Film Criticism

[Mr Sausage]

Isn't Rosenbaum a very politically committed film critic? Dreams tend to be dismissed as frivolous or insubstantial, but for politically committed critics, works of imagination actually have large social and political responsibilities. Also, in other people's dreams, ie. art, begin our responsibilities as interpreters. So it's just another way to insist on art's importance.

[domino harvey]

Rotten Tomatoes will now also advertise audience ratings

[domino harvey]

I may have to walk the previous post back a little, as the feature is linked with Fandango and only allows viewers who actually bought a ticket to rate the film

[domino harvey]

[Big Ben]

Really needed this in my life today Dom. Thank you for this.

[hearthesilence]

The Boston Society of Film Critics endorses Kamala Harris for president of the United States.

It is fair to ask why a film-centered organization of 43 years would feel compelled to weigh in on an issue of politics in the real world. The explanation is this: As a body of reporters and reviewers whose business it is to write about the arts in general and movies specifically—who see our task as guiding readers to works of entertainment and artistic quality—we feel it incumbent as a group to take a stand on the issues of journalistic integrity and creative freedom. These issues will be catastrophically impacted by a second Trump presidency—indeed, they already have been impacted by its mere prospect.

[Red Screamer]

Metrograph starts a journal of film criticism, and it sounds promising to me: Lachman, Novak, Eastwood, Hui. Always sad to remember that Film Comment, which a decade ago could be counted on for regular high-quality essays from the likes of Molly Haskell and Kent Jones, is now just a middling podcast.

[domino harvey]

Paywall blocked story but here’s the link for buying the first issue

[Mr Sausage]

I was tempted by the Ann Hui feature, but with shipping higher than the cost of the magazine, not to mention the exchange rate, I’m out.

[spectre]

Same, alas. Even if I took up the discount option ($15 off by paying $5 for a month's subscription to the website), I'd still be looking at almost AUD$70 including shipping. Imagine walking into a newsagency and paying $70 (or USD$45) for a magazine! Hopefully some copies will turn up on eBay or wherever at some point, as this looks great.

[MichaelB]

It's $55 for me, or more than £42 in local money, which just isn't viable.

But I wish it well.

[midnitedave]

In the latest Cinematic Vlog, film programmer Jim Branscome discusses the divide between audiences for Art House and Grindhouse films when in reality, those films actually have a lot in common.

[Mr Sausage]

I sympathize with his position and love his enthusiasm, but his thesis wasn’t persuasive, and he didn’t do much to argue it beyond citing a very small, non-representative sample of cross-overs. And not even the ones I would use, like mainstream horror increasingly borrowing from indie and art house dramas for its characters and themes, an actual trend rather than some isolated examples.

Again, I sympathize. Openness and curiosity are important virtues across the board, and make for a more interesting and knowledgable person. But I don’t see any special overlap between grindhouse horror and art films, and I don’t see why there needs to be. In some ways this is encouraging openness by appealing to people’s prejudices, that what lies outside of their narrow range is in fact exactly like their narrow range.

This also reminds me of a story MichaelB told on here. He can correct me if I get it wrong, but he said he once programmed Hard Boiled thinking it’d have big crossover appeal, but nobody came. Turned out it was too art house for the action crowd, and too actiony for the arthouse crowd.

[knives]

John Waters has talked about similar things being a problem early in his career where distributors would place them on the exploitation circuit and no one came to see them because the audience could tell there was something different about them.

[Maladroit Aggregator]

I couldn't make it more than six minutes into that "vlog" (probably a generational thing - much prefer written criticism or commentary) so correct me if I'm wrong, but he didn't mention the essential historical infrastructural difference between arthouse and grindhouse, which was not so much a difference of genre or curiosity, but the fact that they played entirely different theaters, catering to entirely different socioeconomic groups — a difference of class and access.

Arthouse theaters have almost always been located in either large cities and/or college towns. Grindhouse films played all over the country, including rural drive-ins, and unlike the arthouse ubiquity of, say, Bergman or Kurosawa, they were instead subject to the regional influences of the filmmakers themselves, their distributors, and assorted moral guardians. Hence in hindsight the discovery of so many regional filmmakers (which we've seen box sets of from Arrow, VS, etc.)

And of course, true grindhouse theaters have not existed since, at the latest, the mid-1980s, whereas arthouse or indie theaters continued, and in some cases did absorb and show various genre films (to their credit) which no doubt, along with the availability of trash film next to art films on video store shelves, contributed to the blending of the two in subsequent filmmakers' work.

[hearthesilence]

For those of you overseas who want to buy physical copies of Metrograph's journal via subscription, if it substantially cuts down on shipping charges, would it make sense if they offered to ship the physical copies in bulk (like, say, every issue of that year at the end of the year) while sending a digital version whenever the new issue is out? Obviously not ideal, but I'm wondering if that's a middle ground that could work. (Of course they'd have to be down with that idea too.)

