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Wow I found Keyframe to be an invaluable resource, very disappointing to see it killed off.

David Hudson is on the Criterion Current now!

Another critic (and filmmaker, and contributor to MOC extras) gets Faraci'd following an inept attempt to drum up a boycott against a publication that hated his movie. It took Twitter about 30 seconds to out him, although I'll refrain from doing so here, as the mob-justice thing makes me queasy even when the targets seem to be deserving.

His Antonioni extras were completely worthless, didn't know it was that guy without Googling him

Ugh, his easygoing language and casual usage of feminist touchstones makes his hypocrisy that much uglier. Having tracked down the film, the technical gimmick DOES sound neat- and I was prepared to be slightly annoyed at the review, which begins essentially by calling attachment to celluloid outmoded- but the movie sounds simultaneously reprehensible and self pitying, and the review seems pretty incisive in describing it. I looked up Variety's, for comparison's sake, and the Seventh Row reviewer is absolutely correct- it spends a lot of time talking about the gimmick, a reasonable amount of time (understandably) praising Yelchin and mourning his loss (one wonders if Jarmusch produced the film as a favor to Yelchin, or if Yelchin got connected through Jarmusch), and no time at all addressing the actual romantic conflict at the heart of the movie.

Obviously, the further actions of the director here are indefensible, but the original review this is referring back to seems itself like a pretty decent piece of criticism, and one that addresses a rotten heart that in something like Passengers didn't get discussed until a fair amount of time after the movie had gotten wide release.

His Linklater/Benning film was ok but Porto is very bad. I'm sure he sees himself as a sophisticated American with a European sensibility like Eugene Green but the film is borderline sexist sub-Guerin trash.

domino harvey wrote:His Antonioni extras were completely worthless, didn't know it was that guy without Googling him

Probably the worst extras ever produced not involving :: kogonada or Drew Casper.

Sweet Jesus, that link was hard to get through. I actually don't know Klinger's work - I'm certain I've read his reviews and seen his DVD extras, but not enough of them so that I can remember his name as the author of those pieces.

In his defense, his first email was fine. Some of it I wouldn't have written: offering the Blu-Ray was a bit weird, as was the ticket refund (partly because press is usually comped and also if it was a mainstream news source, a gift outside of access to what's being reviewed could be construed as unethical to accept, even if it is a token offering). He shouldn't have said it was okay NOT to respond either. He should've stayed the course of his previous paragraphs and asked to engage. (The "revenge" part may sound weird, but I don't know what his history is with the critic. This isn't unusual these days - it's not supposed to happen but plenty of people in the press do have private adversarial relationships with public figures and it's not always known AND it is indeed a problem when there's a published story by one on the other.) But overall, if someone publishes a serious charge at a filmmaker's work, and the filmmaker truly believed it to be unfair or inaccurate, there should be some public dialogue on that point. He should have gotten that.

But then he royally screwed up with that other email - seriously what was he thinking? I'm guessing his emotions got the better of his senses, but that's no excuse, and as someone who has worked (and still worked) as a critic, the offense is even more egregious. He should have known better, much more than anyone else.

To me, the first email has much the same undercurrent, of a manipulator who is determined to get their way one way or another, and is putting on the face they think most likely to work for a given context.

Y'all are being more than a little overly nefarious here. Spoiled artist can't handle criticism is hardly news or necessarily sexism on its face, though his follow-through exhibited these traits

I agree with Domino. I feel it's less about sexism than it is about a thin-skinned filmmaker who can't take criticism and handled it sloppily. Even if there are elements of crypto-misogny in his second e-mail, obviously he's been told he's a great artist and can't handle it when someone cuts into his work. To reuse a classic phrase, this guy needs to grow a pair.

Dr. Svet's review of the Criterion release of Dheepan is something to behold. Instead of reviewing the film, he mostly regales us with his eccentric views on the European Union, which apparently is not much different from the Soviet Union at its height. Apparently its open door policies have ruined the EU. He doesn't seem to be aware that most of the French immigrants are there due to France's colonial past rather than any "open door policy" which only briefly was the case for Germany which opened its borders for political asylum seekers. And of course the mainstream media are withholding the truth of the EU from us. Obviously emboldened by the current US president, he free to sprinkle his reviews with Trumpisms.

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Dheepan-B ... 33/#Review" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Maybe he thinks his days at Blu-ray.com are numbered and he's angling for a column in a right-wing British tabloid?

Although I fear that he's onto a loser there, what with him being Bulgarian immigrant scum in their eyes.

Maybe he wants to be "one of the good ones"

The likes of the Daily Express would sooner admit that Princess Diana died in a straightforward car accident than concede that there's such a thing as a good Bulgarian immigrant.

I would say that this reflects lessening editorial oversite there, but there's an unwarranted assumption buoy into that suggestion

I mean, even DVDTalk finally told Paul Mavis to can it with the right-wing bloviating (and of course he responded by flouncing off to some other site that should've known better).

Is left-wing film criticism allowed? Is it just right-wing criticism that's off limits?

The issue is less the politics intrinsically so much as most people visit these sites to know if the DVD is any good so it is more about tech criticism than film. I don't go to Bluray.com to see if a movie is good.

And another issue is that the blu-ray.com forum moderators crack down on anything deemed too political.

Fair enough. Even though I agree to a certain extent with the political message of the review, I was quite surprised to find it on blu-ray.com, so I understand what you're both saying. (I also didn't read Dheepan the same way as the reviewer.)

The people posting above are specifically calling out "right wing bloviating," as if left-wing bloviating would be just fine -- that is a double standard. I can respect the thought that blu-ray.com seems to be otherwise apolitical, and so this is inconsistent. I wonder, though, if this were an overtly left-wing review your responses would be the same.

I suspect that if I tried to turn a technical review of Trouble in Paradise into a referendum on the inherent immorality of capital, people would object to that as well. It doesn't help that Svet's analysis is clearly in the teeth of the film (by his own description)- he's not reading along with and being guided by the work, but looking for a crack to cram his garbage into.

ermylaw wrote:Is left-wing film criticism allowed? Is it just right-wing criticism that's off limits?

Care to offer a few examples of left-wing bloviating in reviews which forum members here have applauded or defended?

ermylaw wrote:Is left-wing film criticism allowed? Is it just right-wing criticism that's off limits?

Yep!

I don't have any examples in mind. People were specifically railing against right-wing bloviating, which raised in my mind the question whether people would be similarly bothered by left-wing bloviating.

It seems some people really meant they were bothered by a politically tinged review on blu-ray.com rather than the right-wing content of the review.

For my part, I don't especially care whether a review is political or not. But hypocrisy bothers me.

Unless you can cite some examples of hypocrisy here, I think you owe your fellow forum members an apology for a completely unwarranted slap.