“How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.” – Shakespeare and Willy Wonka
I have been online for twenty years. I didn’t start this website, then Oscarwatch, until 1999. I’d spent most of my time chattering with people from all over the world about movies on a usenet listserv. Back then there really wasn’t a web to speak but once the internet turned into the “World Wide Web” suddenly a whole new dimension opened up. Anyone could start a site as long as they had a modem, a computer and the willingness to learn HTML. You could compete with the established magazines because they were slow getting online and as long as your site looked professional and kind of, sort of, sounded professional you could be taken as a legitimate “source.” That aspect of online “journalism” has not changed. Anyone with a site, anyone who calls themselves a film critic can be one. They can get themselves on Rotten Tomatoes. They can join the Broadcast Film Critics (or they used to be able to). They can define themselves as professionals and no one really cares whether they are legit or not, ethical or not. They have no editors who do the hiring and require credentials. That has been great and it has been devastating.
Since I came in through the backdoor, I have never seen myself as a journalist or a film critic. Sure, I write reviews but I’m not a critic. I am what Harry Knowles would call a “film advocate.” I don’t tend to write negative reviews (I don’t feel qualified to speak with authority in that regard) and I believe film criticism, like art and architecture criticism should be limited to those who really have the insight, the talent and the experience to be qualified to judge people who actually have their boots on the ground and are putting their careers on the line to make movies.
I also have never thought of myself as a journalist. The closest I’ve come to that is being part of the Women Journalists Online. That’s because journalism is, as George Orwell would say, writing what no one wants you to write. The rest is just public relations. Journalists have to care about the story over all things. I do not. I cannot.
This year, Anne Thompson — who really is a journalist — and one of the best in the Oscar blogging world (what she does can’t be confined to simply Oscar blogging) decided to buck the current trend of predicting films no one has seen. Thompson is on the Gurus of Gold and Movie City News but she is the only one swimming against the tide, refusing to predict films she hasn’t seen. You might look at her list and think, huh? Where is Unbroken? Where is Interstellar? But you see, they have not yet been seen and she is refusing to play that game anymore. I think it’s quite remarkable.
My contender tracker to the right side of my page has always only tracked films that have been seen. When I first started there was only my site and Tom O’Neil’s Gold Derby. The idea of predicting films that hadn’t been seen was simply not done. That was because, firstly there were hardly any “Oscar bloggers.” Blogging, as such, barely existed. Film critics would put out their Oscar predictions towards the end of the year but there was no industry for that as there is now. As new sites began to launch, a new movement was afoot to predict films that hadn’t opened and in some cases that hadn’t even been filmed. Oscar watchers in forums and on some websites liked projecting way into the future, gambling on the future success of some films. It mostly, I have to say, didn’t pay off. Every so often the “on the page” Oscar contender would live up to expectations and actually get nominated. Those who predicted them “sight unseen,” as we called it, would then have bragging rights, even though it was just a guess based on “pedigree,” subject matter and the people involved.
Well that whole practice has turned the industry completely around. Now, sight unseen predictions are used by publicists to drum up Oscar buzz for films no one has any idea whether they will fly or not. Anyone paying the slightest bit of attention can tell you what might win based on subject matter and filmmakers. It’s much harder to predict once people have seen the films. Only then can you tell the pros from the amateurs. Anne Thompson, this year, is playing the game the way it should be played, the only way you can really be A) fair to the productions by keeping the door open to other possibilities than “the list,” and B) really know what the fuck you’re doing when you say this film might get nominated for Best Picture but it depends on what’s coming next.
I refused for many years to participate in “sight unseen” predictions but I had to if I wanted to be included on Gold Derby and Gurus of Gold. That’s how the game was played. It never occurred to me to do it the way Anne Thompson is doing it. She is just that ballsy. And frankly has earned that right.
Now, it must be said that there is no indication whether sight unseen is better or worse than what’s been seen. In fact, in some cases, it can be blinding. Scott Feinberg has seen David Fincher’s Gone Girl and as a result has decided not to predict it for a nomination for Best Picture or Best Director. Anne Thompson did just the opposite. She saw the film and is now predicting it for a nomination for Best Picture and Best Director. But, she says, it could be knocked out by what’s coming next. Feinberg, by contrast, is betting already that whatever unknown thing coming next is going to be more beloved than what has already been seen.
It is much harder to predict the Oscars after having seen the films because then you have to factor in your own opinion and like it or not it does always come back to what “they” will think, not what YOU think. And what they think doesn’t always have to do with how good a film is. I know that my own opinion would have had so many films up for Best Picture that never got near the Kodak (Dolby). But I also have seen the opposite. I’ve heard people — very good Oscar predictors — say things like “No Country for Old Men will never win Best Picture” or “The Departed will never win Best Picture.” We make these grand proclamations based on our own opinion because we second guess what “they” will do, what “they” can handle and by the looks of it, this is what most people think about the Academy:
They are pansy-ass wimps who can’t tolerate 1) a tragic, dark ending, 2) a movie not about a good person. And they only like 1) movies about redemptive (usually male these days) hero and 2) preferably set in a time not our own, preferably WW2 but the 1930s will suffice, or even the 1970s, 1980s. They are old and so they like nostalgia, representations of what life used to be like. These voters, though, picked No Country for Old Men, The Departed and the Hurt Locker — a phase in their recent history I myself cannot get over because it was so unexpected, so startlingly refreshing and really seemed to knock down those preconceived notions of what and who “they” were. But enter The King’s Speech, The Artist and Argo and things rubber-banded back to the old way. Thus, when Scott Feinberg predicts a Gone Girl shut-out he is doing so based on that recent history.
