General Movie Discussion
rdbrewer -- Sunday, April 18, 2004 -- 03:00:19 PM(All users will see what tags exist for a thread. Please tag carefully!)
And yet somehow the word "Jewish" is never mentioned in this article. Not once.
If Jews are now to be considered goyim, can we dispense with the pretense that they are still put upon in this country? And if we can't do away with the idea of discrimination against Jews, then can we at least dispense with this notion that the white guys running Hollywood (many of whom are Jewish) are in collusion to prevent people of color from advancing in the motion picture industry?
Some great info in the accompanying graphic, by the way. It breaks down the demographic information by branches. So you can find out that 98% of Oscar voters who are executives are white, but only 90% of directors.
When Critics Mattered: Kael, Ebert, and ’70s Film
David Ehrenstein makes an appearance in the comments section.
That's a nice essay. I am personally pleased that Ebert is still around and still respected, because he's a big reason I started exploring films in more depth. While his politics are tedious, he is still a tremendous voice in movies.
I always liked him much better than Kael who, like Rex Reed, always seemed to have seen an entirely different movie than I had.
Have you ever read David Thomson?
I just googled him. Name doesn't ring a bell, but it's unlikely I haven't read him before and just didn't know it. Why?
I think his book The Whole Equation is one of the most interesting critical works on Hollywood and moviemaking I've ever read.
Oh, here's something--I own Making of a Legend, and he scripted it.
I remember reading this review and while I'm no fan of Zacharek, it convinced me not to check it out. You liked it?
I don't think that review does justice to the book. Gassy digressions? I thought Thomson had excellent control over his writing and that those "digressions" almost always had a purpose. His opening chapter on Chinatown (and its sequel, The Two Jakes), for example, does a thorough job of explaining just how difficult it is for a unified concept of a story to make it to the screen, how much luck is involved in the quality of the outcome. In that chapter, the digressions are the point, for so much of moviemaking is a digression before one gets to the final product.
Read this Louis Menand review of a book by Pauline Kael. Isn't it an excellent encapsulation of Kael's style and influence, both devastating in its criticisms and yet supremely fair and liberal in its judgments? Don't you feel after reading the review that Menand captures the full quality of why Kael came to be such an important movie critic, but also why she fell out of fashion?
Reading Thomson on Hollywood is much like the experience of reading Menand's review on Kael, except that Thomson is more florid in his style and less analytical.
That's a lovely review. And since I like less florid and more analytical, I'm not sure I'd like Thomson in large doses.
Ebert on the MPAA's Fuck Count and its use of its opaque ratings guidelines to avoid dealing with real ethical questions - like whether a film with lots of cursing in it may actually be good for kids to be able to see in school or without their parents needing to be there.
Certainly not a big deal one way or the other, but the MPAA system continues to be just plain screwy.
Bond to order & imbibe a Heineken in the next film.
Heresy.
There's an upcoming movie about a prison breakout from an orbiting prison. Of course the beautiful journalist daughter of the warden is trapped as a hostage (or something like that). And some action star is sent up to rescue her. I can't find a trailer at the moment but I saw it recently.
The Rocket Scientist is convinced that there was a similar movie in the past about a breakout from an orbiting prison. Anyone remember that?
Not that I remember. Outland wasn't about convicts, was it?
If you're talking about the Guy Pearce movie Lockout, it's not upcoming. I saw it a couple of week ago.
This is driving me nuts. Please help me. Maybe it's my imagination. Below is Evan's friend. This is his Facebook picture right now. It keeps pinging in my head every time I see it, it reminds me of a movie cover/poster. I can see it. I can. But I can't think of which one. Does this remind anyone else of a movie cover photo?
