Interesting points. The observation about the hazards of making references to other films (i.e., the way that this can be a poor substitute for descriptive and evaluative work) is a good one.
Are there any contemporary critics whose work you admire?
Interesting points. The observation about the hazards of making references to other films (i.e., the way that this can be a poor substitute for descriptive and evaluative work) is a good one.
Are there any contemporary critics whose work you admire?
Last edited by Gittes; 09-13-2016 at 03:59 AM.
Yeah, I can't say that I anticipate reading ANYONE's reviews at this point on the net for a variety of the reasons you list.
The Onion is probably the closest I get to consistently reading something.
By the way, this happened a ton for La La Land. Most of the people simply say that it's not as good as Singin In The Rain. To me, that's almost a compliment that it's up against one of the best musicals of all time, lol.Quoting Gittes (view post)
Heh. Thanks, Ezee, for asking. I feel much better now.
You nailed many of the reasons I rarely read reviews anymore. The constant validation of their credentials is what I find the most irritating. Online culture tends to promote the idea that everyone's opinion is valid and thus no one is ever right or wrong, at least not when it comes to taste. There may be some truth to that notion, but it's led film critics to feel the need to constantly memory-drop their childhood film experiences (particularly to original films that are being remade or getting long overdue sequels) in a passive-aggressive attempt to devalue the opinions of their own readers in favor of their own viewpoint. "I remember seeing the original with my grandpappy and loving it and it changed the way I watched movies forever" is a way of subtly saying "Disagree with me all you like but if you weren't old enough or committed enough to appreciate the original as I did then your opinion weights less".
There isn't anyone I run to after I see a movie, like I used to with critics like Ebert. I want somebody with insight, and somebody who can write. Somebody who can deliver what they need to deliver with a modicum of skill. These days, I read reviews and come away annoyed because the writer has wasted my time. I mean, not only were their insights dull but their writing wasn't enjoyable.
Modern critics: Alison Willmore at Buzzfeed is pretty good. I like Bilge Ebiri at the Village Voice and Mo Ryan at Variety, although a little bit more for their sunny outlook than for their insights. It's fun to read people who really dig the form they're writing about. Mark Olsen, Justin Chang, and Kenneth Turan at the LA Times are usually worth a look. Olsen puts out a weekly newsletter that's one of the best going. I have a soft spot for Glenn Erickson's "DVD Savant" column.
There's a few people I admire because of their technical craft. Emily Nussbaum at The New Yorker, but she's mostly TV. Michelle Dean (ex-Gawker) is good, although sometimes I think she grinds her axe a little hard. Jeffrey Wells is a fantastic writer with an ugly soul. He's one of the crazies I mentioned, #FilmTwitter's drunk, sexist and racist uncle. Armond White is another. He can turn a helluva sentence but he's also a complete loon. I almost never agree with Wells or White, but compared to most, the energy of their writing thrills me.
When I get really bummed out over this, I pick up Lester Bangs (on music) and Barry Gifford (on noir) and re-read their stuff. Or I google up Gene Siskel, who was a true-blue beat reporter but could do more with 700 words than most can do with 1,400. Same with Jonathan Rosenbaum.
I was thinking about this a bit more and I just remembered that I recently made a post in the Mr. Robot thread that was pretty much: "this scene reminded me of this film, and that film, and that TV show."
I wasn't consciously trying to evade more straightforward description there but, rather, trying to suss out potential influences and figure out how this appealing thing that I saw connects back to other things I've liked (which pretty much amounts to investigating your own tastes and preferences). I get that we're talking about formal critical pieces, not forum posts, but this also reminded me that making intertextual links is pretty much essential in certain auteurist, theoretical, and historical writing, and this can be compelling and interesting. Although, I get that Irish was talking about a particular manifestation of this (i.e., superficial connections), and I can definitely see how that could detract from a closer engagement with the film itself.
Another thing: I'm actually not totally averse to the idea of critics recalling formative or memorable moviegoing experiences. I'm not sure about the degree to which I've done it here, but I can get pretty nostalgic sometimes. I think I remember posting a longwinded — and probably embarrassingly sprawling and convoluted — thing about my childhood experience of The Blair Witch Project, and a random Are You Afraid of the Dark? episode, and all of that must have scanned as insufferable to Irish.
