Movie Reviews (1 Viewer)

[Alex Spindler]

But wouldn't it be considered possible that overlooked directors now could be elevated into a higher position at a later date. There are a fair number of examples from painting.

It would be interesting to ponder which director could reach future mythical status when some new work refocuses everybody's eyes on their previous work. While I'm not much of a fan, would someone be praising Vincent Gallo in 2050 as a genius and the current reputable critics organization agree that he was?

 

[Dustin Elmore]

I never said it was 99% objective and 1% subjective John, it was only a hypothetical situtation, that actually favoured your view. Thanks for paying attention.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

There was a time when directors weren't thought of as anything more than cattle herders. It was a consensus of people - at the time, the French - who started noticing patterns and fingerprints common among director's works. Likewise, specific filmmakers have gone up and down in status through the years. Others, like Michael Curtiz - who directed Casablanca, Mildred Pierce, Yankee Doodle Dandy, The Adventures of Robin Hood as well as directing ten stars to Oscar nominations - never come up as among the best even though Spielberg and Scorsese arguably never reached such heights.

 

[JohnRice]

Ok Dustin. I'm not going to go back and dissect every one of your posts, but you did give an example where you said "even if" it were 99% technical and 1% artistic, you claim that 1% would have a "profound" (I think that's the word you used) effect on the result. That just doesn't make sense. If something has a 1% influence, it has very little influence and cannot have a profound effect on the result. Earlier you said something along the lines of people having the mistaken impression that film is highly subjective and that it is in fact almost entirely technical with only a small amount of subjectivity.

I disagree with almost everything you have said and, yes, I have thought these things through extensively. I have thought these things through for decades trying to understand what about creativity appeals to others. I can't even begin to express the hours, probably in the thousands, I have spent over the years contemplating how and why different people react the way they do to something creative. It's not just an interest or a hobby. It has to do with my livelihood.

I fully understand your views. I just diasgree with them. I also don't see any point in arguing the issue further.

 

[Dustin Elmore]

Personally I never thought of it as an argument at all.

 

[Jacob McCraw]

I think this pretty much sums it up.

My Dad goes strictly by grades and stars when deciding what films to see and I will bet he's not the only one. There are a whole lot of people (outside of this forum of course ) that do the same.

Like Dustin, I prefer not to read reviews until after I have seen a film. I have decided whether I want to see a film long before a review comes out anyway. I also agree that Roger Ebert puts a lot of spoilers in his reviews, but Roger Ebert is a "core source" that usually agrees with my sensibilities. I have to wonder though if anyone went to see "The Devil's Rejects" because he gave it three stars even though in the body of the review he says most people will not like the film.

Something I notice about Ebert, and I suppose all critics and people are guilty of this to some degree, is that he can be a moody son of a bitch. Sometimes it seems like he was having a bad day when he saw a film because he will rip it apart for not being realistic enough. Other times he will praise a film for taking him out of reality. Sometimes I wonder if he was even paying attention to the flick as he will have some real inaccuracies regarding plot, characters, and other incontrovertible facts in his reviews.

Wow, I'm kind of rambling here, but I guess I'm saying that the only person that can really review a film for you is YOU. Even if you find a critic that you generally agree with, sometimes it will be like that old saying: "Everyone's crazy except me and you, and I'm not so sure about you."

 

[Joe Karlosi]

Well said, Jacob!

 

[Mark Pfeiffer]

Wow, where to begin?


I think this happens all the time in cinema, be it with directors, actors, etc. Some films don't age well while others seem just as relevant through the passage of time. For instance, I think one problem many contemporary films, particularly comedies, will face is their heavy reliance on pop culture references. The expiration dates on those will come much sooner.

Film canons are useful, especially for those trying to broaden their knowledge base, but I think they're worth taking with a grain of salt. It's easy for a film's reputation to supercede what people really think about it. (Nothing in particular comes to mind, but I'd say it was at play in the AFI list.) At the same time, I don't find it worthwhile to be contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. If someone wants to challenge the reputation, I'm all for it if they can back it up.

It's all subjective anyway. True, some opinions are more informed than others, but having reviewed films for nine years, I'm well aware that all sorts of conditions, whether internal or external, affect my perception of it. Something I may have loved at six years old may look terrible now. The film hasn't changed, the viewer has. That's why it's rubbish to say it's a fact that this film is good and this one isn't.