The other reason for doing that is that voters only have five slots for Best Picture now. When they had ten slots (2009, 2010) they had the freedom to pick animated films, genre films, films directed by women. With five they are more inclined towards the sappy, the feel good, the films about heroic people. With five, can you imagine any grown man (and they’re all basically men) choosing an animated film as one of their top five of the year? Or even a genre film? Or any film with unlikable characters? This is how one of the best films last year, Inside Llewyn Davis, was shut out. With five, the heart gets involved. Thus, Feinberg’s forecast about Gone Girl could prove true.
The Producers Guild has ten slots, not five, and thus their list often throws people off a bit. They have a preferential ballot with ten slots. The Academy has a preferential ballot with five slots and then they also include the extra movies that were close to getting in. But we’re still basically talking about five choices.
On the other hand, a good movie is a good movie is a good movie and Gone Girl is a great fucking movie, whether the 6,000 voters in the Academy realize that or not. Sometimes they do recognize it. Anne Thompson, at this point, is betting they do, and so am I.
I will be watching Anne Thompson’s predictions (but no pressure!) throughout the season and compare them to other predictions to see whether it really does many you a better predictor or not. But one thing I know for sure: whether it makes her a better predictor or not it makes the world safer for movies overall. It expands rather than limits the list of possibilities. It returns the Oscar race back to its former state when every film had a chance, when these films weren’t dependent upon the lowered expectations of film bloggers who, like film critics, are really only as good as their imagination allows. Anne Thompson has always taken bold chances as a predictor — she was among the first to predict Ang Lee to win Best Director in 2012 and this year among the first to mention Whiplash’s possibilities. The more people who play it safe, prejudging what “they” will do, the more the field gets limited to the few sheep remaining in the pen once the bloggers decide what “they” will and what “they” won’t go for.
Here’s to hoping she starts a trend.
When Kenneth Turan recently decided not to include his negative review of Boyhood, allowing the film to enjoy the rare 100% on Metacritic it stopped me in my tracks. I thought, wow, really? Turan knew that Boyhood was a great film that a lot of people were enjoying. He didn’t count his ego and his reputation and his opinion as being greater than the ultimate success of this film that so many put their blood, sweat and tears into. What a classy move.
When I started my website the first thing I did when a movie came out what check to see what Todd McCarthy at Variety (then) and Kirk Honeycutt at the Hollywood Reporter (then) thought. Theirs were always the first reviews to be released. They would sometimes come out on a Friday. We would all work together to gather the reviews — there was no Rotten Tomatoes then, nor Metacritic. Kenneth Turan would be next over at the LA Times. But remember, these reviews would just start to show up online the day before, or sometimes the week before, the film opened. It was unheard of to have critics ringing in a couple of weeks before a film opened.
The next important voice to ring in were the New York Times critics — I believe A.O. Scott was at the Times, though I think Manohla Dargis was still at the LA Weekly. Elvis Mitchell and, I think, Janet Maslin were at the New York Times. Glenn Kenny was at Premiere, I do believe, or Anne Thompson. We would then hear from Owen Gleiberman and Lisa Schwarzbaum at Entertainment Weekly. And of course, there was Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel in Chicago. Of all of these critics the only one who really engaged with the online world was Ebert, who was an early adopter. Such made up the sum total of the majority of important film critics back in 1999. The only thing that mattered was what they thought of the films.
If McCarthy and Honeycutt had negative things to say it didn’t matter that much because further down the road were the bigger outlets that could easily undo those reviews. People often remembered the reviews that came after — they didn’t collect them on a chart and measure a film’s worth against that score. There was no Twitter where a mob can form and the cool kids decide what people should like, what’s uncool to like, and how you will be ridiculed for liking a film — or even disliking a film because you go against the tide. Film critics are under assault, especially women, if they go against a fanboy pic — god help any of them who write a negative review of Interstellar.
On the other hand, on a much smaller scale, there is a deforestation happening in American film. It isn’t such a big problem internationally, as we can see from the diverse offerings at the Cannes film festival. But here in America, the indie scene might be thriving but the movies in theaters that are about anything other than a remake or a sequel? They’re migrating to television. The international filmmakers are taking over because in those countries they do not have the fluffer machine in place here, they don’t have opening box office obsession and they do not raise branded generations.
Perhaps that explains why there hasn’t been an American film director to win Best Director at the Oscars since Kathryn Bigelow did it in 2009. Five years ago. Of course, Ben Affleck might have broken that trend had he been nominated. At any rate, if you don’t see the deforestation here you’re not paying attention. Sure, the indie scene will always thrive, and thus, the Independent Spirit awards is really where American film finds its support net.
Films are nearly impossible to get made, especially expensive films. They always have been, they always will be. In my world, however, critic reviews can often make the difference between a film being rewarded both at the box office and in the awards race. So, who cares, right? The average e-pinion of someone is deemed more important than anything else in a time frame of the five minutes it takes to read a review. It is that fast, the dismissal. If you have universal acclaim for a film that still doesn’t mean audiences will agree with the critics. In fact, these days, it usually means the opposite — they can’t believe why the critics were so over the moon for such a terrible film.