The specific thing that amberlita is describing sounds obnoxious, though — that is, using nostalgic memories like they're some sort of unassailable shield against opposing viewpoints, etc. But I'm not sure I agree with Irish dissing that hypothetical grandpa-taking-me-to-see-Star-Wars story, sight unseen. I mean, I can see the potential for banal or navel-gazing writing, and how that sort of thing might amount to another diversion from the work of grappling with the film. But the fact remains that we sentimentalize films and enshrine them in our memory, and their appeal can get sort of complicatedly wrapped up in specific moments from our lives. That's an inevitable part of the whole experience of watching films, and I think it's fair that this sort of thing might emerge in a review. Granted, I'm sure this can be done poorly and the navel-gazing aspect can get out of hand or just end up coming across as peculiar (i.e., an unremarkable anecdote that says very little).
Last edited by Gittes; 09-13-2016 at 05:38 AM.
I think you need to be a very good to pull this off, because it requires employing fiction tropes within the context of several non-fiction forms (memoirs, criticism, opinion). It's tough to do even for someone with experience. But too often, someone without experience attempts it and it comes off as thin and narcissistic.
Two examples of what I was talking about earlier. Neither is perfect but they'll do in a pinch:
- This review of the Magnificent 7 remake.
- This essay on Star Trek's 50th anniversary.
The Mag 7 review spends more time dropping names and referencing outside sources than talking about the film at hand. This is 800 words with less than half devoted to what the movie is actually like. (And it's got a completely shit lede with no energy, filled with uncritical information better suited for the nut graf.) This is a dude with "years and years" of experience. His review doesn't tell me anything about the film that the trailers won't. What the hell was the point? It's so lazy that the writer doesn't talk about the film's story or how it matches up against the original film. Instead, he talks about its stars and that reads like turgid marketing copy. Imagine coming to this without knowing who any of the people are (Fuqua, Kurosawa, Sturges, Scott) or without having seen The Seven Samurai, the original Mag 7, or Suicide Squad. How much makes sense?
The Star Trek essay spends more time talking about the writer than about the subject, while delivering warmed-over insights than even a casual fan would know. This is another writer with "years and years" of experience, but he ruins his good, personal details with a bizarre level of self-obsession. Sure, tell the reader that you grew up watching Star Trek re-runs late at night. Set that scene. That's evocative. Use it to build to a point about your subject. Don't get so lost in your memories that you ramble about how football games occasionally delayed those broadcasts, ffs, because that has nothing to do with anything and it isn't interesting in the slightest. This is a 1,000 word essay and the word "I" appears over 50 times.
The core of both pieces read like forum posts, not criticism.
Last edited by Irish; 09-13-2016 at 07:10 AM.
Well, like you said -- forum posts are different from film criticism. I've never thought anybody's personal anecdotes were insufferable. Half the point of a forum post might be to allow people to get to know you better.Another thing: I'm actually not totally averse to the idea of critics recalling formative or memorable moviegoing experiences. I'm not sure about the degree to which I've done it here, but I can get pretty nostalgic sometimes. I think I remember posting a longwinded — and probably embarrassingly sprawling and convoluted — thing about my childhood experience of The Blair Witch Project, and a random Are You Afraid of the Dark? episode, and all of that must have scanned as insufferable to Irish.
A piece of film criticism might do the same thing, but probably not as directly. I think a good film critic respects the reader, respects the reader's time, and knows that the reader isn't there for them. They're there to learn whether the film is worth seeing.
Forum posts might be an equal exchange, but film criticism never is.
Well said, Irish. I'm in total agreement. I care more about MCers thoughts than almost all pro critics, because I KNOW you guys and gals at least on some level.
Of course agree with the first part, but I'm not sure the second part is true. I rarely read film reviews before seeing a movie anymore. Unless a film gets truly atrocious or outstanding word of mouth, it's not going to change whether or not I plan to see a film (and even that litmus test is frequently hit or miss). I usually read reviews after I see a film, to read people's thoughts because I find it stimulating or it helps hone my own thoughts to read people I agree with or disagree with and see what other people caught during the film that I didn't (I don't care about learning more about the critic). Which is why I think your point about the review being interesting and well-written, above all else, is on point. I'm sure I'm not alone on this. I'm not particularly unique in my behaviors.
