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A few one-line reviews that grabbed my attention.

An amazon review for an anthology of writings by Antonin Artaud

He may look like Conan O'Brien, but he isn't.

A review of an early television show Hollywood Opening Night from 1951

a pleasant, well-lit, well-upholstered vacuum of a show which should kill a half hour of your time as painlessly as possible

A typically acidic review by Ambrose Bierce about some book.

The covers are too far apart.

The covers are too far apart.

This made me laugh. I might make it my go to phrase for when a book is too long.

It is a good one. This will always be my favorite one line critique of anything, though

These are great but my fave is still zedz's catch-all

Looks like shit. Too many dwarves.

Going through all of Stuart Millard's videos, here's another good all-purpose one: "Because its written by a horny weirdo, everyone's a horny weirdo".

Letterboxd reviews are like shooting fish in a barrel, but I can’t resist posting this because of how benign the film being discussed, 23 1/2 Hours Leave, is.

is it unfunny racist and filled with American propaganda? yes. but the songs are lowkey fire and I actually found it pretty enjoyable.

One thing that is "rediculous" is that when you click on the "tomato score" on Rotten Tomatoes, it now takes you to the audience reviews rather than the critics' reviews, furthering the idea that everyone is a critic now and professional film critics are redundant. Both Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic have overhauled their websites in the past year in ways that I don't think are for the better.

This is somehow the top review on LB for Red Garters in its entirety

This was nominated for Best Production Design, yet it looked like absolute shit

Anytime I think of posting reviews on Letterboxd, something like this reminds me to not

I’d often like to post little notes for myself about why I liked or disliked something, but I don’t need it to become public record.

Well, I like reading reviews there from anyone who posts here, but that’s because anyone who posts here is already vetted for film knowledge and literacy

*looks askance of my own most recent review there*

I think this review, by someone named "Count Marco", is already quoted in this thread a few pages back.

The 1950's brought us some powerful filmmaking from fresh new French directors who were often raised on American films, especially noir. Bresson's Pickpocket is not one of those great films. Contrary to the genre listings, it is decidedly NOT a "crime drama" and anyone expecting one will be disappointed. In fact, this pure "slice of life" experiment in naturalism doesn't pretend or attempt to be a "drama" at all. There is simply no plot and no attempt at plot. Yes, it looks and sounds like a kind of noir-inspired French crime movie, but it is not. No one smiles, no one has motivations, no plot evolves. There is beautiful artistry in the cinematography, and 1950's Paris has never looked better in black-and-white (including the subways), and the film offers a startlingly realistic look into the amazing skill of professional pickpockets. But that's it. Truth in advertising mandates calling this a great film for professional students of the development of French cinema. For the rest of us, it is painfully slow and numbingly dull. (The reviewers who praise this do so to maintain their artisitic "cred.")

Co-sign most of this, although I wouldn't presume to know exactly what is going on in the heads of the enthusiasts for this film. I have little to add, other than that if this film is great, it completely goes over, or perhaps under, my head, and that I think the culinary equivalent of this film would be something like trying to eat a raw log. Well, i'm not a beaver, Mr. Bresson. People aren't beavers. I'm just affirming it. Because, given how he allegedly directed his actors, that's something he clearly had a lot of trouble remembering. How can just stealing things be a religious experience? There's something puerile and Godardian about the notion, but fuck if i know what this film is supposed to be saying, or doing, or anything. Despite finding Pickpocket incredibly dry and boring, it does also seem like a film directed by a crazy person. And with crazy, obsessed people in cinema, as in life, sometimes they're on to something, sometimes they have a point! And sometimes they don't! Sometimes they're just a ridiculous, misguided, incomprehensible freak, and that's how I feel about Bresson in this film. His emotional and intellectual or imaginative purpose here can simply not be plumbed on any level. The Pauline Kael/John Simon tack on Bresson seems best to me, that he was capable of brilliance, achieved it here and there, but that his cluelessness and weirdness and quirkiness and piousness often waylaid him, and are not as holy, or truthful, (one and the same?) as they are generally taken to be. But Kael and SImon are silent on this particular film. How can you be a mystic and so clueless? Does the word "mystic" have more than one meaning? His films reveal inner cluelessness, to me. I would have thought that the psychotic and ornery level of attention to detail, and sensitiveness to character, being a mystic requires would mean you're not clueless, at least not like that. Being a mystic is being hip and knowing what's what.

From my new favorite Pauline Kael review

Pauline Kael wrote:Part of the pleasure of the performance is, of course, the sheer feat of Olivier’s transforming himself into a Negro; yet it is not wasted effort, not mere exhibitionism or actor’s vanity, for what Negro actor at this stage in the world’s history could dare bring to the role the effrontery that Olivier does, and which Negro actor could give it this reading? I saw Paul Robeson and he was not black as Olivier is; Finlay can hate Olivier in a way José Ferrer did not dare – indeed did not have the provocation – to hate Robeson. Possibly Negro actors need to sharpen themselves on white roles before they can play a Negro. It is not enough to be: for great drama, it is the awareness that is everything.

I actually like this movie and Olivier’s weirdo perf in it, but, uh, what…

Cancel Kael!

Fiery Angel wrote: Thu Jun 06, 2024 3:28 am Cancel Kael!

Nicely sums up where cultural discourse is today.

I just don't remember it happening in the version of Rebecca that I saw.

Gary at the BEEV wrote:

Death and the Maiden is a progressively paced film experience jolting you with bizarre behavioral surprises.

As opposed to...what? A regressively paced film? What would that even be? It's paced so slowly that it actually...somehow goes backwards? Or like Memento? LOL Gary is such a terrible writer!!

Randall Maysin Again wrote: Tue Jun 11, 2024 12:26 am Gary at the BEEV wrote:

Death and the Maiden is a progressively paced film experience jolting you with bizarre behavioral surprises.

As opposed to...what? A regressively paced film? What would that even be? It's paced so slowly that it actually...somehow goes backwards? Or like Memento? LOL Gary is such a terrible writer!!

Apologies if I’m getting this wrong but I’m pretty sure it is a plot that has every scene properly follow the other as opposed to a movie that contains scenes that don’t go anywhere at all.

Oh, is that actually a normal turn of phrase? Well, nevermind then!!

There’s such a thing as narrative progression—but progressive pace? Doesn’t make much sense to me, either. Maybe he meant propulsive?

Randall Maysin Again wrote: Tue Jun 11, 2024 12:35 am Oh, is that actually a normal turn of phrase? Well, nevermind then!!

Not so much a phrase because this the first time I’ve that read those words in that order but more so just a slightly misconstrued compliment regarding a movie’s good pacing. I guess a good alternative would be “properly paced” instead of he wanted to make his point clearer.

Mr Sausage wrote: Tue Jun 11, 2024 1:17 am Maybe he meant propulsive?

Yeah, that’s how I read it

I thought "progressive pace" means something along a movie having a pace that feels modulated appropriately along the movie, usually a movie that tends to start slowly and builds up over its duration, in opposition to movies that can have sudden shifts that don't always feel appropriate.

I'd agree however that there probably are simpler ways to phrase this, and in any case, it's not as if he offers deep and long reviews anyway.

My eternal mystery with his reviews is why he invariably writes "dub" in block caps as though it's some kind of acronym.

I wonder what "DUB" might stand for? Deeply Unsatisfactory Burbling?

I suppose it's only a way for him to textually emphasis it's a dub and not the OV (since he covers plenty of foreign movies).