The opposite is proving even more true — the correlation between box office sales and film reviews tells you that the majority of people out there don’t even bother with film reviews anymore. Any good the film critics might have on impacting the future of film has long since vanished. But they do have an impact in the awards race, and the small segment of the public that does still care about original and vital film, both American and international, not just the branded fast food $200 million hits. There is still a community of people out there in the dark who care about film, the future of film, the freedom for great artists to flourish in such a despairing, depressing market where opening box office counts.
There is room for all kinds of art in film. There is room for entertainment on a massive scale, for comedies and romance. There is room for happy endings and period pieces that win Oscars. There is room for biopics and sci-fi. I wish there were more original works than sequels but hey, you can’t have everything.
What Kenneth Turan saw when he took a look around at the praise for Boyhood was a community supporting the efforts of a dedicated, grass roots filmmaker who took 12 years to make a film. He didn’t step into the room and act like Ned in Shakespeare in Love – like HIS OPINION was the ONLY THING THAT MATTERED and that the bigger picture did not. He recognized that maybe it was just him. Maybe his own peculiarities did not allow him in to a film that so many people loved. And so he wrote about that. He didn’t put his review into the score machine that can sink movies now. He didn’t play the gotcha game and didn’t open himself up to all of the anger from Boyhood fans. He had done it back in 1997 by being one of the few dissenters of Titanic but again, look at that how that one turned out: it became the highest grossing film of all time (until Avatar knocked it out) and won Best Picture. Turan’s review would have had no impact on that film. But it would have significant impact on Boyhood and he knew that.
That, to me, is balls. What I see from other critics is that their opinion seems to matter above all other things and the last thing they’re going to do is take a look at themselves and think, you know, maybe it’s just me.
Even Bosley Crowther, who famously wrote that negative review of Psycho added a caveat — the royal “we.” He made his point by saying — here is the film. This is what we thought of the film.
That’s the way it is with Mr. Hitchcock’s picture — slow buildups to sudden shocks that are old-fashioned melodramatics, however effective and sure, until a couple of people have been gruesomely punctured and the mystery of the haunted house has been revealed. Then it may be a matter of question whether Mr. Hitchcock’s points of psychology, the sort highly favored by Krafft-Ebing, are as reliable as his melodramatic stunts.
Frankly, we feel his explanations are a bit of leg-pulling by a man who has been known to resort to such tactics in his former films.
The consequence in his denouement falls quite flat for us. But the acting is fair. Mr. Perkins and Miss Leigh perform with verve, and Vera Miles, John Gavin, and Martin Balsam do well enough in other roles.
The one thing we would note with disappointment is that, among the stuffed birds that adorn the motel office of Mr. Perkins, there are no significant bats.
He did no so such thing, however, for Bonnie and Clyde, where he (again famously) wrote:
It is a cheap piece of bald-faced slapstick comedy that treats the hideous depredations of that sleazy, moronic pair as though they were as full of fun and frolic as the jazz-age cutups in Thoroughly Modern Millie. And it puts forth Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway in the leading roles, and Michael J. Pollard as their sidekick, a simpering, nose-picking rube, as though they were striving mightily to be the Beverly Hillbillies of next year.
It has Mr. Beatty clowning broadly as the killer who fondles various types of guns with as much nonchalance and dispassion as he airily twirls a big cigar, and it has Miss Dunaway squirming grossly as his thrill-seeking, sex-starved moll. It is loaded with farcical holdups, screaming chases in stolen getaway cars that have the antique appearance and speeded-up movement of the clumsy vehicles of the Keystone Kops, and indications of the impotence of Barrow, until Bonnie writes a poem about him to extol his prowess, that are as ludicrous as they are crude.
Such ridiculous, camp-tinctured travesties of the kind of people these desperados were and of the way people lived in the dusty Southwest back in those barren years might be passed off as candidly commercial movie comedy, nothing more, if the film weren’t reddened with blotches of violence of the most grisly sort.
Arthur Penn, the aggressive director, has evidently gone out of his way to splash the comedy holdups with smears of vivid blood as astonished people are machine-gunned. And he has staged the terminal scene of the ambuscading and killing of Barrow and Bonnie by a posse of policemen with as much noise and gore as is in the climax of The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.
This blending of farce with brutal killings is as pointless as it is lacking in taste, since it makes no valid commentary upon the already travestied truth. And it leaves an astonished critic wondering just what purpose Mr. Penn and Mr. Beatty think they serve with this strangely antique, sentimental claptrap, which opened yesterday at the Forum and the Murray Hill.
He ended his career after that review but he might have saved it, or softened the blow somewhat by admitting — just maybe — it was him? I mean, just maybe? Critics today write with such authority because they think that’s how you’re supposed to write a review. But the truth is, the good ones write subjectively so that you know full well that it is their opinion. The bad ones write as though they’re speaking for everyone when they casually dismiss a movie.
This way of writing film reviews has become so irritating to me that I have limited the amount of reviews I read — if it isn’t a subjective take, I do not give a damn. I’m not reading a review as though it’s on Yelp or Amazon. I want to know who you are and why you thought this. I know a lot of these critics personally and knowing them helps me understand why they evaluate films the way they do. There isn’t a single one of them whose opinion I would value over my own. Not anymore. Perhaps as a young woman of 34, which is how old I was when I started, but not now, as a woman almost 50 years old. Now I know what makes a movie good and I can plainly see when the riches of a film, even with so many bad reviews, far outweighs the massive amounts of e-pinions ringing in on that movie.