The only reviews I care about are the ones from MC.
I don't see the "fantastic writer" bit. He can turn a fine sentence here and there, but I actually find his stream of consciousness style, and the bolded words for emphasis thing, to be irritating. One of his most annoying traits — there are many — is his recourse to some gut-level instinct that he refers to as his "insect antenna." That's such a bullshit basis for any argument. Perhaps the context of a dude rapidly tapping out something, anything, after a screening explains the use of quick-and-empty stuff like that and his "don't tell me; I know from [insert subject here]" remarks. Arrogance and a kind of carelessness with regards to the substance of the writing are also potential explanations for these shortcomings.
Then you have the more significant problems, like the relentless body shaming and his many other dumb tendencies.
The Tony Scott line is certainly bullshit. I mean, the claim might have merit but it's dropped there without any explanation. However, referring to The Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven (1960) seems relevant in a review for a movie that is demonstrably tied to those two films (and, despite any other weaknesses in the writing that might exist, some of these connections are explicitly outlined by the writer). Naming the director of the film in question seems fine, too. None of that seems like a stretch to me, nor does the reference to Suicide Squad, a movie whose failures had been a hot topic of internet discussion a few weeks prior, and whose structure may bear some resemblance to the ensemble antics of Fuqua's new movie (I haven't seen either of these films, though). I mean, this doesn't seem inherently problematic (more on this below). Assuming some engagement with cinematic history and/or the current landscape is kind of a vote of confidence in your reader.
At the same time, though...
"The Magnificent Seven is what Suicide Squad should have been: a ragtag group of scoundrels and malcontents, who band together to fight an even more villainous foe, who all seem to realize a) this is a big lark, and b) they have no chance of winning, but c) they do it all anyway with a wink and a smile. No, there are no tiny bombs in their heads — these ruffians do it for the loot. (Well, most of them, anyway.)"
…the actual application of the reference does leave something to be desired. Skimmed through the rest and it doesn't seem like he ever develops the Suicide Squad connection, but rather just uses the context of this review to quickly air his dislike of Ayer's movie. Well, there's some talk about the economy of the Magnificent Seven (2016) script later on, but, it's unclear, for me, how that relates to Suicide Squad….and I'm essentially proving your point.The audience for these reviews, depending on the nature of the references, can be a specific subset of moviegoers that have their pulse to, say, SlashFilm news blurbs, and have been immersed in the summer movies, and know a bit about film history. You risk alienating someone who, like myself, hasn't seen Suicide Squad, but, in theory at least, risking that in favour of substantial and specific writing (which is not what this article is, by the way) isn't necessarily bad. But you know that.
This is a fair point. I can certainly see how this could become problematic. Faraci expressed himself in ways that grated on me a while ago; I haven't checked out much of his work since, although I have noticed that he gets a lot of flack from other critics, but I can't really speak to how much of that is deserved. Anyway, I didn't read through the whole piece, but, I do feel like being charitable toward that football anecdote.
"I had a TV in my bedroom, a small one, and I would stay up too late and watch the reruns, played in haphazard order, unless football ran long. If the game ran long it would be yet another instance of the jocks keeping down the nerds, but on so many nights I was able to struggle through and watch and be transported."
The jocks/nerds thing is a bit superficial and lame, but, insofar as certain fans were likely conscious of dedicating themselves to non-athletic pastimes, this could resonate for some folks. Maybe this just struck a chord for me because I do remember having the keen sense of being at a remove from an athleticism that, at the time, felt coded as "normal" (which, of course, is nonsense — there's nothing "abnormal" about a sci-fi show or any similar non-athletic hobby) while I indulged in something more fringe (i.e., whatever "nerdy" show I was really into). Faraci may not have much to say about this, though (incidentally, Jonathan Franzen very briefly — and more effectively — touches on something kind of similar in a recent piece about a cruise to Antartica, which, by the way, has almost nothing to do with movies but is really great). But Faraci's insight is at least moderately interesting in the way it abuts against that larger topic. Sure, I can see how it might come across as underdeveloped or digressive, but, given the ambitions of the article (it's mostly a breezy encomium about Star Trek and an opportunity to insist that it's fun), I can understand dropping those kinds of details.
