Filmmaker Sophia Takal's nonreview of Woody Allen's latest film.

Southern California residents of a certain age might remember Hugh Bonar's brief reign as a hipster film reviewer at LA WEEKLY; Bonar's routine was to write about movies without actually writing  about the movie--essentially snark that assumed the audience colluded with the Bonar ethos that actual analysis of the movie wasn't necessary because (yuk, yuk) the movie's so lame, so bad, so not worth writing about seriously.

Here's filmmaker Sophia Takal's nonreview of Woody Allen's MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT, focusing briefly (as asides) on the film itself (already building consensus as a subpar follow up to last year's BLUE JASMINE): http://film.thetalkhouse.com/talks/sophia-takal-green-talks-woody-allens-magic-in-the-moonlight/?awesm=tlkh.se_q0K

In fairness to Ms. Takal, she avoids tying the film to references to the child molestation allegations against Allen in the 90s (in which he was not charged) recently revived by Dylan Farrow, her mother Mia Farrow and NEW YORK TIMES columnist Nicholas Kristof.

A.O. Scott did just that in his NYT review: http://nyti.ms/1jXqVcO

Re THE AVENGERS: Puzzlement over Samuel L. Jackson's negative review of film critic A.O. Scott

Superhero films are to the late 20th/early 21st Centuries what the Western was from roughly 1903 (THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY) to the mid-1970s (one could say that Don Siegel's THE SHOOTIST with John Wayne from 1976 was the epitaph for the traditional, non-revisionist cowboy film).

Nonetheless, A.O. "Tony" Scott, film critic for THE NEW YORK TIMES (probably best known for helping preside over the last days of relatively intelligent film reviewing on TV with the CHICAGO TRIBUNE's Michael Phillips), has tired of the superhero genre; although Scott had some mild praise for some aspects of Marvel's THE AVENGERS, the film's co-star Samuel L. Jackson overreacted in the manner of James Cameron howling at Kenneth Turan in 1998 over Turan's pan of TITANIC.

Noting the passage of fourteen years--James Cameron wrote a now-old-fashioned letter to the editor of THE LOS ANGELES TIMES (or at least its entertainment section Calendar), while Jackson used Twitter as his medium of disapproval.

Both Jackson and Scott have a right to their respective opinions. 

But I wonder why Samuel L. Jackson, who has had a long and generally successful film career (and, it's safe to say, made more than one film that A.O. Scott likely didn't care for), felt he needed to wave the "if you don't like my film, you suck as a critic and maybe you should do something else " banner in the Cameron style.

AT THE MOVIES:RIP.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/03/see_you_at_the_movies.html

The above is Roger Ebert's glass-more-than-half-full eulogy for the AT THE MOVIES show--essentially the remnants of SNEAK PREVIEWS, the Siskel-and-Ebert show I first remember seeing on the Dallas, TX PBS outlet KERA-TV beginning around 1978 (when I was a college student living in Wichita Falls, TX).

Ebert and his wife Chaz are planning on a new film review show for TV--and I wish them well with their endeavor.

I'm curious as to who they can cut a deal with, given that there will be a lot of media conglomerates with we-don't-have-room-for-this-esoteric-low-dollar-generating-stuff attitude like the Walt Disney Company (which dealt the death blow to the Michael Phillips/A.O. Scott AT THE MOVIES this week).