In the end, one has to come back to trust. Know the critic before you trust the critic. Do not take their advice until you’ve measured it against what you know to be true. Their opinion comes from a combination of life experience, education, expectations, a little narcissism and whatever mood they carry in with them the day they see the film. Just because someone is published on a website does not make their opinion necessarily more valuable than yours. Trust me, getting published on a website now is a lot easier than it used to be.
Michael Page ruminated on this topic, built a spreadsheet and came out deciding that audiences, not film critics, are better at predicting what he would like. I myself have never found the be all, end all of what I would like. I find we are all so peculiar and our moods are so easily influenced, there isn’t a single person I could look to for helping me decide. But over time, audiences do tend to unearth the best films. From Vertigo to Shawshank Redemption, somehow time sorts it all out.
I have always admired Kenneth Turan. I count him as among the few critics whose opinion I have always trusted but after he bucked the system, bucked the trend, by refusing to play the game as it’s defined now — he measured his opinion against the success of a fledgling. That showed me that he really does get the bigger picture of what is happening to film right now.
Thus, Anne Thompson and Kenneth Turan are changing the game, bit by bit, tiny move by tiny move. There were here when I started and they’re still here. My hat goes off to the two of them — if no one else noticed what they’ve done, I most certainly have.
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Long piece on an apparently simple topic, Sasha, but very worth a read. Full of your own opinions too, proving that you practise what you preach!
Thanks, Ryan. I’ll be in touch!!
P
Sasha, I agree the BFCA is more like a contest these days. Ever watch the telecast? I want to throw up when it’s on. I will say as far as original choices AND decent picks that go to Oscar wins/nominations go (people may laugh if they like) the Golden Satellite Awards make some really interesting picks. Now there will be some real head scratchers like Rachel McAdams for Midnight in Paris but for every nomination like that you will get amazing nominations for The Sessions and best director/adapted screenplay and The Visitor for best director. I think people used to laugh/still laugh at the Golden Satellites because most people look at awards groups as Oscar wannabes. Some groups just pick what they think is best. Did anybody other than the GS group predict Thomas McCarthy to be nominated for best director by the Oscars? Probably not. But that’s what makes it such a sincere pick because I believe they thought he did the best job.
hey, Paul. Here’s our contact info. I’ll email you to establish a tether 🙂
Hey Ryan Adams. What is your Email address?? I have a feeling I’m going to need it to get through the Oscar season, just in that one category: Oscar. Need the info as quickly as possible from now til Awards night, if that’s okay with you.
Thanks!!
Sasha, whether or not it was a classy move, how is Turan’s decision to abstain his counter-consensus opinion on Boyhood doing anything to counter the mob mentality of film criticism? He’s suppressing his own disagreement in order to maintain the positive consensus of a film that everyone else liked. Turan seems to be part of the problem, in that respect.
My opinion on the whole problem of what the film awards season has become, and Oscar blogging for the sake of “getting it right” is included in this problem, is that voters have stopped voting for what they believe SHOULD win and instead vote for what they think WILL win because of this very common (even in the political arena) idea that voting for the winner is more important than voting for the best option.
Yeah, the precursors for sure. I’m afraid I helped start this problem way back when by comparing which group was most influential or matched Oscar best. Started to turn the whole thing into a contest with the BFCA being the worst offenders, IMO. They stopped being influencers and tried instead to be predictors. The only ones that don’t seem to do that, though, are the Golden Globes.
Because there are so many film groups handing out awards throughout the season we’ve developed the idea of pre-cursors which slowly build an argument, whether acknowledged by the voter or not, that a certain actor or film will be the Oscar winner and therefore must be voted for. The Academy’s voting body doesn’t have the guts to vote independently of everything else, but perhaps if they did we would see a new trend develop–a trend characterized by its unpredictability. But for now, the Oscars are so so so so so predictable by mid-December, if not well before, and not because of critics or Oscar bloggers or stats or precedent or audiences or campaign money, but because voters take. no. risks.
Well the thing is, it’s a giant consensus vote. It’s harder to take risks when you’re dealing with that kind of majority. Things get even worse where Best Picture is concerned because of the preferential ballot. Although I wonder how the narrative that 12 Years just squeaked by fits in with the preferential ballot. At any rate, when you’re talking about a huge voting body the lowest or highest common denominator wins. And as Bob Dylan said, most people want to be on the side that’s winning. There have been studies done that say men’s testosterone actually goes down when they think they’re standing next to a loser. So it’s a combination of that momentum – a winner just keeps looking like a winner and the precursor thing of trying to read what Oscar will do. On the other hand, I have seen breaks with that consensus vote – like Eddie Murphy not winning for Dreamgirls, for example. Crash winning Best Picture.
And, really, isn’t that was Turan is doing by not submitting his review of Boyhood to Metacritic? Isn’t he laying down and saying “Boyhood has won over everyone and even my one vote against it cannot unsettle that so it’s pointless to voice it in the first place”? When did we enter a time and space when we valued someone suppressing their opinion simply because it differs from the vast majority?! I do not like Boyhood at all and am kind of disenchanted by the idea that while my opinion will never be heard there is someone out there’s who shares my opinion and could make his heard, but has chosen not to and so my opinion becomes even more unrepresented than it already was. That’s an unfortunate state of events in the world of film criticism if you ask me.
