I’m late to the party as usual, but this bellyache looks like it’s going to stick around for a while: Paid movie critics are a dying breed! The horror! The horror!
I can’t get worked up too much.
Read the full article.
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Results tagged “Links”
Now that filmmaker Robert Altman has died, we’ll find out how prophetic his 1990 film Vincent and Theo turns out to be. The movie, ostensibly a portrait of the relationship between Vincent van Gogh and his brother, operates most forcefully as a screed against the commercial pressures foisted on artists, and it’s easy to see as a metaphor for Altman’s own career.
The movie’s framing device is blunt yet elegant. It begins with the contemporary auction of a van Gogh painting, and when it jumps to Vincent’s life, the auctioneer’s voice can still be heard, the bids climbing ever higher. That slowly fading audio juxtaposed with an idling Vincent, anxiously adjusting his pipe while sitting on his bed, suggests that the artist had an inkling of his talent, and perhaps even foresaw his destiny: posthumous riches following a life of poverty.
Altman avoided that equivalent fate, barely, kind of. Nominated five times for the best-directing Academy Award, he was given an honorary Oscar this year.
Yet while the gold statuette is the pinnacle of respect in the eyes of the casual movie-going public, it’s an inadequate honor. Martin Scorsese will one day get his own lifetime-achievement Academy Award, but — this week at least — he seems merely a highly respected filmmaker. Altman made a far deeper connection with his audience, as evidenced by the profound grief that has greeted his passing; it’s almost as if a family member died, which is all the more remarkable considering that (1) movie directors are at best secondary celebrities, and (2) he was 81 years old.
Some starting points: Dana Stevens at Slate, assessments and an open thread at The House Next Door, the Robert Altman Blog-a-thon from earlier this year, and Jim Emerson’s Altman moments.
Film Experience Blog is hosting a Vampire Blog-a-Thon just in time for Halloween.
I was delighted to see that three bloggers saw fit to write about George A. Romero’s criminally overlooked Martin: Silly Hats Only, Richard Gibson, and Tuwa’s Shanty and The Roots Canal.
- How ignorant are you? Cinemarati recently asked its readers:
“What’s your big, embarrassing, Never-Seen-It movie?”
To help you out, you can use this tool to track your viewing history against the Internet Movie Database’s “top 250” list. (My list.) My guilty admission is that I’ve yet to see Renoir’s La Règle du Jeu (The Rules of the Game) despite its reputation. - At Slate, rather than mocking people for movies they haven’t seen, Sam Anderson judges his friends by what they want to see. What does your Netflix queue say about you?
Continue reading Ignorance and Taste: Catching Up on Links.
- Given the current sorry state of my Red Sox, I appreciate Jose Melendez’s uncovering the agenda for a recent closed-door team meeting:
“IV. Report of subcommittee on relief pitching (Julian Tavarez) 10 minutes.
a. Yield base hit.
b. Walk number-nine hitter.
c. Give up three-run homer.” - Are you a national sportwriter with decidedly modest celebrity and a meager Wikipedia entry? Salon’s King Kaufman conducts an clinic on how to get the masses to make you “notable.”
- Look at these faces!
- Some seriously mixed reviews on World Trade Center. Jim Emerson asks if you can spot which blurbs are meant as praise, and which are criticisms.
- A smart appreciation of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
- The youth are our future. And by the time they’re old enought to drink, nearly 60 percent of them would rather watch a movie at home than in the movie theater.
Odds and ends before we head off to New Orleans for a wedding. (Congratulations Theo and Jenny! Please do not spawn; the world has enough journalists.)
- For those who like articulate, incisive writing about inarticulate, blind characters, check out this treasure trove at The House Next Door, along with this insightful review of the season premiere of The Sopranos.
- Roger Ebert offers a fascinating, thoughtful review of Unknown White Male.
- And Slate, prompted by the World Baseball Classic, asks: Why is baseball season so fucking long? I was surprised at how compelling I found the argument that baseball could indeed operate much like the NFL — 16-game seasons over four months — and still have meaningful results. The author essentially claims that baseball’s pace, timbre, and casual attitude toward losing are functions of a long season, rather than a necessity because of the need for a large sample size.
Final thoughts on Crash at the Oscars:
- From Roger Ebert.
- From his Web site’s editor, Jim Emerson, who also offers this nugget about the recent disconnect between Best Picture and Best Director winners:
“Perhaps the professional membership of the Academy is, in a roundabout way, distinguishing a kind of authorial vision from lesser directorial efforts when it separates the Steven Spielbergs from the John Maddens, the Roman Polanskis from the Rob Marshalls, the Ang Lees from the Paul Haggises ... “
- And Emerson again and yet again. (I like Mr. Emerson.)
- And, surely, this is a joke. Right?
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The Psychopathic Chicken (and Other Lessons of Evolution)