Critic watch
Film Programming: A New Wilderness for Former Film Critics.
By Stephen Saito on 11/11/2009
Filed under: Critic watch, Festivals
Only two days removed from the announcement that Newsweek's David Ansen would be taking over as the artistic director of the Los Angeles Film Festival, the L.A. Weekly's chief film critic Scott Foundas has taken the Associate Program Director gig at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, where he had previously served as part of the New York Film Festival's selection committee. Whether or not Foundas' position at the Weekly will actually be filled remains to be seen and all of this comes a week after Variety critic Robert Koehler completed his first turn as a programmer at Los Angeles'... MORE »
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If movies are niche, shouldn't critics be too?
By Vadim Rizov on 09/30/2009
Filed under: Critic watch
The Playlist is a useful blog that aggregates the day's major entertainment news. They're also been dabbling in reviews, which is how I came across Drew Taylor's take on the acclaimed if by no means Romanian film "Police, Adjective," which is screening at the New York Film Festival. Taylor calls it "the most boring fucking movie that's ever been filmed. Ever," as well as "pretentious nothingness," and gives it an F. At the end of the review is a curious editorial note: "Not to undermine our writer here," it begins shrinkingly, before going to point out that NYFF movies are... MORE »
Buying in and selling out.
By Vadim Rizov on 09/18/2009
Filed under: Critic watch
The Toronto International Film Festival ends tomorrow, but most journalists have already skipped ahead to extrapolating trends. There's much loose talk about potential Oscar front-runners -- "Up In The Air" apparently has a lock -- and much free-floating despair about the tough climate for making, purchasing and marketing indie films. But at least one person thinks the recession's been good for movies, by getting those arty directors to tone it down. Peter Howell of the Toronto Star wraps up the festival sounding exhilarated and gratified for all the wrong reasons. He salutes Steven Soderbergh, Atom Egoyan, Werner Herzog, Todd Solondz... MORE »
"At The Movies" about as good as it could be.
By Vadim Rizov on 09/08/2009
Filed under: Critic watch
We're a long way from Siskel & Ebert, but the new "At The Movies" -- featuring The New York Times' A.O. Scott and The Chicago Tribune's Michael Phillips -- is on the air. They are, of course, the replacements for the short-lived, universally reviled duo of the Bens (Lyons and Mankiewicz); Mankiewicz himself didn't seem to get people too fired up, but Lyons was such an aggressively stupid guy that a site specifically devoted to relentlessly dogging him (a Web site that's the first result to pop up when you Google him no less) was the least of the protests.... MORE »
Film critics gone wild.
By Stephen Saito on 09/01/2009
Filed under: Critic watch, Watchy
Actually, that's a misleading headline if there ever was one, considering that A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips look more buttoned up than ever in this promo for the new season of "At the Movies." But after a year in the wilderness, I share the excitement of Karina Longworth and Anne Thompson in seeing the film critics from the New York Times and Chicago Tribune engage in serious discussions about films, though judging by that picture, I'd be afraid to say otherwise for fear of being found floating in the Hudson River. [Photo: A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips, "At the Movies,"... MORE »
"Halloween II" is, theoretically, awesome.
By Vadim Rizov on 08/28/2009
Filed under: Critic watch
I love Rob Zombie's "The Devil's Rejects." I think it's one of the 30 best movies of the decade. But, according to my critic peers, that can't possibly be the case, because we're all horrific snobs -- or so the studios think. Dan Kois at New York is done with what he calls "the Summer of Film-Critic Irrelevance." Since neither of today's two major genre releases, "The Final Destination" or "Halloween II," is getting screened for critics -- despite the fact that critics might actually like them -- he's more worked up about this than you might expect. Back in... MORE »
How Rotten Tomatoes has changed film criticism.
By Vadim Rizov on 08/19/2009
Filed under: Critic watch
The uproar Armond White raised by panning "District 9" has raised a lot of interesting points about The State of Film Criticism. It prompted Slate's Daniel Engber to fret over his original pan of the film; being one of the few dissenting voices on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes was, he wrote, "beginning to make me nervous." So Engber did a little number-crunching and ranked 20 prominent critics from most to least contrarian based on how often they agreed with the Tomatometer. No surprise, White's the most contrarian -- but even he only went against the group 50% of the time.... MORE »
Armond White and the art of trolling.
By Vadim Rizov on 08/15/2009
Filed under: Critic watch
There are really two kinds of people who care about constantly controversial New York Press critic Armond White. There are those who care about keeping up with film criticism regardless of what the movie is; White's a veteran critic, a member of the New York Film Critics Circle, etc. He is Important, and you read him. And then there's the rabid geek who lurks on Rotten Tomatoes, waiting for someone to challenge his or her (or, c'mon, his) sense of priorities. Like "The 700 Club" and Glenn Beck, White's work is reliably, pleasurably insane on a week-to-week basis; the volume... MORE »
The critic and the pirate.
