Film Criticism

[Jeff]

The marketing team behind One Week continue their campaign with more pull quotes from the web. Here's this week's ad that mixes actual critical raves with comments from users at CinemaClock (which they use as a sneaky way to throw a "Thumbs up, way up!" into the ad).

I don't know if their rights extend to Canada, but in the U.S., Roger Ebert and Marlene Iglitzen (Siskel's widow) own the rights to the phrases "thumbs up," "two thumbs up," and "thumbs up, way up" -- at least in terms of movie criticism and marketing. Using them to promote a movie without consent from Ebert and Iglitzen is an actionable offense in the U.S.

[swo17]

Aside from the fact that this is a tired cliché, it is also a stupid one. Who sees only one movie a year?

My parents spring to mind.

...but even then you would be well advised to wait until the end of the year, just to make sure there isn't something that everyone is talking about, a la "The Sixth Sense."

Ha! This reminds me of a couple of years ago when my mom couldn't stop talking about a film she had just seen for the first time: (drumroll) The Sixth Sense.

[Antoine Doinel]

For The Love Of Movies: The Story Of American Film Criticism is coming soon to a theater near you. Here's the trailer.

[King Prendergast]

A.O. Scott discovers that some recent American films are connected to the the economic crisis, or something.

[King Prendergast]

A.O. Scott discovers that some recent American films are connected to the the economic crisis, or something.

Richard Brody critiques Scott
Seems like a case of the NYer's third string film critic implicitly expressing his jealousy that Scott gets a big feature in the Times' Sunday magazine and he is forced to blog about it.

[King Prendergast]

Bordwell on film criticsm

[Matt]

Because I'm sick of clicking on this thread and only finding links to and mock outrage about Armond White's latest reviews, I've created a thread just for that.

[kinjitsu]

Isn't one thread devoted to AW enough?

[Matt]

Merged! Thanks for your good memory.

[kinjitsu]

Señor Wences!

Lodged in memory likely due to my having put it there.

[Fiery Angel]

Review of David Thomson's Try to Tell the Story: A Memoir

[knives]

I wish Ebert were like this more often.

[Jeff]

I wish Ebert were like this more often.

That's fantastic. Ebert's always been at his best when delivering a catty pan.

[foggy eyes]

Bradshaw was good for a laugh about Transformers 2 as well:

Bay has a great love of flashy effects, stroboscopic editing and loud crashes; he famously calls his cinematic technique "fucking the frame". That phrase might be brutal, but it's accurate. And there's no doubt about it: he really has given the frame a right old seeing-to this time. Bay has turned up at the frame's flat with some unguent massage oils, scented candles and a hundredweight of Viagra. It isn't long before the headboard of the frame's bed is crashing repeatedly against the wall, while the frame gazes up at the ceiling ... and I think the frame is faking it.

Nathan Lee's review of the film is the best I've read so far. I wish someone would give him a more high-profile gig.

[knives]

The Lee review is definitely the best yet. The backlash is more interesting then the film. Also I find it hilarious that the first transformers film is Megan Fox's best rated film on RT and it is still rotten.

[colinr0380]

They may be fun to read but reviews complaining about the film featuring giant extraterrestrial robots hitting each other being childish and dumb sort of misses the point of the film! I think I said when the first film came out that nothing that occurs in this film can be as offensive as when Bay was applying his headache inducing style to hypothetical disaster movies or real life wars. The giant robot movie based on the line of toys (with the film fully sponsored and endorsed by the US Army by the way if the sequel takes after the original!) may be full of sound and fury signifying nothing but that in itself makes it seem to be the perfect fit for Bay and his advertiser's slick but empty eye.

The argument about the incomphrensibility of a slick, empty piece of fluff might well be a good point, but I'd rather see Bay's visual style applied something like this than Pearl Harbor, and perhaps we should all be glad that his attention has been diverted from 'significant' fare. If we are going to have overblown CGI extravaganzas whose only purpose is wild imagery and pretty explosions, he could not have found better (and most importantly easy to ignore by the uninterested!) material!

EDIT: On just checking his dedicated thread I cannot believe that I've just...agreed...with Armond White!

[foggy eyes]

EDIT: On just checking his dedicated thread I cannot believe that I've just...agreed...with Armond White!

Yup, that's all that needs to be said about that line of thought!

[colinr0380]

But at least I didn't shoehorn in a reference to Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls!

[knives]

I doubt people are begging for existential angst with their Transformers. They want it to at least be the animated movie though. Is that too much to ask for?

Remember the contraption Armageddon review. Transformers 2 looked through with a similar eye.

[colinr0380]

The closest thing I can think of to this movie is the Wachowskis' Speed Racer, which had a similar kind of CG image overload, although it was only five hours long as opposed to ROTF's nine.

Ironically Transformers 2 is only 15 minutes longer than Speed Racer (and with these kinds of special effects films you have to factor in an extra ten minutes or so of technical credits!), though that still means they are both over two and a quarter hours long.

[harry]

Off topic, but I do remember reading a fairly extensive discussion of the Bordwellian mode/approach to criticism and historiography on this board--might have been in the Film Books thread, but this one seems at least as relevant. Anyway, I just read Andrew Britton's essay "The Philosophy of the Pigeonhole: Wisconsin Formalism and 'The Classical Style'" and felt it very effectively and persuasively articulated many of the concerns I've had with Bordwell's Classical Hollywood Cinema model since it was introduced to me. Having been sort of brought up on Film Art and Film History, I've recently been fascinated by the anti-Bordwell school of thought (for me, an entirely new perspective and one I'm finding pretty appealing), and am wondering--at the risk of starting a heated argument--about others' thoughts on the issue. As critics, Britton's and Bordwell's backgrounds and ideological arenas are obviously very different, and it seems like the division is at least somewhat indicative of the larger, more interesting split in serious contemporary film criticism.

[Fiery Angel]

A survivor of film criticism's heroic age

[King Prendergast]

Ben Lyons: we hardly knew thee.
Now go get your fuckin shine box.

[Jeff]

Fantastic!

Scott and Phillips are who I wanted for the show in the first place. It remains to be seen whether the show can lure its audience and a modicum of respect back or not. I've spent the past year actively avoiding it.

[swo17]

My second choice after Willard & Mellencamp, but nonetheless, excellent news!