Richard Brody on ISHTAR--and critiquing a certain type of arts' criticism.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/dvr-alert/

I saw the Warren Beatty/Dustin Hoffman/Elaine May comedy ISHTAR on its underperforming opening weekend in the late spring of 1987 (the film's large budget had already been cluck-clucked about in the pre-Internet entertainment media and audiences were conditioned to expect the HEAVEN'S GATE of cinematic comedy).  It's not the classic that May's A NEW LEAF and THE HEARTBREAK KID still are, but there are enough genuinely funny moments (greatly aided by Charles Grodin's supporting turn as a CIA agent) to make it worth seeking out (apparently, it's on Netflix' film-streaming service and there's a rumor of Sony releasing it to DVD next year).

Richard Brody, who writes for THE NEW YORKER's website, has a significant difference of opinion with the late Pauline Kael's take on ISHTAR:
"Kael had her categories set, knew what comedy was, knew who comedians were and weren’t, didn’t see the film for what it was but for the expectations [due to its partial desert setting, Kael was anticipating an update of the Hope/Crosby/Lamour ROAD TO...formula] it didn’t meet. That’s a review of advertising and of publicity and of self, not of a movie."

Substitute your favorite poetry critic's name and the word "poetry" for "comedy".  And you have a good precis of most criticism of poetry.

[In another online piece, Brody discusses his concept of criticism by comparing it to poet Philip Larkin's I-hate-that-modern-jazz review of jazz music: "...the critic isn’t the one who—as Larkin thinks—takes the resistant, the recondite, the rebarbative, and reproaches his readers for not enjoying it, nor even only the prophet who sees the future of art in its present tense, but, rather, is something of an aristocrat of taste who helps audiences share in the appreciation—the enjoyment—of finer and rarer pleasures. It’s not a job of convincing or persuading; the true modernist is not a village explainer or a professorial explicator but an ecstatic enthusiast who experiences art with a passionate identification apt for a democratic age in which the artist is the uncrowned king or queen."  The complete article can be found at:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2010/08/larkin-jazz.html#ixzz0wHt1AICN  Although an
irony is that Brody's explanation tends to match up--particularly the "passionate identification" phrase--with how Kael approached her job as NEW YORKER film critic.]

Ethan Hawke's 20 favorite Kris Kristofferson songs.

Actor/filmmaker/novelist Ethan Hawke has a lengthy profile of country music legend/veteran actor Kris Kristofferson in the current issue of ROLLING STONE: http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/27113898/the_last_outlaw_poet (worth reading for the opening passage regarding Kris arguing with a self-righteous Toby Keith--not named in the article--backstage at a Willie Nelson And Friends concert in 2003).

Some minor criticism on my part: Hawke omits a seminal early-70s Kristofferson film, Bill Norton's CISCO PIKE (with Kris as a fallen-on-hard-times musician dealing drugs and Gene Hackman as a corrupt cop) and solely attributes the slowdown in Kristofferson's film career circa-early-80s to the artistic and commercial depth charge of HEAVEN'S GATE (without mentioning the flop of the more mainstream ROLLOVER--intended as a sort of CHINA SYNDROME of the financial sector--with Jane Fonda).

Here's Ethan's 20 favorite Kristofferson songs: http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/27207147/the_essential_kris_kristofferson

RIP to Steven Bach and LA CITY BEAT.

Former United Artists executive (he was around for the release of films such as APOCALYPSE NOW, MANHATTAN and RAGING BULL) and biographer (including books about Marlene Dietrich and Leni Riefenstahl) Steven Bach recently passed away. Here's the NEW YORK TIMES obituary: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/movies/28bach.html?_r=1&scp=64&sq=%22los+angeles%22&st=nyt

Given the passage of time and the current disinterest in examining films of yesteryear, it's likely that Bach's role in Michael Cimino's HEAVEN'S GATE (an overreaching followup to the critical and popular success THE DEER HUNTER)--plus Bach's still-worth-reading memoir FINAL CUT--won't be remembered by today's media.

LA CITY BEAT, formed years ago to keep LA WEEKLY from having a monopoly on the city's alternapaper market, died as of last week's issue: http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2009/03/weekly_down_citybeat_to_s.php

Recent editorial/business decisions didn't help, including hiring Rebecca Schoenkopf and Will Swaim (in separate regimes) to give the paper some of the OC WEEKLY bratty "attitude" (more apparent during Schoenkopf's tenure)--and the discharge of respected film critic Andy Klein.

And now, one can imagine that Mike Lacey and Jill Stewart are in triumphant celebration--bathing in the delusion that their now unchallenged center-to-right alternapaper speaks for all of Los Angeles, and praying that no one comes up with enough capital to challenge them either in paper editions and/or on the Web.