In 1967, there was NEW YORK TIMES film critic Bosley Crowther on Arthur Penn and Warren Beatty's gangster-genre-reshaping BONNIE AND CLYDE:
http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=EE05E7DF173CE361BC4C52DFB266838C679EDE
Cut to this summer. Kenneth Turan disliked Richard Linklater's filmed-over-12-years coming-of-age-genre-reshaping BOYHOOD (which I haven't seen yet). Unlike Crowther with BONNIE AND CLYDE, Turan recused himself from reviewing BOYHOOD upon its release--waiting a few weeks to write this think piece which is a sort of I-feel-so-alone-and-marginalized-but-I'm-Right-damnit primal scream about the film, other film critics' excellent reviews of the film. director Linklater's career and Turan's own recent career at THE LOS ANGELES TIMES:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-ca-boyhood-on-film-turan-20140803-story.html
Showing posts with label Kenneth Turan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kenneth Turan. Show all posts
Sunday, August 3, 2014
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Adieu Patrick Goldstein's LA TIMES "Big Picture" column.
Further Goldstein Thoughts :: Hollywood Elsewhere
Patrick Goldstein was a part of the LOS ANGELES TIMES for quite awhile; I first remember reading his rock-gossip "Pop Eye" column. And for the past dozen years, he was on the film Industry beat, writing "The Big Picture" column mixing "what directors and studios told me" anecdotes, Right-leaning salvos against Hollywood liberals (I remember singer/songwriter Nellie McKay taking a few minutes during a concert at Sunset Strip's Roxy to vent her irritation about Goldstein), and annual columns about film-savvy teens rating their interest in Summer Movies based on trailer viewing.
Whether or not one liked Goldstein's opinions, he was certainly readable on a regular basis. But the LOS ANGELES TIMES is evolving in terms of entertainment/film coverage into TV-tabloid (sort of like this week's Tony Scott Danger Seeker article), fluffy, zippy-and-zingy, etc. And if Patrick Goldstein is nudged into taking a buyout (ending his TIMES career), it's safe to guess that Kenneth Turan (who's the 2012 equivalent of THE NEW YORK TIMES' Bosley Crowther circa 1967; i.e. Not Down With Contemporary Film Pop Culture) will be asked to walk the plank.
UPDATE 10:53 p.m.: Geoff Boucher, who wrote the "Hero Complex" column for the LOS ANGELES TIMES (focusing mainly on fanboy-favored Big Movies), is also being let go from the paper according to chatter on Twitter from various people in the film critic/reviewer communities.
Patrick Goldstein was a part of the LOS ANGELES TIMES for quite awhile; I first remember reading his rock-gossip "Pop Eye" column. And for the past dozen years, he was on the film Industry beat, writing "The Big Picture" column mixing "what directors and studios told me" anecdotes, Right-leaning salvos against Hollywood liberals (I remember singer/songwriter Nellie McKay taking a few minutes during a concert at Sunset Strip's Roxy to vent her irritation about Goldstein), and annual columns about film-savvy teens rating their interest in Summer Movies based on trailer viewing.
Whether or not one liked Goldstein's opinions, he was certainly readable on a regular basis. But the LOS ANGELES TIMES is evolving in terms of entertainment/film coverage into TV-tabloid (sort of like this week's Tony Scott Danger Seeker article), fluffy, zippy-and-zingy, etc. And if Patrick Goldstein is nudged into taking a buyout (ending his TIMES career), it's safe to guess that Kenneth Turan (who's the 2012 equivalent of THE NEW YORK TIMES' Bosley Crowther circa 1967; i.e. Not Down With Contemporary Film Pop Culture) will be asked to walk the plank.
UPDATE 10:53 p.m.: Geoff Boucher, who wrote the "Hero Complex" column for the LOS ANGELES TIMES (focusing mainly on fanboy-favored Big Movies), is also being let go from the paper according to chatter on Twitter from various people in the film critic/reviewer communities.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
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.
