Incredibly Strange Films came out, which was also very obviously written by a passionate fan.

[colinr0380]

That's reminded me of that Mondo Rosso series he did back in 1995. That was quite good too, interviewing Ken Russell and Ingrid Pitt and screening The Most Dangerous Game and The Mask of Satan after various episodes (I don't think The Most Dangerous Game has been shown on TV since), though I could have done without the "Wake the gimp/But the gimp's asleep" running gag/paying homage to the then current Pulp Fiction in every episode.

It does sadly seem that I missed the golden years of Jonathan Ross, or just arrived at the end of them. Hopefully the departure from the film programme might mean he can get back to championing his interests, rather than having to review the latest Sandra Bullock/Jennifer Aniston film.

[j99]

I'm not sure if it really matters who's fronting Film 2010 these days since it's been shunted on to the graveyard shift, and I never much cared for Ross anyway. I prefer Mark Kermode's 15 minutes on a Friday on the BBC news channel, or some of the film related features on The Culture Show. I rather like the art critic Andrew Graham Dixon's take on film, especially his interviews with the likes of Scorcese and Lynch. My favourite was Philip Jenkinson, whom I vaguely remember hosting the Film Night series on BBC 2 in the mid 70s, and who is probably best remembered for his hilarious encounter with a belligerent John Ford.

[domino harvey]

Siskel and Ebert give advice on how to write movie reviews