By Alison Willmore on 04/06/2009
Filed under: Critic watch
Coming to an airport romance novel shelf near you? Roger Friedman, critic/columnist for Fox News online, caused as big a stir as a film critic seems able to these difficult days when he posted a review of "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," having illegally downloaded the leaked, unfinished version of the film. The internet immediately went into paroxyms of self-righteousness, with Ain't It Cool News, among others, relishing in a chance to take the moral high ground by calling for Friedman's termination. Fox News, a separate entity from 20th Century Fox Film Corporation, the studio behind "Wolverine," took down the review, and... MORE »
The year in top tens.
By Alison Willmore on 12/18/2008
Filed under: Critic watchUPDATED 12/18: IFC Films' Keaton Kail has been so kind as to pass along the following endearingly obsessive spreadsheet he's put together ranking the year's films by their mentions in critic top ten lists. I'll be resurfacing this post each week or so with updates as the lists continue to be unveiled. Here's the big breakdown (click on the image to see it full-size): MORE »
Manohla Dargis is mean.
By Alison Willmore on 12/10/2008
Filed under: Critic watch
Or so says Patrick Goldstein at his blog at the LA Times, deeming her a "movie killer" and adding: It's an open secret in indie Hollywood that no one wants Manohla Dargis to review their movie, fearing that the outspoken critic will tear their film limb from limb. It's the ultimate backhanded compliment, since what they really fear is Manohla's persuasiveness -- that she'll write a review whose combination of vitriolic snarkiness and intellectual heft will actually persuade high-brow moviegoers to drop the film from their must-see list. Which is all very well, except Goldstein then digs into Dargis' review... MORE »
All thumbs™.
By Alison Willmore on 11/11/2008
Filed under: Critic watchRogerEbert.com has switched over from the usual four star rating system to a mix of stars and thumbs, which makes for an interesting repurposing of the two digit approval system over which the critic got into a tiff with Disney. The thumbs, which have been sort of replaced by "See It/Skip It/Rent It" on the new incarnation of "At the Movies," weren't going to see air time with Bens Lyons and Mankiewicz -- Ebert and the late Gene Siskel's family share ownership of the trademark -- so I suppose it's good to see them making an appearance somewhere. Still, it... MORE »
Same old song?
By Alison Willmore on 09/08/2008
Filed under: Critic watchThe heart of the newest issue of Cineaste is a massive symposium on that favorite topic of debate of film writers -- print criticism versus online criticism, critics versus bloggers, and on and on. I'll 'fess up to only scanning it -- this used to be a treasured topic of mine as well, but lately it's seemed awfully insular, much retreading of old arguments with no ground gained (is there ground to be gained?), focused on medium when its content that's actually at stake. As laid out in the intro, print versus online is hardly the appropriate divide anymore: "A... MORE »
The Roger Ebert of our age.
By Alison Willmore on 08/22/2008
Filed under: Critic watch, WatchyOr could he be more the Gene Siskel? Clearly, he's aiming for both... Ben Mankiewicz better watch his back. The new season of "At the Movies" starts September 6, for anyone playing along at home. + Video: My break out in "House Bunny" (BenLyons.com) MORE »
Mourning Manny Farber.
By Alison Willmore on 08/20/2008
Filed under: Critic watch, MemoriamMore on the passing of critic Manny Farber: J. Hoberman at the Village Voice (alongside a reprint of his 1981 essay "Termite Makes Right"): Farber wasn't like other critics. He didn't proselytize and he didn't create systems. Rather, he articulated his idiosyncratic perception, which is to say: He had a sensibility. Farber was as punchy and hardboiled, at least in his prose, as Sam Fuller (a director he admired) and as masterful a vernacular stylist as S. J. Perelman (who, knowledgeable as he was, nodded to Farber in one of his pieces). As was said of Perelman, before they made... MORE »
Termite art.
By Alison Willmore on 08/18/2008
Filed under: Critic watch, MemoriamManny Farber, critic and artist, passed away last night at the age of 91. From Glenn Kenny at Some Came Running: What I found, and find, most valuable in his criticism is his ability to apprehend the entirety of a film--he got it from every angle. He could appreciate a B war picture in the same sense that the guy on the street could, while fully comprehending its value as a work of modern/contemporary art. I'm away from my study, so I can't grab a copy of Space to quote from it willy-nilly. But I can say this: I doubt... MORE »
Elvis Mitchell's life is more interesting than yours.
By Alison Willmore on 08/05/2008
Filed under: Critic watchFrom the Detroit Free Press: Nationally known film critic Elvis Mitchell is trying to get back nearly $12,000 he carried in a cigar box through the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel. Mitchell was entering Detroit in a cab from Windsor on April 26 when a luggage search turned up $11,817 in U.S. currency and 15 Cuban cigars, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The agency wants to keep the cash because Mitchell didn't declare it in Detroit or three days earlier when he flew to Toronto from New York. Anyone carrying more than $10,000 outside the country or into the United States must... MORE »
Duality, Dubya, "The Dark Knight" (again).