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.
Friday, April 6, 2012
James Cameron vs. LATIMES film critic Kenneth Turan: the battle over perceptions of TITANIC.
LOS ANGELES TIMES film critic Kenneth Turan panned TITANIC upon its original release in 1997--which eventually led to Turan now being supplanted by Betsy Sharkey as critic/mainstream movie cheerleader.
Here's James Cameron's famous rant at Turan's expense--sent as a letter to the editor:
He's Mad as Hell at Turan
James Cameron Gets the Last Word on Our Critic's 'Titanic' Commentary
I have shrugged off Kenneth Turan's incessant rain of personal barbs
over the last few months, since he is clearly not a big enough man to
admit when he is wrong, and it has been amusing to watch him dig
himself into a deeper hole each time he tries to justify his
misanthropic sensibility with regard to "Titanic." But it's time to
speak up when Turan uses his bully pulpit not only to attack my film,
but the entire film industry and its audiences.
Turan says that "the flip side of 'Titanic's' ability to draw hordes
of viewers into the theaters is the question of where these viewers
have been for the past several years. In its unintentional underlining
of how narrow an audience net most movies cast over the American
public, 'Titanic' is not an example of Hollywood's success, it's an
emblem of its failure." It shows, he says, "how desperate the
mainstream audience . . . has become for anything even resembling
old-fashioned entertainment." They have, he says, been "deadened by
exposure to nonstop trash."
Having gone on record condemning "Titanic" as so bad "it almost makes
you weep in frustration," he is now desperate to account for the
phenomenon of its unprecedented global critical and commercial
success. To do so, he has settled on the outrageous conclusion that
since "Titanic" is garbage (because it has been spoken and so it must
be), then everything else around it--every other film in recent
years--must be worse garbage. With one sweeping statement he condemns
and dismisses the entire output of Hollywood.
Turan has tipped his hand. We now see his true heart. It's not that he
doesn't like some movies, as is a critic's prerogative. It's that he
doesn't like all movies. Simmering in his own bile, year after year,
he has become further and further removed from the simple joyful
experience of movie-watching, which, ironically, probably attracted
him to the job in the first place. The best critics keep that joy
alive, while the worst let their cynicism twist them beyond any
recognizable connection to the experience of a general audience in a
movie theater.
Turan sees himself as the high priest of some arcane art form that is
far too refined for the average individual to possibly appreciate. He
writes as if the insensitive masses must be constantly corrected, like
little children who do not have the sense or experience to know what
is good for them without the critic's patient instruction. This is
paternalism and elitism in its worst form, and utterly insults the
movie audience, which is theoretically his constituency.
Turan says I write "lowest common denominator screenplays that
condescend to their audience." The condescending one here is Turan,
who is insulting the majority of the filmgoing public by telling them
that they shouldn't like what they like.
"Titanic" is not a film that is sucking people in with flashy hype and
spitting them out onto the street feeling let down and ripped off.
They are returning again and again to repeat an experience that is
taking a 3-hour and 14-minute chunk out of their lives, and dragging
others with them, so they can share the emotion. Parents are taking
their kids, adults are taking their parents. People from 8 to 80
(literally) are connecting with this film. After 14 weeks in release,
"Titanic" is still No. 1 in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan,
Mexico, Australia, the U.K. and almost every other country in which it
is playing. Audiences around the world are celebrating their own
essential humanity by going into a dark room and crying together.
The script for "Titanic" is earnest and straightforward, wearing its
heart on its sleeve. It intentionally incorporates universals of human
experience and emotion that are timeless--and familiar because they
reflect our basic emotional fabric. By dealing in archetypes, the film
touches people in all cultures and of all ages. Is this pandering? Or
is it communicating? Turan mistakes archetype for cliche. I don't
share his view that the best scripts are only the ones that explore
the perimeter of human experience, or flashily pirouette their witty
and cynical dialogue for our admiration.
