The Mike D'Angelo Thread

[Trees]

Mike D'Angelo strikes again.

Dismisses "Birdman" with one flick of the wrist. What power!

[matrixschmatrix]

Wow, absolutely sticking to his argument on the whole 'editing is cinema therefore long takes are uncinema' thing.

I didn't much like Birdman but the virtuosity was the best thing it had going- I'd rather a showy surface with an empty heart than a dull surface with an equally dull interior.

[hearthesilence]

Wow, I didn't realize he had earned his own thread. Just him, Armond White and Jeffrey Wells, correct? Fine company.

[mfunk9786]

The call was made today. It was time for him to join those ranks, he's earned it. And I'm particularly fond of the post that leads all of this off. Says it all.

[domino harvey]

Wow, I didn't realize he had earned his own thread. Just him, Armond White and Jeffrey Wells, correct? Fine company.

There is a Pauline Kael one too

[Gregory]

This really goes in your website bio, Mike, with your email address above it?

Also I am currently single, so barking mad women (the only kind I seem to attract) in the greater Los Angeles area are welcome to apply for the position of Broke Writer’s Exasperated Girlfriend.

I would've felt bad making fun of him until I saw on another part of his site he takes an unexplained slap at Fred Camper by calling him "a humorless, pedantic jerkwad." Another really professional move there.

[DarkImbecile]

One thing I've noticed from following him on Letterboxd is that he seems to prescribe from that old "every film is only worthy of 2.5 to 3 stars or so, until I'm really blown away" (he actually rates on a 0-100 scale, which is mind-boggling in and of itself - and most films seem to be scored somewhere in the 40-70 range) that all-too-easily makes a critic come off as somehow a superior thinker because they're not easily pleased by the sorts of films getting effusively praised elsewhere.

As someone who also uses a ridiculous 100-point scoring scale for movies, let me say that reflexive contrarianism, elitist superiority, and what seems to be a general dislike of the vast majority of movies are not necessarily correlated with pointless specificity. Not that I don't have any of these traits, just that I don't think they stem from having a rating system that is one to two orders of magnitude too precise.

[domino harvey]

This really goes in your website bio, Mike, with your email address above it?

Also I am currently single, so barking mad women (the only kind I seem to attract) in the greater Los Angeles area are welcome to apply for the position of Broke Writer’s Exasperated Girlfriend.

I keep confusing D'Angelo with that creep from the Playlist who was busted for corruption of a minor / sex trafficking, and the above isn't helping

[mfunk9786]

And I keep thinking of this now

[mfunk9786]

That time Complex.com listed D'Angelo as one of the 25 best film critics of all time

[domino harvey]

LOL @ Lisa Schwarzbaum being ten places up from Kim Newman

[Oedipax]

Not that clickbait merits any kind of thoughtful engagement, but I don't see Serge Daney on that list so it's rather pointless.

[oh yeah]

I've always had an instant distaste of everything I've read from D'Angelo but this thread just reminded me how truly poor a critic he is. He's like some kind of internet-age Vincent Canby, his reviews an oft-incomprehensible mishmash of idiotic opinions, vague theorizing, faux-contrarian stubbornness and populist pandering. It all amounts to a lot of meaningless, navel-gazing bullshit.

I also can't stand these critics or reviewers who have such impossibly high standards that they only award 5 or 10 films (out of 1,000+) a perfect score.

[mfunk9786]

He's only given seven films a 100 score ever:

Only Angels Have Wings
Manhattan
Double Indemnity
Exotica
Brief Encounter
A Star is Born
Blood Simple

The rest are 99 or less.

[swo17]

I've only given about 1% of the films I've rated on IMDb a 10/10 rating.

[mfunk9786]

I didn't mean to imply any sort of judgment, just sharing that the percentage is probably even lower than oh yeah thinks!

[The Narrator Returns]

I suppose here is where I formally announce the fact that I quite like much of D'Angelo's writing, save for many of the examples posted here.

[zedz]

I also can't stand these critics or reviewers who have such impossibly high standards that they only award 5 or 10 films (out of 1,000+) a perfect score.

I've yet to see a perfect film, but I find this habit of grading / scoring the art you consume completely alien anyway, let alone something so important that you should worry about how other people do it.

[swo17]

My IMDb ratings are a kind of filing system:

8: To remind myself that I've seen a film and didn't dislike it
9: To remind myself to watch something again later because I deserve nice things
10: Because anything lower would feel wrong

1-7: Various degrees of disengagement depending on the kind of day I am having, but roughly:
7: Pretty good but...
6: I should know better
5: Can't be bothered to form an opinion
4: Well made but who cares
3: Laughably bad
2: Painfully bad
1: Legally Blonde

I also like to give 5s to aggressively provocative films that are shooting for a love-it/hate-it reaction.

[Newsnayr]

A friend of mine put it best when he said that it is sometimes infuriating when he dislikes something irrationally, but when he loves a film, it's the best thing in the world; I've found him to be (the majority of the time) incredibly perceptive and always interesting.

Another note, I'm perfectly fine with the general idea behind his rating scale (though I feel a 100 point scale is a bit too nitpicky for me); it allows for a greater variety in one's judgement of a film, and indeed the vast majority of users on Letterboxd (a site I and D'angelo are avid users of) use a similar scale to more readily make clear their opinion on a film.

[MongooseCmr]

I do feel kind of bad for him that he subjects himself to so many, many movies and can't seem to enjoy many of them at all. I don't think he's wrong, I just can't agree with his outlook, I'm always hoping for the next movie I see to be a new favorite.

The reason I actually enjoy D'Angelo so much is that more often than not I'm in the same camp of "It was pretty good but..." reactions to the majority of films. In fact, the mentality you said (going into every movie hoping for the best) generally just made me more disappointed when whatever flaws a films has crop up. His impossible to please tastes have generally made me comfortable of my own. I don't think D'Angelo goes into a film expecting the worst or sets out to dislike movies, he's just extremely particular, and I can respect that even if I rarely agree.

[Jeff]

I suppose here is where I formally announce the fact that I quite like much of D'Angelo's writing, save for many of the examples posted here.

Same. I was enjoying his posts on rec.arts.movies.current-films 20+ years ago the same way I enjoy many (ok, some) of the posts here. It was kind of neat to see him make it big as a critic. I don't read him much anymore, and he hates a lot of films that I love, but I always found him witty and erudite.

Just so I don't feel left out of the pile-on, I hated this a lot.

Wow, I didn't realize he had earned his own thread. Just him, Armond White and Jeffrey Wells, correct? Fine company.

[knives]

Wait, how old is he to have been a critic, of sorts, for 20+ years? I took him for at most very earlier 30s, but that makes it sound like he may be mid 40s.

[Gregory]

Yes, he's been a reviewer for 20 years.

[Jeff]

Wait, how old is he to have been a critic, of sorts, for 20+ years? I took him for at most very earlier 30s, but that makes it sound like he may be mid 40s.

Born in '68 according to Wikipedia.