I felt that (as I wrote above) Turan did the responsible thing in the face of how things have changed. Two big ways: less grass roots films doing really well and more focus on opening weekend and also the mob mentality of film criticism. He was saying ‘maybe it’s just me’ because he is a man of humility and kindness not of giant ego. And that, my friends, is class.
Sally, it’s one small step toward our dream life of Bradbury’s parlor walls! Embrace it!
Sasha, you’re missing the biggest movie story this month: First run movies released on Netflix. UGH! Make it go away.
“Anyone paying the slightest bit of attention can tell you what might win based on subject matter and filmmakers. It’s much harder to predict once people have seen the films. ”
Disagree. It’s much easier to predict something that has proven to be well-liked than something that has not been seen. Take your pet Boyhood for instance. Who is gutsier- the person who predicted it in April or the person predicting it now?
You say that after films are released, it becomes more difficult because you have to consider others’ opinions, not only your own. The same goes before a film’s release. I am so excited about Into the Woods. I’m not predicting it though because I don’t think others will care for the final product. I’m not only predicting the Oscars, but also how a given project will shake out. We can argue whether that damages the Oscar race (I’m not sure I’d disagree) but it’s certainly not “easier.”
My opinion on the whole problem of what the film awards season has become, and Oscar blogging for the sake of “getting it right” is included in this problem, is that voters have stopped voting for what they believe SHOULD win and instead vote for what they think WILL win because of this very common (even in the political arena) idea that voting for the winner is more important than voting for the best option.
Because there are so many film groups handing out awards throughout the season we’ve developed the idea of pre-cursors which slowly build an argument, whether acknowledged by the voter or not, that a certain actor or film will be the Oscar winner and therefore must be voted for. The Academy’s voting body doesn’t have the guts to vote independently of everything else, but perhaps if they did we would see a new trend develop–a trend characterized by its unpredictability. But for now, the Oscars are so so so so so predictable by mid-December, if not well before, and not because of critics or Oscar bloggers or stats or precedent or audiences or campaign money, but because voters take. no. risks.
And, really, isn’t that was Turan is doing by not submitting his review of Boyhood to Metacritic? Isn’t he laying down and saying “Boyhood has won over everyone and even my one vote against it cannot unsettle that so it’s pointless to voice it in the first place”? When did we enter a time and space when we valued someone suppressing their opinion simply because it differs from the vast majority?! I do not like Boyhood at all and am kind of disenchanted by the idea that while my opinion will never be heard there is someone out there’s who shares my opinion and could make his heard, but has chosen not to and so my opinion becomes even more unrepresented than it already was. That’s an unfortunate state of events in the world of film criticism if you ask me.
I think 50-60 is about right for Dargis’ review, she seemed at least engrossed which in itself admits great cinematic skill displayed in her “subject”, but who cares, really? What I appreciate about her review is that she actually and intelligently reasons why the movie didn’t work for her, instead of making it a biographical account of her cinematic taste (which would be interesting, just not in a review of the week) and a plea of understanding for “poor me”, but hey it worked! I read Turan for the first time in months, and I bet like me, many who’ve never heard of him did, so it was a win win for him and a lose lose for all the other critics who did go ahead and “pissed on” BOYHOOD and were castrated without anesthesia for it — but if any of those reviews is as carefully argued as Dargis’, feel free to forward it to me because I’d like to read it, I’m just not going to go find it myself because I’m not a masochist. I feel pretty dumb discussing GONE GIRL right now because I haven’t seen it so I hope I’m able to dive right in after Thursday night. Ticket has been boughten.
re: ” and thus, the Independent Spirit awards is really where American film finds its support net.”
6/8 of the above-the-line winners were shared between The Academy and the Independent Spirit Awards last year. And the other 2/8 were Oscar nominees/front-runners. I don’t point this out to say that your statement is wrong, but rather as an example of how even the ISAs are becoming problematic. It seems like each year the ISAs shine a dim light on 4 nominees that won’t be nominated elsewhere and then give their 5th slot to the same person/film that will win and/or contend in that category with other groups.
And another aside for Metacritics color/score code.
60 is yellow and mixed (many 3/5 marginally positive reviews).
63 is green and considered positive … And yet … Those reviews read as NOT as positive as the 3/5 positive ones and the tone of the green 63 reviews are, in fact, more negative than the yellow 60s.
Its a bit absurd.
Premiere used to do predictions early on in October about what would be nominated and what might win if I remember correctly.
I agree with you about the color codes. They are crude and unnecessary. If anything, a lot of individual reds and greens for the same movie should be an enticement to go see it. A movie that trigger both sets of responses is probably more interesting than the ones who get a lot of greens, because they are well-made, well-acted and well-directed, but also a tiny bit safe and predictable.
julian the emperor, our friend Craig Kennedy agrees with you that Dargis was not thrilled. He thinks the last paragraph lowers the boom hard. I’m more focused on the good things she has to say that all sound exciting to me. I’m much less interested in whether or not Dargis was expecting something she didn’t get. Her disappointment does not discourage me one iota.
She does a very fine job doing what Sasha wishes more critics would do: Dargis makes clear that hers is a personal reaction. Since Dargis isn’t my mother, I don’t have to be concerned that her personal reaction has any relation to the reaction I’ll have.