He says that "Cameron is not someone to be trusted anywhere near a
word processor" and calls the "Titanic" screenplay "the worst script
ever written," carrying on as if this is an accepted fact, a "given"
upon which all his further arguments are then built. He conveniently
ignores the fact that the Writers Guild of America voted "Titanic" one
of the five best original scripts of the year with its nomination for
best screenplay written directly for the screen. There is no more
critical and discerning body in the world when it comes to
screenwriting. But in Turan's private reality, the vast majority of
the worldwide audience and the majority of Hollywood screenwriters are
wrong, and only he is right.
Turan's critical sensibility is the worst kind of ego-driven elitism.
The illustration accompanying the article says it all. One tiny figure
trying vainly to stop the juggernaut. But is that any sane person's
definition of the role of the critic--to stand alone in complete
opposition to the tide of popular taste?
Poor Kenny. He sees himself as the lone voice crying in the
wilderness, righteous but not heeded by the blind and dumb "great
unwashed" around him. It must be a great burden to be cursed with such
clear vision when your misguided flock bray past you, like lemmings,
unmindful.
Turan has forgotten, if he ever knew, the role of senior film critic
for a large urban newspaper. When people spend their hard-earned money
on a movie at the end of a long work week, all they ask is that their
local critic steer them toward the good ones and help them avoid the
turkeys. It's not too much to ask. And it's a fairly simple job, once
you grasp it. You get to go to a movie first, before anyone else, and
then come back and tell everybody about it. You even get to trash it
if you didn't like it. What you don't get to do is grind on and on,
month after month, after the audience has rendered its verdict in the
most resounding of terms, telling everybody why the filmgoers are
wrong and you are right.
Nobody's interested in the vitriolic ravings of a bitter man who
attacks and rips apart movies that the great majority of viewers find
well worth their time and money. Turan has lost touch with the joys of
film viewing as most people would define it. He has lost touch,
therefore, with his readership, and no longer serves a useful purpose.
When critics like Roger Ebert or Janet Maslin talk about film, they
demonstrate a deep knowledge of and respect for their subject, a
respect for filmmakers regardless of the specific blunders made on a
particular film, and a genuine unwavering joy at the magic of cinema.
Even when they don't like something of mine, I respect the source.
They make me want to try harder.
Give us a critic who actually likes movies. Give us a critic who has
at least some slight understanding of the toil and energy, the hopes
and dreams that go into a movie, any movie. Give us a critic who shows
respect for our chosen art, and whom we can respect in turn. And give
us one who respects the paying audiences who look to him or her for
guidance, not for lectures on how stupid they are for liking what they
like.
Forget about Clinton--how do we impeach Kenneth Turan?
JIM CAMERON
Santa Monica
Here's James Cameron's famous rant at Turan's expense--sent as a letter to the editor:
He's Mad as Hell at Turan
James Cameron Gets the Last Word on Our Critic's 'Titanic' Commentary
I have shrugged off Kenneth Turan's incessant rain of personal barbs
over the last few months, since he is clearly not a big enough man to
admit when he is wrong, and it has been amusing to watch him dig
himself into a deeper hole each time he tries to justify his
misanthropic sensibility with regard to "Titanic." But it's time to
speak up when Turan uses his bully pulpit not only to attack my film,
but the entire film industry and its audiences.
Turan says that "the flip side of 'Titanic's' ability to draw hordes
of viewers into the theaters is the question of where these viewers
have been for the past several years. In its unintentional underlining
of how narrow an audience net most movies cast over the American
public, 'Titanic' is not an example of Hollywood's success, it's an
emblem of its failure." It shows, he says, "how desperate the
mainstream audience . . . has become for anything even resembling
old-fashioned entertainment." They have, he says, been "deadened by
exposure to nonstop trash."
