The Dismantled: Film Critics Get the Axe

[fiddlesticks]

The New York Observer has announced sweeping cutbacks today. Andrew Sarris is among those who have been given the shiv; Rex Reed is among the survivors. Read more here & discuss. H/T to numerous Twitterers; the first I noticed was Filmbrain, who is engaged in a "Best of" tribute to Rex today. (edit: second H/T to mod who dropped this into the correct thread.)

[domino harvey]

They fired Andrew Sarris and kept Rex Reed. They fired Andrew Sarris and kept Rex Reed

[Antoine Doinel]

I was thinking the same thing, but to be fair, Sarris only has a few years left in him anyway. As a long term decision, it makes sense. Sorta.

[tavernier]

Reed's no spring chicken himself.

[Barmy]

Sarris can still twitter, no? And he wasn't in Myra Breckinridge, so fair is fair.

[lacritfan]

Finally some good news.

[domino harvey]

Join the party

[colinr0380]

Todd McCarthy laid off from Variety.

[Perkins Cobb]

Dix Nix Pix Crix: Todd McCarthy axed by Variety.

[domino harvey]

Jesus Christ! Is this the end of film reviewing?

[Michael Kerpan]

Dix Nix Pix Crix: Todd McCarthy axed by Variety.

Sux!

[Grand Illusion]

The article says they will maintain the same amount of reviews by delegating reviews to existing staff and freelancers. I don't believe them, so I'll now review their decision in a Variety-styled review:

Variety's pic reviews remain a crix favorite. Helmer Todd McCarthy passes the torch to freelancers after the statuettes have been passed out. Well-written and regarded among industry vets and execs, the reviews should still find an audience. Early word-of-mouth should keep continued distrib with Var's print pub, but eventually interest will taper off. Expect a limited release on the web sometime next year.

[Perkins Cobb]

Even Admiral Feng agrees: Variety has committed an Epic Fail!

[Matt]

If there's anything Feng knows, it's film criticism.

By the way, I can't wait for "epic fail" and its ilk to go the way of "talk to the hand" and "all that and a bag of chips."

[Gary Tooze]

Hey Matt!
Sorry this doesn't fit - people have emailed me this interview of Eddie, found here:

http://www.dvdmania.co.pt/Conteudos/ent ... l.php?ID=9" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Interviewer: What in particular do you find special about your collection of Criterion Collection DVDs? Why did you lose interest in that sub-collection?

Eddie Feng: "Like a lot of things in the cinema industry, the Criterion Collection is “special” only because of advertising and hype. Criterion is like any other third-party licensor that obtains the rights to distribute movies that rights-holders aren’t interested in releasing. Criterion does what Arnold Schwarzenegger did as a bricklayer--you charge people a lot of money and throw around a lot of European names, and suddenly, people think you must be offering a special kind of service that is a cut above the average."


Gary

[Jeff]

What good is Criterion when they haven't even released any Star Trek or Bourne flicks? Besides that they do not supply the Admiral with free screeners! I think this might be veering back toward the "any idiot who'll pay the tuition can get a Master's in film" thread, or whatever it's called.

[HistoryProf]

Do you distinguish “high art” films from low-brow, pop culture films?

Eddie Feng says: No. This is actually a very dangerous and simple-minded distinction. “High art” can be suffocating, boring, stilted, pretentious, and racist/sexist/biased without the artist consciously intending it. Studying “low art” can be very revelatory because we can see what the majority of people in a given time liked to enjoy when they had free time. This provides insights into how people of an era perceived themselves and the world.



So what insights do Transformers 2, Old Dogs, All About Steve, Ashton Kutcher, and Avatar offer about how people today perceive themselves in the world.

what does that even mean?

[HistoryProf]

Hey Matt!
Sorry this doesn't fit - people have emailed me this interview of Eddie, found here:

http://www.dvdmania.co.pt/Conteudos/ent ... l.php?ID=9" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Interviewer: What in particular do you find special about your collection of Criterion Collection DVDs? Why did you lose interest in that sub-collection?

Eddie Feng: "Like a lot of things in the cinema industry, the Criterion Collection is “special” only because of advertising and hype. Criterion is like any other third-party licensor that obtains the rights to distribute movies that rights-holders aren’t interested in releasing. Criterion does what Arnold Schwarzenegger did as a bricklayer--you charge people a lot of money and throw around a lot of European names, and suddenly, people think you must be offering a special kind of service that is a cut above the average."


Gary

you left out:

The fact of the matter is that a lot of Criterion releases are exactly the kind of bad “high art” that I attacked in response to a previous question. (see post above)

Also, Criterion is beholden to financial realities like any other company. For example, Criterion was interested in releasing some titles owned by Buena Vista (Disney). The contract that both companies signed gives Criterion little control over what Buena Vista does with Buena Vista-Criterion discs. This explains why the awful director Michael Bay rates two Criterion mentions (for “The Rock” and “Armageddon”) and why the living-in-his-own-world “high art” Wes Anderson rates three Criterion mentions.

Criterion also rarely ventures beyond Japan, France, and Italy when it releases a non-English-language movie. This means that the Criterion Collection is hardly as representative of the “best” of world cinema as it claims.

Criterion puts a lot of good stuff into the market. At the same time, it’s a company whose reputation is built upon a foundation of half-truths and people’s mis-perceptions of what it does. Criterion doesn’t actively foster those mis-perceptions, but it doesn’t dis-abuse people of them, either.

[HistoryProf]

If there's anything Feng knows, it's film criticism.

By the way, I can't wait for "epic fail" and its ilk to go the way of "talk to the hand" and "all that and a bag of chips."

and "i just threw up in my mouth a little" I don't know where that one came from, but it needs to sleep with the fishes.

[Perkins Cobb]

Nevertheless, I did just throw up in my mouth a little while reading the Feng digression. And: Gary's back?!

[cdnchris]

That interview as a whole... F*ck! ](*,)

[Napoleon]

Ha ha. Eddie seems to be getting worse not better. I don't know how Gary put up with the guy for so long.

[domino harvey]

How can an entire DVD collecting interview be centered around someone who only owns ~500 DVDs? Better question: Why did I read that?

[dx23]

Why the hell would anyone interview Feng about any topic in life? His responses are almost as bad a Armond White reviews. Just this answer gave me nausea:

Do you distinguish “high art” films from low-brow, pop culture films?

No. This is actually a very dangerous and simple-minded distinction. “High art” can be suffocating, boring, stilted, pretentious, and racist/sexist/biased without the artist consciously intending it. Studying “low art” can be very revelatory because we can see what the majority of people in a given time liked to enjoy when they had free time. This provides insights into how people of an era perceived themselves and the world.

[HistoryProf]

Why the hell would anyone interview Feng about any topic in life? His responses are almost as bad a Armond White reviews. Just this answer gave me nausea:

Do you distinguish “high art” films from low-brow, pop culture films?

No. This is actually a very dangerous and simple-minded distinction. “High art” can be suffocating, boring, stilted, pretentious, and racist/sexist/biased without the artist consciously intending it. Studying “low art” can be very revelatory because we can see what the majority of people in a given time liked to enjoy when they had free time. This provides insights into how people of an era perceived themselves and the world.

it really is like something you'd hear two college freshmen discussing over gratuitously priced coffee in a random American campus town - loudly and with such conviction you can only laugh at their simplistic naivete bolstered by such sincere self satisfaction that they are just soooooooo smart to have figured that out. it's, like, so deep brah.