FILM CRITICISM IS DEAD

12/01/2025

Hello it’s been a while and I wanted to share a new weekly segment from my letterbox files called “Everyone’s a Critic” the best short reviews that kinda nailed it.

01/10/2024

Hello October…

22/07/2024

Some say it was a triumph of marketing, a score that WB wanted to settle with Nolan after he took his passion project to Universal so they released their projected summer monster Barbie to crush him and bring him back at a discount… but something funny happened on the way to the theater. People heard that both movies were good, not good, great. Must sees both of them, a guaranteed great time in the theater if you venture out totally different movies from genre and tone, but quality all around. So, people literally wanted to sit in a theater for 5+ hours and see both in one day. We can’t get people to come out for nearly anything based on star power. But here people flocked to theaters to see the movies, why? Quality is the draw, no matter the genre, or the stars if it’s great then people will go to see it. Perhaps what this reveals about the current state of the industry is creatives being reduced to transient figures directors just need to politically get along with executives and do as told, writes replaceable at the drop of a hat, casting decisions based on instagram followers… it’s time for executives to make bold decisions and take a back seat and hire some real auteurs like Gerwig and Nolan to make quality films that they can market as such.

One year ago today 'OPPENHEIMER' and 'BARBIE' both released in theaters.

08/07/2024

Couldn’t have anything to do with the movie being terrible…

The actor said that “people just make such a joke out of everything now" in a recent interview.

11/04/2024

Great piece on one of my favorite actors…RIP

11/04/2024

Some interesting thoughts on Altered States from William Hurt…

William Hurt on "Altered States" (1980): "I was jumping out of my skin because Paddy Chayefsky was articulating ideas that were so far ahead of their time. Molecular biology and quantum physics, the sources of altruism, the notion of love over truth. I had been thinking about the beginnings of our current situation, intellectual property in bio-engineering, I had been thinking about computers and all that. And then I read this script and I was in a Cuban coffee shop up on 78th and Amsterdam and I couldn't stop reading it and I couldn't stop weeping for about half an hour and I couldn't stand up for 45 minutes because it was every idea that I had been thinking about. Everything was in this thing."

Hurt didn't want to star in the movie himself but really wanted to convince writer Chayefsky to make it anyway, because "the ideas had to get out." So he "took the script away for two weeks, memorized every word, worked on the entire structure of the entire thing, every scene," and went in after two weeks. Hurt says that "Fifty-nine minutes and 30 seconds later," he stood up and went like, "That's why I think you have to make it. And I'm going." But at that point, {director Arthur Penn], Chayefsky, and [producer Howard Gottfried] went in a corner and started talking; after they were done, they told him they would have made the movie only if he was in it. So, Hurt did; it was his film debut.

Hurt says that he knew just a little about director Ken Russell prior working with him, and just because he had seen his movies. About his first meeting with Russell, Hurt said in an interview, "We were in this little room and there was this radiator and a little desk and a chair and we didn't sit for a half an hour, neither one of us. Finally he sat on a radiator and I sat on the floor. When he sat on the radiator his pants pulled up and I saw he had Betty Boop socks on. It was then I thought, 'I'll do it'."

"A lot of what we do as actors now, it simply isn't acting. Because you can't get a script at 11 o'clock at night and shoot at 9 o'clock the next morning and call that acting. You can call that being well-used by a director. You can call it being a wonderful reflection of what your teachers instilled in you over the years and years of hopeful study. But you can't call it personal participation in the work. You can call it showing up in terror."

27/01/2024

I’ve heard some people talk about Oliver Stone like he’s lost a step or has gone to a different way of thinking… if you think that then you never knew anything about Oliver Stone he’s spent his career putting his foot in his mouth more often than he’s said things that were thoughtful and appropriate. Go all the way back to his Oscar acceptance speech for Midnight Express. He had a serious point and botched the delivery. In this case he’s willing admit he hadn’t seen the movie when they asked him his opinion then he saw it and liked it can we move on? We have more important issues to argue about in the Oscars race like how did people from a mediocre art film get snubbed when talented people were nominated in their place.

Responding to a story on his criticism of the film before he had seen Greta Gerwig’s blockbuster, Stone posted an apology and wished the film’s team success at the Oscars

27/01/2024

There are always snubs in the award season but no, this is not one of them. She gave a good performance in an okay movie, but she was not a stand out of the year beyond a short list. Why this movie got nominated for picture and script is beyond me. Greta Lee is a talented performer and will do I feel better work in the future but I dare those who disagree to hold up the list of nominees and point to the undeserving party.

The Academy wrongfully overlooked Greta Lee’s brilliant performance in Celine Song’s Past Lives.

03/11/2023

So… when the film industry media is trying to discredit each part of your movie or at least bring each part of it into question for the readership aka academy voters, you know the Oscar war has already begun… seems like warner brothers (Barbie) or universal (Oppenheimer) is firing the opening salvo.

"Flower Moon" viewers have widely panned Brendan Fraser for his performance, but Martin Scorsese calls the actor "perfect."

01/11/2023

There comes a point where everything ends, I look at Roger Corman’s Jurassic Park rip off Carnosaur series. Carnosaur 1 made a good profit, Carnosaur 2 made less profit but still did well, Carnosaur 3 broke even and that’s when Roger Corman pulled the plug on the series. Carnosaur like Marvel has run it’s course and with its diminishing returns and soft enthusiasm from the public maybe it’s time to scale down and wait until the public is hungry again…

“The Marvels” underwent reshoots and a rare test screening, “Blade” keeps changing, and the studio has floated reviving original Avengers heroes.

25/09/2023

Because marketing departments in studios are lazy, this movie should be an event the same was Oppenheimer and Barbie were but the marketing departments on those movies got lucky and the public latched on to the public feud between the competing films, and in the end both films won. Here you have a visionary director who’s had success in the past and an original story whos concept in the media everyday.. AI is an easy sell but it requires creativity on the part of the studios to generate buzz.

Hollywood can’t seem to figure out how to sell an epic genre film without a franchise to latch onto anymore

15/09/2023

Not that I needed a reason to not see Brightburn 2 but the fact that it is being written I’m assuming with conjunction with AI means I’ll have to actively dissuade others from seeing it. From a producer who’s writing talents are what got him into the industry… what lazy people

🚨BREAKING🚨

➡️ Brightburn 2 is on the horizon, and guess who's writing it? An AI! Get the scoop on this "revolutionary" approach to movie-making.



➡️ FULL POST ➡️ https://buff.ly/48btVfT