Lookin' goofy on television, or some Internet form thereof

9 Comments

• Joel Bocko says:

  March 26, 2013 at 3:53 pm

  Not sure where else to put it, but very much enjoyed your response to the Criticwire “Overrated Masterpiece” ques­tion. Also, although my eyes skipped over attri­bu­tion at first, I knew about two sen­tences in that the para­graph was yours – which says some­thing, I sup­pose (maybe just that I know you like quot­ing Richard Hell).

• george says:

  March 26, 2013 at 6:39 pm

  Yes, that “Overrated Masterpieces” art­icle was pretty depress­ing. Especially the “crit­ic” who could­n’t stand “Rules of the Game” because the act­ors have shaved eye­brows. Is she 15 years old? Depressing. And does any­one really regard “Black Swan” and “Moulin Rogue” as masterpieces?

• Josh Z says:

  March 26, 2013 at 8:17 pm

  The fact that the Criticwire art­icle opens with an image from 8 1/2 instantly raised my hackles. I could­n’t get through the whole thing. “Depressing” does­n’t begin to cov­er it.

• jbryant says:

  March 26, 2013 at 9:21 pm

  Glenn’s answer is the only accept­able (or even inter­est­ing) answer to that ques­tion, IMO. All oth­er answers are always a vari­ation on the same thing–“I saw that movie ‘every­body’ says it great, and it did­n’t do it for me.” Yawn.
  This sur­vey may still be prefer­able to some­what vir­al Smugfilm art­icle that sur­faced this week, in which Greg DeLiso claims that all films made before JAWS are crap, with the excep­tions of 12 ANGRY MEN and INHERIT THE WIND. Of course he’s being delib­er­ately con­trari­an, but there’s no evid­ence that he’s not ser­i­ous (or that those are the only pre-1975 films he’s seen).

• george says:

  March 26, 2013 at 9:53 pm

  http://smugfilm.com/the-idea-of-what-a-movie-is/
  Let me guess: Greg DeLiso was born in 1975? Actually, he was born in 1986, if Wickipedia is to be believed.
  Here’s his art­icle. Hope you can get past the early grafs, where he denounces “Raging Bull” as bor­ing, “not a movie,” just a bunch of foot­age, while “Field of Dreams” is advanced cinema.

• Oliver_C says:

  March 27, 2013 at 8:27 am

  “Actually, he was born in 1986, if Wickipedia is to be believed.”
  Also he stands at five feet sev­en and a half inches, if IMDB is to be believed. Evidently Mr.DeLiso is out to make up in arrog­ance and ignor­ance what he lacks in exper­i­ence and stature.
  “Does any­one really regard ‘Black Swan’ and ‘Moulin Rogue’ as masterpieces?”
  I could cer­tainly make a mod­est case for ‘The Wrestler’ – at least the first two-thirds, until its detail­ing of the quo­tidi­an inev­it­ably suc­cumbs to Aronofsky’s pat­en­ted brand of cystal-meth hyperbole.
  ‘Moulin Rouge!’ attrac­ted a few raves of the THIS-is-the-future-of-cinema! vari­ety at the time. Myself, I lost interest not long after Jim Broadbent star­ted boun­cing around the screen like some third Mario broth­er (but even then it remained prefer­able to ‘Across the Universe’).
  – Oliver_C (42, 6′0″)

• Jeff McMahon says:

  March 27, 2013 at 3:54 pm

  I’m going to be con­trari­an and say that con­trari­an­ism is valu­able, although not to excess.
  For me, when I think of “Overrated Masterpieces” my thoughts tend more toward frus­tra­tion than snide­ness, because I would really like to have the aes­thet­ic exper­i­ence every­one else has when watch­ing [Movie X] but it just does­n’t hap­pen, even after giv­ing some titles mul­tiple tries.
  Anyway, if crit­ics would engage more in dia­logue and less in pos­tur­ing we’d all be bet­ter off.

• Joel Bocko says:

  March 27, 2013 at 5:54 pm

  Yeah, Glenn seems to pur­pose­fully be avoid­ing that piece which is prob­ably for the best. The rebut­tal was won­der­ful though, and on the same site to boot!
  http://smugfilm.com/a‑rebuttal-to-the-idea-of-what-a-movie-is/
  Must con­fess, though, I’m with the eye­brow lady on Rules. I mean, the hunt­ing sequence and masquerade/shoot out are bril­liant tour-de-forces, I respect the film and even own it – but I’ve nev­er totally warmed to it not under­stood the claims that it’s the greatest film of all time or with­in hail­ing dis­tance. Like Scorsese, I cot­ton more to The River.
  But I’m with Jeff on regret­ting the films I seem to be miss­ing out on rather than tak­ing a great deal of pride in them. I’d like to see whatever oth­ers are seeing.
  ‑Joel Bocko (29, 5′7″ – we’re not all bad…)

• george says:

  March 29, 2013 at 6:21 pm

  Coming soon: Fanboy tops DeLiso with a column pro­claim­ing Joss Whedon’s “The Avengers” as “the first movie.” If it has­n’t already been writ­ten, on some web­site somewhere.