But here’s another annoyance: Aside from the crude blunt numbers masquerading as opinion, metacritic also thinks it needs to colorcode reviews GREEN for GO! No really, GO AHEAD AND GO!, Yellow for BE CAREFUL, WATCH YOUR STEP, and RED for STOP! THIS MOVIE SHOULD BURN IN HELL!
yes, yellow is officially “Mixed.” but psychologically it’s a cheap YELLOW CAUTION SIGN, like we need to be warned not to fall into a hole or something.
Ryan, I’m not here to defend metacritic or everything it represents, but if you have to attach a number to the Dargis review, 60 is actually kind of generous. The thing is, I read the review first and then later on I checked metacritic expecting something like a 50 for that review. I think the score 60 shows us (or rather, it shows ME, I don’t want to get all Crowther on you;)) that Dargis liked aspects of the movie and disliked others. Fair enough. I hope you’ll agree that since the metacritic numbercrunchers do whatever it is that they do (that means, they HAVE to attach a score to every single review), 60 is an ok representation of that particular review. 75 or 80 surely wouldn’t have been a fair reflection of Dargis’ feelings overall.
But, yeah, people should read intelligent and enlightening criticism like what she offers instead of looking for the easy way out, namely to look up a score attached by someone who’s not inside Dargis’ head. A score can never be an accurate (or fair) representation of a good review.
First, I do want to say, Sasha: I love this piece, I love to see you and the site give props to any aspect of the industry that you and I and all of us should all appreciate. And I love to see outstanding individuals singled out for the fine work they’re doing amid the overall grim drudgery of the blogosphere landscape, which I will agree can often look pretty bleak. Especially for those of us who have to get splattered with the PR splooge, close-up.
I (personally) can’t bring myself to lionize Kenneth Turan for the way he refrained one single time from feeding the machine the way he’s otherwise always done without hesitation and, henceforth, most likely will continue to do.
Likewise, nope, nope, I’m not going to cut that old fop Bosley Crowther any slack just because he got fancy in one single review and employed the “royal we.”
First of all, nobody is entitled to use the “royal we” except the Queen or the Pope. And it sounds ridiculously pompous even when those two say it.
If Bosley Crowther REALLY wanted to OWN his own nasty remarks about Psycho there’s another perfectly good pronoun that ALL NORMAL PEOPLE use: I
Why was Crowther so afraid to just say: “I think Psycho is silly.”
What’s with all this “we” jazz?
whoa, whoa, hold on, Miss Priss. Who’s this “we”? You and what army, Betsy?
Is Crowther trying to implicate US in his dismissal? That’s how it sounds to me:
Wrong. Speak for yourself, Crowther. Here’s the word you use to speak for yourself: I. Say “I” not “we.” Say “me” not “us.”
At worst when a fussy little civilian uses the “royal we” he sounds arrogant, blustery and pompous. At best he just sounds presumptuous. By saying “we,” a critic is presuming that it’s ok to include US in his rant. But it isn’t.
Because “we” is plural. It means “me” and “you too.”
In fact, that’s the precise meaning implied whenever the Queen and the Pope say “we.” They’re saying “Me” and “the larger grand broad authority that I have to speak for ALL OF US.”
So no, Bosley Crother has no right to speak for anyone but himself. And I resent the way he makes his readers unwilling cohorts and co-conspirators by trying to drag US into his circle of “WE.”
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Crowther was a joke from the mid-’50s all the way through the ’60s right up to his crazyass meltdown over Bonnie and Clyde.
Bosley Crother had ceased to “get it” for over a dozen years before he was forced out at the Times. Bosley Crowther was the Rex Reed of the 1960s. Famously wrong all the time, and hilariously angry about the way movies had evolved into something that he could no longer grasp.
Like Rex Reed with Inception, Bosley Crowter didn’t even know what the best directors were saying. He was lost. All the coolest movies were flying right over his head. To any intelligent person, it must have been pathetically comical to watch Crowther cower from all the great changes happening in cinema that he was unable to grasp.
The very same year as Psycho, here’s our befuddled Bosley Crowther flipping right out over Godard’s Breathless:
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If the sick metacritic machine had been around in 1960, it would NOT have cared whether Crowther had said “we” or “I”. His reviews for Breathless and Psycho would have BOTH been scored 25 or even 0.
And that’s the problem today: There are maybe a million people, TOPS, who actually ever read the WORDS of a movie review. Meanwhile there are probably 50 million who glance at metacritic and decide if a movie is “good” or “bad” by looking at a stupid number.
(EXAMPLE: Word got around pretty quick that Manohla Dargis “hated” Gone Girl. Or she “dissed” it, or “pissed on it.” Why did people think that? One reason: Somebody at metacritic stuck a 60 on her review. But if you bother to Read The Words of that Dargis review, she has a lot of great things to say about David Fincher. And even though it’s clear Gone Girl didn’t quite work for Dargis, she STILL makes it sound juicy and fascinating and intriguing and well-worth seeing. He review isn’t bad at all, but 50 million people will look at that dumb number 60 and they’ll think “der, the New York newspaper say no good”)
(AND ANOTHER THING: not that anyone outside of New York City even heard of Bosley Crowther in 1960. How would they? How many old ladies in Dubuque went to the public library to dig through the piles of newspapers to read what Bosley Crowther thought before they bought a movie ticket? None. Nobody did. New York Critics were only read by the New York intelligentsia, a few academics and smart-alecks in the hinterlands, and of course Crowther was read by the actors who lived in New York. He was read, and most likely laughed at, every week, by about 200 Hollywood actors who lived in Manhattan. That was the extent of his sphere of influence.)