Last edited by Gittes; 09-13-2016 at 04:33 PM.
Not sure what you mean by this connection -- I was stealing ideas from Vonnegut's advice on writing fiction:
- "Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted."
- "Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages."
(Otherwise, yeah, I agree & do the same thing you do --- I read reviews after I see the movie.)
Last edited by Irish; 09-13-2016 at 06:42 PM.
I wouldn't single out film criticism for it. A large contingent of new media journalism in general seems to prefer to relate news and editorial analysis through first-person personal experience. It's the age of Vice News.
Movie Theater Diary
The bolded text comes from an old newspaper tradition. Wells is consciously imitating people like Winchell, Barrett, and Caen:
He comes from a print background, so he knows how to write short and with impact (something most online critics couldn't do if they tried). I wasn't talking so much about his content, but about his style. (Although I do think Wells writes very good reviews, for the same reasons.)
On a personal level, he's often repulsive and I wouldn't want to spend 5 minutes with him in person. But the writing is ace, because even if he didn't occasionally talk about himself, his voice comes through loud and clear in his writing. You can't read his stuff and come away ignorant of exactly who he is and how he views the world. That is not easy to do, and it takes time and practice.
Weird thought: What happens if every single movie and TV show opens with a disclaimer that says "Unless explicitly specified otherwise, all characters contained in the following work, including those shown to be in heterosexual pairings, are intended to be gay or bisexual"? How would it affect audiences?
Movie Theater Diary
The problem is context. It's that Cuthbert Hoone thing. When this guy says, "Mag 7 is vintage Fuqua," and then doesn't explain what that means except in a semantic way, it's totally meaningless. (He could have also used a different word, like "Mag 7 is quintessential Fuqua" and avoided the semantics.)
Mentioning the director, Seven Sam, or the original film is useless unless you want to talk about the film's actual direction or relationship between all these films. This writer doesn't. Instead, he dumps a bunch of trivia on the reader right off, and it's the kind of trivia that anyone can learn from IMDb.
The audience thing is apt, and I think you're right that there are times you can avoid context and assume your audience knows certain things. Like, Fangoria doesn't need to explain who David Cronenberg or James Wan are because their readers are well versed in the subjects Fangoria writes about.
But a lot of fansites are general interest. They don't know who their audience is or where they're coming from. So they half ass it, and in the process lose editorial focus (which is a whole 'nother problem that bugs me almost as much as bad film criticism).
This ended up too long, so don't even bother with it if you don't want to or don't have the time or whatever. I won't be insulted or anything.
Oh, interesting. This doesn't leaven the irritation, but it provides context at least. Thanks.
I'm really not seeing enough to unequivocally refer to the writing as "ace." The transmission of a voice in writing is one criterion of quality, sure, but you're still left to contend with the idiosyncrasies and weaknesses of that voice.
Here's Wells suddenly addressing Paul Thomas Anderson (??) in the middle his stream of conciousness write-up about Inherent Vice. There's a voice here, alright...
This whole thing is obnoxiously written. That "you're becoming James Joyce, man" thing is particularly annoying on several levels. The style here is marked by his reliably informal patter (which I often dislike), but also a phoney sense of camaraderie between critic and filmmaker, which is a bizarre and oleaginous way to structure an evaluative piece of writing. Then there's "snap-crackle-pop connections," another example to add to his farrago of irritating and/or meaningless phrases — his foul idiomatic brews. He then proceeds to speak to the qualities of Anderson's film without really attending to the complexities of the text (for one, given that it's a pretty close adaptation of a novel, the whole claim of being "absorbed in your own realm" is facile).