As for there being places to make the right cut... I haven't made a movie, but I edit video as a daily part of my job. There are all sorts of reasons for making cuts, but the platonic ideal is not one of them. Sometimes you cut to cover what you don't have. Maybe a shot didn't turn out as expected but isn't noticed until shooting has completed. Maybe a better performance is contained in a shot that is less than ideal but works better than something in which the shot is technically perfect. I have a hard time buying into the idea that there's an exact frame at which the cut is objectively proper every time.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

This sums up what I was trying to get at nicely; thank you!

 

[Dustin Elmore]

Hey Jocob McCraw, I know exactly what you mean about Ebert being moody. It seems like he gets worse with it every year. I tend to agree with his sensablities a lot too, and the thing I always liked about his reviews is that he watches just the movie, with out any outside influences. Which is why he can give equal prais from movies that clearly are not on the same level, (like the honeymooners) because he knows that some movies can only aspire to so much. Unfortunatly every now and then he just throws that out the window for some reason, like how he picked Troy as the worst film of the year. It might not have been great to a lot of people, but his hatred of it just seems odd. I mean this is the year Catwoman and white chicks came out.

 

[Nathan V]

I think there is something to be said of the distinction between WELL-MADE films and films WE LIKE. They are not always the same, as we all know. For example, I think we have to acknowledge that the script of Lumet's Network is absolute dynamite, from a 'technical' point of view. Structurally and thematically it is brilliant. Of course we can choose not to like it, for various reasons (if someone disliked the rampant profanity, constant shouting, or was uninterested in the subject matter). However, for some reason I really think we have to acknowledge that it is well-crafted. I'm not sure why I think this, though. Even as I write this, my brain is thinking of contradicting situations, such as Godard's Breathless, and how lots of people actually thought that was bad editing, that it was truly amateur and terrible. Now everyone cuts like that. The movie's a classic. Or Pauline Kael's intense, bizarre dislike to many recognized classics- how do we account for that? We all have different life experiences, which form our views and understanding of other's views. For example, I thought Michael Mann's Ali was the best film of 2001. I really do fervently think that. Nobody else agrees with that sentiment, but that sure as hell doesn't invalidate my opinion. So in short, uh, I actually don't know what I'm saying. My mind knows that all opinions of films are subjective, and anyone is free to think that Schoonmaker is a terrible editor, or that Terrence Malick is boring. I may be understand where the opinion is coming from, but I will never, ever be able to identify with those viewpoints.

How about this: if a style suits the content, then it's A "right" stylistic approach. For example, if the Blair Witch creative team shot In the Bedroom in the Blair Witch style. Or if Michael Bay shot the Blair Witch project in his standard approach. What do we call that? A "bad" choice? A "wrong" decision?

I think so, but I think that just might be my opinion speaking. Who knows anything anymore.

Regards,
Nathan

 

[Alex Spindler]

I'd disagree because I've seen every form of 'style' applied to similar types of movie. Hyper-realism, overexposure, cinema verite, and documentary-esque have all been applied to similar horror movies. Just think of the documentary concept as it's been applied to satirical, horror, comedy, and dramatic films. Heck, sometimes doing what could probably be argued to be the 'wrong' thing leads to spectacular results (I'm thinking Die Hard's signature and exaggerated lens flares). I think great films have resulted from following a predictable path and from diverging from the path in extreme ways.

 

[Joe Karlosi]

Right here is exactly the dilemma I have so often when I rate a film. I generally agree that there ARE two different factors going on while we watch movies, very much of the time (though not always). On the one hand we're either enjoying it or not enjoying it on a "personal" level, yet at the same time we are either impressed or unimpressed with how "well crafted" it is. I've toyed with the idea of offering two types of ratings for films, something like this (for example):

"THE MOVIE OF JOHN DOE"
Technical - ****
Entertainment - **1/2

I think the most perfect situation of all is when a movie (like CITIZEN KANE or 1959's BEN-HUR, in my opinion) is both "technically proficient" and also "highly entertaining" all at the same time. To me, that's the best marriage we can hope for in a film. But how do we rate movies when there are two things going on? The way I've always done it is kind of deciding on an average. If I really love a film from beginning to end, but yet I feel it's not that well-crafted, I may deduct a point and arrive at a rating of *** instead of ****. On the flip side of this, there may be times where a movie that is boring as hell and completely worthless to me as a piece of entertainment is still very well-made on a cinematic level, so I may compromise with a **1/2 instead of a * .