Crowther was never influential, and thank god for that.
Nobody followed the advice of critics in 1964 when Cleopatra was the #1 box-office movie of the year, earning 6 times more than Hud, earning 6 times more 8 1/2.
American mainstream movie critics in the 40s, 50s and 60s were shockingly flatfooted and middlebrow.
The influence of elite American film critics did not really flower until the late ’60s, and by the late ’70s the studio publicity machine had already figured out how to squash the voice of those critics with marketing. TV ads became infinitely more important to the average moviegoer than reviews in The New Yorker could ever be.
“a hypnotically ugly new young man by the name of Jean-Paul Belmondo” – Bosley Crowther, (who was no Miss America himself, trust me)
– that’s the fine influential legacy of New York Critics before Kael and Sarris came alone.
That Kenneth Turan thing? I cannot for the life of me see anything heroic about that. If anything, it’s about his ego: “Look, guys, I don’t want to hurt a film, because, you know, it’s in my power to do that. I could HURT that movie, if I wanted to… don’t forget that, alright!?” Utter bullshit.
Yeah, really. How on earth would it “damage” the film to have a meager 99 on metacritic? If anything, he did his readers a disservice by refusing to the review the movie because he didn’t want to stand out from other critics. It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. How would ONE mediocre review hurt the movie in any way? It wouldn’t even get that much attention, because the rest were positive.
It makes me queasy to imagine Turan cares whether Boyhood has 100 on metcritic or not.
It makes me queasy —
— to think anyone thinks Boyhood is damaged in any way if it doesn’t have 100 on metacritic.
— to think Turan doesn’t want to review Boyhood but he still made damn sure that everybody in Hollywood knows he doesn’t care much for Boyhood.
— to think anybody thinks nobody is going to know what Turan thinks about Boyhood so long as Turan keeps his feelings and his review off metacritic.
— to think Turan could possibly fear the wrath of Boyhood fans if he gave Boyhood a review that was anything less than “perfection!”
It makes me queasy to visualize a hoard of fucking hipsters coming after Turan with torches and pitchforks if he dared to look crosseyed at Boyhood. oh, those vicious Boyhood fans?
It makes me queasy —
— to think Turan doesn’t care that maybe 5 or 10 people (or maybe 5 or 10 million people) do not agree that Boyhood is the most perfect movie ever made — but he doesn’t care about those people? He only cares about the people who think Boyhood deserves the most insanely perfect score that metacritic or world cinema has ever produced?
— to think that a critic would worry about the blood(?) and tears(?) of Linklater when that critic has apparently never been overly concerned about the blood and tears of any other filmmaker.
It makes me queasy to think ANYONE would care if Boyhood had a tragic metacritic score of 99.
(49 reviews of 100 = 4900 + 75 from Turan = 4975 ÷ 50 = 99.5) 99.5, Wow. The Horror.
99.5 …wouldn’t they just round that up to 100 at metacritic? so even with Turan’s 75, Boyhood would still have an average score of 100. So civilization would still avoid collapse.
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With sincere respect, a score of 99.5 is not going to sink a movie.
A metacritic score of 69 didn’t sink Inglourious Basterds.
A metacritic score of 69 didn’t sink Crash.
Where was Turan’s classy behavior when The Player got 12 reviews that were “perfect” 100s but Turan gave The Player a 60?
Where was Turan’s classy behavior when Tree of Life got 40 positive reviews — but Turan gave Tree of Life a 50? (one of only 3 negative reviews Tree of Life got, it got from Turan.)
If Turan wants to impress me with his classy behavior, he can decide to NEVER put any more of his review into the score machine EVER AGAIN. He can remove himself from the metacritic machine from this day forward.
How is it classy to do this one classy thing one single time — and then go right back to be unclassy for the rest of his career?
Turan has shown us a way to wreck that silly score machine. He could lead the way. I wish he would. I doubt that he will.
Just wait and see…
And the Oscar goes to… 12 Years to Make.
This year I dont think the great Anne Thompson will have to change her top spot.
Great piece, Sasha.
I’d argue Linklater is established enough that Turan’s review would not have damaged Boyhood’s boxoffice to any meaningful degree, especially since he held the film in enough regard (I’m guessing he went something like 2.5/4) to withhold his score in favor of preserving the 100 score on MetaCritic. Then again, I have some reservations about the film and argue that, while we should appreciate the time and effort it took to craft, we should not overlook its shortcomings. I feel that, if we treat a film as sacrosanct now, it will only cause a greater backlash later. Better, I argue, to judge it as accurately as possible on its strengths and weaknesses now, and let time do the rest.
“Critics today write with such authority because they think that’s how you’re supposed to write a review. But the truth is, the good ones write subjectively so that you know full well that it is their opinion. The bad ones write as though they’re speaking for everyone when they casually dismiss a movie.”
It hasn’t been long that I started reading reviews by critics from abroad; in Brazil only now we can say we are getting something that can be partially called as a film industry, so film criticism as an “art” was never really something to look up to here. Not like as I’ve experienced living for a decade in the US and being eager to read, for instance, everything the L.A./New York Times or Roger Ebert would say that weekend about the new releases. I craved for those “opinions” as a film lover, but never with the intent of wanting someone to influence me towards the box office. I never gave, and will never give critics that much power. I believe I craved more for the way they wrote their pieces than the films they were writing about. I don’t comment very often but I like reading your reviews and comments, Sasha, because of the feeling I get after I read them: connection. Your passion when talking about the films you love reminds me of how much I love cinema. I might not agree with some of what you have to say sometimes, but one thing is for sure, I will always connect with the passion you infuse them. So, thank you.