Here's another excerpt from an earlier post about IV:
It starts out OK, but that "what-the-fuck-ity" he tosses in at the end — oh, brother. And then there's that itemizing tendency, where he shares a colourful array of adjectives and tries to specify the film as a particular type of "thing." Am I wrong in thinking that Wells rarely goes beyond this, and the Oscar prognostication mode? That he doesn't often branch out to closely wrap his rhetoric around, say, a specific scene? I can recall him doing the "the film is this, and this, and this, and this" thing a lot, but not so much a close, textual grappling with a specific moment, scene, or sequence in a movie. Here's his very recent remarks on Jackie (Larra�*n, 2016): "Some of Jackie is about grief and weeping (naturally) but mostly it’s about steel — holding it together, arranging the funeral, standing up, refusing to wilt." It's always this generalized snapshot of what a movie is really "about." He seems so interested in painting these pictures that he sometimes does it well in advance of the movie itself. Here are his remarks about Scorsese's forthcoming Silence adaptation, a film for which not even a trailer has been released, but Wells is already trying to chew it up and spit back a quick approximation of what kind of "thing" it is ("I’ve always had a basic aversion to all things Christian (at least since my early 20s) and I nod out every time I see a movie about historical Japan. Is Silence going to be a solemn downer with torture scenes? A melancholy tale of martyrdom? I only know that my insect antennae are picking up signals along these lines.”)
Anyway, let's go back to the Inherent Vice remarks for a moment. Compare Wells' erratic, on-the-spot responses to Inherent Vice with this beautiful excerpt from Geoffrey O'Brien's piece on the same film:
We're talking about very different styles here, but there are other distinctions worth noting, like the execution, and the difference in clarity, eloquence, and incisiveness. Let's move from O'Brien's words and straight back to Wells now, who wrote the following as the last line in his review of Affleck's The Town:
"Whaddaya whaddaya."
And while we're talking about the possibility of alienating readers through references to other films, let's consider this bit from Wells' review of a movie that he adores, The Social Network. In addition to a vague and undeveloped reference to Zodiac (which is at least as problematic as any of the referencing that you noted in that Magnificent Seven review, no?), it is laden with references to other critics, in a gesture that is some weird mixture of outward compliment and selfcontragulation.
There's vim and vigor sometimes, I guess. He also occasionally alights on some choice observational remarks:
Last edited by Gittes; 09-14-2016 at 03:26 PM.
Wow, you really hate him.
Again, I'm talking less about the content and more about the approach. Wells is doing a cross between an old-style, daily newspaper column and a blog. References in one piece depend on references he made yesterday, the day before, or last week. He also assumes the reader follows the movie business as closely as he does. He rarely does full-blown, classical movie reviews. He is, essentially, writing trade stuff.
So I think it's a little unfair to compare that style to an 1,800 word essay in the New York Review of Books written by an academic, under the gaze of an editor, from a literary point of view, and for an entirely different audience. These are different forms with different intentions and different requirements.
I'm mostly about voice, that "vim and vigor" you noted. Like, here's a bunch of reviews written by top-flight writers about simple films:
- Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn
- The Towering Inferno
- Rocky IV
If I put these side by side and removed the bylines, you'd very easily be able to tell they were written by different people and you'd almost as easily be able to tell who wrote what, without any outside prompting. That's voice.
They're also intelligently written and fun to read. From a pure technical standpoint, each one is beautifully done.
They don't rely on dumb constructions like, "The new The Magnificent Seven is a master class in over-the-top acting and line delivery and, really, just everything. I want to see it again."
If I put Wells next to other movie bloggers -- guys like Ryan, Faraci, and McWeeny, I think you'd pick out the Wells piece immediately and struggle to identify the others.
To clarify my sensibility further --
Most of what these guys talked about, 25 or 30 years ago, doesn't exist in modern film criticism. In my mind, most reviews I see fail to meet the requirements of what a review should be, and what it should do.
Last edited by Irish; 09-13-2016 at 09:55 PM.
Eberts bit were he says "You should be able to give a film a negative review in such a way that a reader can read it and decide that film is something they want to see." THIS x 1000. One of my biggest irritations is when reviewers insult the audience, i.e., "Anyone that likes this is an idiot", or "Only a moron would be entertained by this film", etc. Dammit, unless you're talking about Manos: The Hands of Fate, never say "This is the worst film ever made". It can ALWAYS be worse.
I was commenting on your wording that readers are there "to find out if the movie is worth seeing". That's just not really why I read reviews. I decide if the movie is worth seeing. I read reviews afterwards to read good writers writing about film. Perhaps splitting hairs though; I wouldn't argue that film criticism should still clearly critique a film's worth.