By Alison Willmore on 07/29/2008
Filed under: Critic watchAccording to /Film, IMDb was hacked last night, leaving "The Dark Knight" briefly but oh so metaphorically displayed as both the #1 best and worst film of all time. Good and evil! Heroes and villains! Batman is Bush! He isn't! You complete me! This comes after speculation from the same site that fans of the film have been deliberately voting down former champ "The Godfather" in order to boost "The Dark Knight" to the top of the charts, providing reassurance that no matter how many hours you lose to hangovers and "Law & Order" marathons, there will always be others... MORE »
Mankiewicz and Lyons at the movies.
By Alison Willmore on 07/22/2008
Filed under: Critic watchWell, if there's ever been a sign of the general decline in estimation of film critics, it's that the new hosts of ABC's review show "At the Movies," from which Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper bailed in the past two days, are just that -- professional TV hosts. Ben Mankiewicz, late of the Air America talk radio show "The Young Turks" and Turner Classic Movies, will be joined by Ben Lyons, who's the son of WNBC's on-air critic Jeffrey Lyons, serves as E!'s "film expert," and supposedly once dated one of the girls on "The Hills." Variety's Anne Thompson reports,... MORE »
Ebert cuts the ties.
By Alison Willmore on 07/21/2008
Filed under: Critic watchIn a statement released today, Roger Ebert announced: "After 33 years on the air, 23 of them with Disney, the studio has decided to take the program named 'Siskel & Ebert' and then 'Ebert & Roeper' in a new direction. I will no longer be associated with it." It doesn't come as such a surprise -- Ebert's 2006 surgery made it impossible for him to continue to appear on air. But S. James Snyder at Time has more: His departure now stems from a dispute with Disney, the distributor for At the Movies, over the show's famous trademark thumbs-up/thumbs-down verdict... MORE »
Elvis Mitchell, Pauline Kael and Kenneth Turan.
By Alison Willmore on 07/08/2008
Filed under: Critic watchElvis Mitchell, former New York Times film critic, Harvard lecturer, documentary writer/producer and consistently excellent dresser, has a new show on TCM called "Elvis Mitchell: Under the Influence," in which actors and directors come in to, you know, chat. The show had its premiere last night -- at Slate, Troy Patterson writes that it's "warm, insightful, and only about 30 percent too snazzy for its own good." This is a journalist who knows a good boondoggle when he sees one, and among the many influences of Under the Influence are the panel discussion, the post-panel Q and A, and the... MORE »
Exile on 15th Street, N.W.
By Alison Willmore on 06/18/2008
Filed under: Critic watchAt the New York Sun, S. James Snyder writes about both the ever-discussed endangerment of the print critic and last week's gathering/reading of selections from "Exile Cinema: Filmmakers at Work Beyond Hollywood," a book of film essays edited by Michael Atkinson, who also writes IFC.com's DVD column. Snyder slips in a bit of news on the first front I hadn't yet heard: "Three weeks ago, what has become a familiar scene played out once again at the Washington Post, as acclaimed writers Stephen Hunter and Desson Thomson accepted buyouts and resigned their full-time positions." Mr. Hunter is one of the... MORE »
Good news, bad news.
By Alison Willmore on 05/08/2008
Filed under: Critic watchThe good and the very bad news this morning: On the plus side, Criterion has announced that it's going Blu-ray, with "Chungking Express," "The 400 Blows" and "Contempt" amongst its first releases in the format. /film has the announcement. On the minus, and this is an incredible downer, Glenn Kenny at Premiere writes that I've just been informed that my position at Premiere.com is being terminated. What this means for this blog is still up in the air; I've got meetings this afternoon in which such things are to be negotiated. In any case, I now join the ever-growing ranks... MORE »
Endangered species list.
By Alison Willmore on 04/01/2008
Filed under: Critic watchAt the New York Times, David Carr looks over the damage left from this latest round of film critics ankling their publications or having their publications ankle them. "For those of us who are making work that requires a kind of intellectual conversation, we rely on that talk to do the work of getting people interested," said Mr. Rudin, who produced "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood," two Oscar-nominated and critically championed films last year. "All of the talk about 'No Country,' all of the argument about the ending, kept that film in the forefront of... MORE »
And another one gone, and another one gone...
By Alison Willmore on 03/25/2008
Filed under: Critic watch...and Nathan Lee at the Village Voice becomes the latest film critic to bite the dust. The Reeler quotes Lee: In great Village Voice tradition, I was abruptly laid off today for "economic reasons." My employment at the paper ends immediately: someone else, alas, will be tasked with specifying the precise shade of periwinkle frosting atop the cupcakes in My Blueberry Nights. And so I am, as they say, "looking for work," though presumably not as a staff film critic as such jobs no longer appear to exist. There's some critic in-fighting in the comments; it's not a sandbox in... MORE »
No country for film critics.
By Alison Willmore on 01/30/2008
Filed under: Critic watchTwo days ago New York Daily News film critic Jack Mathews announced his retirement (via Movie City News) as of the end of Oscar season, after which he'll head to Oregon with threats that he'll be devoting his time to "that long-gestating novel about the college co-ed considered by many to have been the Zodiac's first victim (it was a murder I covered as a cub reporter) and to the breeze of the Pacific." While it remains to be seen if he'll be replaced, and by whom, Defamer is reporting the troubling news that the Detroit Free Press has... MORE »
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