[Mr Sausage]

I couldn't make it more than six minutes into that "vlog" (probably a generational thing - much prefer written criticism or commentary) so correct me if I'm wrong, but he didn't mention the essential historical infrastructural difference between arthouse and grindhouse, which was not so much a difference of genre or curiosity, but the fact that they played entirely different theaters, catering to entirely different socioeconomic groups — a difference of class and access.

Arthouse theaters have almost always been located in either large cities and/or college towns. Grindhouse films played all over the country, including rural drive-ins, and unlike the arthouse ubiquity of, say, Bergman or Kurosawa, they were instead subject to the regional influences of the filmmakers themselves, their distributors, and assorted moral guardians. Hence in hindsight the discovery of so many regional filmmakers (which we've seen box sets of from Arrow, VS, etc.)

And of course, true grindhouse theaters have not existed since, at the latest, the mid-1980s, whereas arthouse or indie theaters continued, and in some cases did absorb and show various genre films (to their credit) which no doubt, along with the availability of trash film next to art films on video store shelves, contributed to the blending of the two in subsequent filmmakers' work.

In fairness, he was talking about modern repertory theatres and the difficulty of opening audiences to films outside their wheelhouse.

[MichaelB]

I grew up with the Scala Cinema, which thought nothing about scheduling a Tarkovsky double bill after a kung-fu quintuple-bill all-nighter, followed by a Thundercrack!/Café Flesh double bill, followed by a classic Hollywood triple, so the overlap between arthouse and grindhouse has always been very much a thing for me. My attitude was basically "is this going to be more interesting than what's on at my local Odeon or ABC?", and to a large extent it's one that I adopt to this day - it's no coincidence that Deaf Crocodile is just about my favourite of the comparatively new home video labels.

[midnitedave]

I sympathize with his position and love his enthusiasm, but his thesis wasn’t persuasive, and he didn’t do much to argue it beyond citing a very small, non-representative sample of cross-overs. And not even the ones I would use, like mainstream horror increasingly borrowing from indie and art house dramas for its characters and themes, an actual trend rather than some isolated examples.

I'll admit that his examples leave a lot to be desired, though I imagine this was intended as a conversation starter for his Patreon rather than a complete argument. Still, this is a divide I've encountered a lot as a film fan and am always happy to see it pointed out. It was even a question I submitted to the Arrow Video podcast six years ago. (timestamp 37:00)

I couldn't make it more than six minutes into that "vlog" (probably a generational thing - much prefer written criticism or commentary) so correct me if I'm wrong, but he didn't mention the essential historical infrastructural difference between arthouse and grindhouse, which was not so much a difference of genre or curiosity, but the fact that they played entirely different theaters, catering to entirely different socioeconomic groups — a difference of class and access.

Fair enough. I'll just say that each medium as its strengths and weaknesses. While I enjoy any form of criticism, I often find that spme written criticism tends to be repetitious and often resorts to summarizing the film before getting into any unique ideas. I find it especially hilarious when this happens in booklets included with films, pretending as if the movie wasn't available to watch. And let's not get started about how some commentaries can be a slog to listen to. All to say, I've grown to appreciate the succinctness of video essays/vlogs.

As for historical infrastructure differences, that is definitively an aspect to consider. I recall Joe Bob Briggs going into such for his How rednecks saved Hollywood lecture which is worth checking out whenever he's touring again.

Morale of the story: watch all the movies!

[domino harvey]

I believe it was Sarris who distinguished between reviewers and critics by specifying that critics write as though their audience has already seen the film

[MichaelB]

Pretty much every commentary that I've ever recorded stresses at an early stage that I'm expecting people to have watched the film at least once beforehand! I can't imagine why anybody would dive straight into the commentary first, but I understand this occasionally happens.

[Maladroit Aggregator]

Any sufficiently complex or effective work will withstand "spoilers" (and reward multiple viewings) whether the flick is one week old or century in the rearview mirror. Anti-spoiler culture is one more infantile example of the Fall Of Man!

[domino harvey]

Except you can only organically experience a film on a narrative level one time, and if it’s spoiled, potentially zero times. Every person here would give anything to actually watch Psycho for the first time without knowing its secrets, so gimme a breaksville

[Mr Sausage]

One of the chief enjoyments of a good murder mystery is sitting there trying to solve the mystery along with the detective. And a good thriller depends on the surprises hidden in its twists and turns. What kind of anhedonic mummy wants to be deprived of those pleasures?

[Michael Kerpan]

Hah. From my earliest days, I tended to peek ahead to the end of mysteries (and similar stories). Too much suspense/tension damaged my ability to enjoy a story.