I have to confess that I will never understand why people make comments about films they haven’t seen, no matter how many concepts people will throw at me. I think I’m too of a romantic to accept someone’s opinion about a movie he/she hasn’t seen. I’m afraid to say this is actually one of the reasons I hate the whole Oscar race industry, because of these kind of choices made by the “opinion-makers”. It makes everything so cheap to me. Nonetheless, because I love movies I try to separate the bad from the good being thrown around, and so I go with the flow. And like this, I learn.
I can’t comprehend why ignore hardly Marion Cotillard when she’s fantastic in Two Days one night
What Turan did was cowardly. His review would’ve done nothing to Boyhood’s box office (this is 2014!). Also by your logic, you seem to imply that critics should never post negative reviews of small films that take time and effort. The predictions issue I honestly feel is negligible. No winner lost because Oscar blogger predictions. Only bloggers think that. As much as people hate on The Academy, voters are smart, creative people who make the movies we praise! I’m pretty sure they make their decisions independently.
I don’t see how predicting unseen films ‘limits the field’ because after TIFF, the same films get talked about as nauseum till the unseen get seen. Seems like it’s the other way around.
Oh snap! I knew the streak was bound to be broken at some point. This one I disagree almost completely with — like 90+%
Turan is a coward and Anne Thompson must be boring-est Oscar pundit ever, well, it’s between her and Karger.
Sasha, I am loving your writing this year. A number of your pieces have been truly superb. A real joy to read, thank you.
You’ve done some great and insightful pieces, Sasha, but this one should be required reading for all bloggers, critics, movie buffs, as well as the wannabe’s of each.
Know your source, know yourself, then let time do its job.
One thing about modern film criticism: we rarely, if ever, get a second take on a film. It’s not always as simple as seeing a film just once. The great ones, like Kael, would publish a second review if their opinions changed. Morgenstern wrote two reviews of Bonnie & Clyde, and it’s too bad poor ole Bosley didn’t give it another go like a few other critics. Crowther’s review made me livid at the time; it’s pretty amusing to read it now after all these years. Imagine sitting is the seat next to him.
Although I occasionally disagree, I trust your reviews more than anyone’s, largely because you review the film that was made instead of comparing it to the film you believe might should have been made. You also talk about the ideas behind a film rather than merely rating performances. That’s very rare. For days I have been contemplating your writing about the ideas contained within Gone Girl .
On the other hand, on a much smaller scale, there is a deforestation happening in American film. It isn’t such a big problem internationally, as we can see from the diverse offerings at the Cannes film festival. But here in America, the indie scene might be thriving but the movies in theaters that are about anything other than a remake or a sequel? They’re migrating to television. The international filmmakers are taking over because in those countries they do not have the fluffer machine in place here, they don’t have opening box office obsession and they do not raise branded generations.
This is a strange observation, to me. Is the Cannes slate really all there is to international cinema? It seems odd to compare directly the offerings of the average American multiplex to one of the most prestigious and artful film festivals in the world and say “this is the difference between American cinema and International cinema.” I think it might be a good exercise to examine the box-office smashers of foreign countries – I can promise that there aren’t lines running out of the cinema in Montreal for Mommy, for example, or for Winter Sleep in Istanbul. Take a look at Japan, a country with a healthy domestic film market (if one that has to compete with American films). Of the highest-grossing films of the year so far there (ignoring, for the sake of argument, Frozen and Maleficent), we can find many franchise films: Doraemon, Ruroni Kenshin, Thermae Romae, Detective Conan, another Doraemon, Pokemon, another Ruroni Kenshin, Lupin III. These franchises have all been around something like 20 years in one form of another, with countless films to each of them – hardly different from the sequelitis of Hollywood (if anything, more pronounced). You’re going to find similar results in countries without overwhelming Hollywood influence (Bollywood in particular is fond of its sequels), so why call out Hollywood for it? Why call out mass entertainment for not reaching the artistic heights of highbrow film festivals? The comparison is laughable.
On another note, I was actually not aware of this Kenneth Turan issue, and while it is interesting, I have to ask, what’s the point, then? The exact purpose of Metacritic is to give a picture of what the major critics thought of a movie. By leaving out his opinion, even for the sake of appearances, isn’t he preventing Metacritic from achieving its function? Film criticism, at least in its popular form, is nothing more than the assembly of opinions by people who should know. To publish a dissenting opinion is certainly not an act of selfishness or arbitrariness, but rather allowing for a fuller picture of what the film is – both its strengths and its flaws. After all, don’t we lament the lack of willingness to criticize “fanboy” films? Why should Boyhood be any different? Why is it regrettable that critics will be reluctant to criticize Interstellar for fear of not matching consensus, but noble that a criticism of Boyhood was held back because it might be an aberrant opinion? I see little difference in the mindset here.
“…I believe film criticism, like art and architecture criticism should be limited to those who really have the insight”
I would have to respectfully disagree about your insight; you are definitely shortchanging yourself here. You may not be speaking as an “insider,” but that does not mean that what you write doesn’t have insight into film history, film creation, and film artistry.