You caught me on a dull day, and I've never had the chance to thoroughly express these views before. Hate is way too strong a word, so no, I don't hate him — I don't really know him, after all — but I do hate his offensive behaviour. And, on that note, here's another thing: I suspect that some of his provocations amount to a very calculated pose. I can't prove it, but I think he tries to goose up traffic on days when he needs more advertisement revenue or something, and so he deliberately makes a controversial post in order to bait his readers into repeated clicks and discussion. The implications of this — body shaming, for instance, with the express purpose of generating clicks and paycheques — are repellant. I mean, ultimately, it's repellant any way you slice it: as earnest chatter, calculated bait, or a mix of both.Wow, you really hate him.
As for his writing style, it just rankles for some of the reasons I mentioned, so I was a bit puzzled by your ample praise.
But am I not criticizing exactly that — the approach — in my previous post? I wasn't strictly talking about content and I chose examples that reflect the clumsiness of his style. I don't think my remarks should be brushed aside as quibbles with content — and therefore irrelevant to your point — when I'm specifically addressing flaws and problems within the writing itself.
OK. But the fact remains that, in the examples I shared, there's a marked disparity in thoughtfulness and insight. If Wells is your example of a top-tier writer within his respective realm, or form, then I wouldn't be too eager to see other examples from his cohort. I'm actually not sure who I could turn to in order to offer a more even comparison, or, frankly, if that's even necessary after the examples provided in my last post.
Yeah, but like I said, voice does not, ipso facto, amount to quality. You're eager to praise writers for a readily identifiable style, and that's sensible, but you're sidestepping the actual characteristics of that style. I'm talking about stuff like the "whaddaya whaddaya" nonsense (seriously, what is being meaningfully conveyed there?) — and, to be clear, idiomatic crutches like these do constitute style — as well as the embarrassing "Dear Mr. Filmmaker" epistolary digressions. Now, granted, these by the seat of his pants, extemporaneous rambles are readable and indicative of voice. But voice isn't a guaranteed imprimatur of quality. If you think contemporary criticism has left you starved for voice — this seems to be the case for you — then I can totally get wanting more of that sort of thing as a sort of basis (i.e., let's at least start with an array of discernible voices, and then we can debate about quality afterwards). But voice alone does not amount to consistently great writing.
This video is good; thanks for sharing. I get what Siskel is saying about the limitations of a formal mold. The idea is that you forfeit your voice to ventriloquize — to borrow Ebert's choice of words from later on — whatever standard of writing you're aspiring toward, and, in Siskel's view, this sometimes amounts to stuffy and impersonal rhetoric. But formality and vocal distinction aren't mutually exclusive. And Siskel doesn't seem to be saying that voice alone is enough to warrant considerable applause for a writer's achievements. Perhaps, in a climate where you're not seeing a lot of discernible voices, you're eager to applaud what you can get and refer to it as strong writing, but what I'm seeing from Wells doesn't seem to warrant that level of adulation. I mean, it can be zippy and engaging stuff, so there's talent there, but…I can't look at some of the examples I posted and think, "ace writing."
Last edited by Gittes; 09-14-2016 at 03:27 AM.
Kinda funny you point out Ebert for this example, as he was guilty of doing precisely that himself. Not sure if in his reviews, but certainly on twitter, he called people idiots for liking certain "bad movies" all the time on there, which really just put me off on him way late in his life. :\
Oh my God, me too. I think this indicates the impact of social media on film reviews. Crix tend to swing wildly between poles to get attention. Either something is a "dumpster fire" or its an immediate "masterpiece."
The other part of that vid that strikes me is when Siskel says, "Wanting to be liked is death to a critic." A lot of dudes these days seem interested in keeping on the good side of studios, PR flacks, directors, and stars. Not to mention other critics and their own audiences.
Ohhhhhhh! We got our "second parts" mixed up there. I was thinking mostly of local newspaper reviews, back in the day, where they published reviews Thursday afternoon or Friday morning for the films coming out that weekend. Like, "here's what's happening in your town and why you should care."
But I agree with your take now.
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