Having gone on record condemning "Titanic" as so bad "it almost makes
you weep in frustration," he is now desperate to account for the
phenomenon of its unprecedented global critical and commercial
success. To do so, he has settled on the outrageous conclusion that
since "Titanic" is garbage (because it has been spoken and so it must
be), then everything else around it--every other film in recent
years--must be worse garbage. With one sweeping statement he condemns
and dismisses the entire output of Hollywood.
Turan has tipped his hand. We now see his true heart. It's not that he
doesn't like some movies, as is a critic's prerogative. It's that he
doesn't like all movies. Simmering in his own bile, year after year,
he has become further and further removed from the simple joyful
experience of movie-watching, which, ironically, probably attracted
him to the job in the first place. The best critics keep that joy
alive, while the worst let their cynicism twist them beyond any
recognizable connection to the experience of a general audience in a
movie theater.
Turan sees himself as the high priest of some arcane art form that is
far too refined for the average individual to possibly appreciate. He
writes as if the insensitive masses must be constantly corrected, like
little children who do not have the sense or experience to know what
is good for them without the critic's patient instruction. This is
paternalism and elitism in its worst form, and utterly insults the
movie audience, which is theoretically his constituency.
Turan says I write "lowest common denominator screenplays that
condescend to their audience." The condescending one here is Turan,
who is insulting the majority of the filmgoing public by telling them
that they shouldn't like what they like.
"Titanic" is not a film that is sucking people in with flashy hype and
spitting them out onto the street feeling let down and ripped off.
They are returning again and again to repeat an experience that is
taking a 3-hour and 14-minute chunk out of their lives, and dragging
others with them, so they can share the emotion. Parents are taking
their kids, adults are taking their parents. People from 8 to 80
(literally) are connecting with this film. After 14 weeks in release,
"Titanic" is still No. 1 in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan,
Mexico, Australia, the U.K. and almost every other country in which it
is playing. Audiences around the world are celebrating their own
essential humanity by going into a dark room and crying together.
The script for "Titanic" is earnest and straightforward, wearing its
heart on its sleeve. It intentionally incorporates universals of human
experience and emotion that are timeless--and familiar because they
reflect our basic emotional fabric. By dealing in archetypes, the film
touches people in all cultures and of all ages. Is this pandering? Or
is it communicating? Turan mistakes archetype for cliche. I don't
share his view that the best scripts are only the ones that explore
the perimeter of human experience, or flashily pirouette their witty
and cynical dialogue for our admiration.
He says that "Cameron is not someone to be trusted anywhere near a
word processor" and calls the "Titanic" screenplay "the worst script
ever written," carrying on as if this is an accepted fact, a "given"
upon which all his further arguments are then built. He conveniently
ignores the fact that the Writers Guild of America voted "Titanic" one
of the five best original scripts of the year with its nomination for
best screenplay written directly for the screen. There is no more
critical and discerning body in the world when it comes to
screenwriting. But in Turan's private reality, the vast majority of
the worldwide audience and the majority of Hollywood screenwriters are
wrong, and only he is right.
Turan's critical sensibility is the worst kind of ego-driven elitism.
The illustration accompanying the article says it all. One tiny figure
trying vainly to stop the juggernaut. But is that any sane person's
definition of the role of the critic--to stand alone in complete
opposition to the tide of popular taste?
Poor Kenny. He sees himself as the lone voice crying in the
wilderness, righteous but not heeded by the blind and dumb "great
unwashed" around him. It must be a great burden to be cursed with such
clear vision when your misguided flock bray past you, like lemmings,
unmindful.
Turan has forgotten, if he ever knew, the role of senior film critic
for a large urban newspaper. When people spend their hard-earned money
on a movie at the end of a long work week, all they ask is that their
local critic steer them toward the good ones and help them avoid the
turkeys. It's not too much to ask. And it's a fairly simple job, once
you grasp it. You get to go to a movie first, before anyone else, and
then come back and tell everybody about it. You even get to trash it
if you didn't like it. What you don't get to do is grind on and on,
month after month, after the audience has rendered its verdict in the
most resounding of terms, telling everybody why the filmgoers are
wrong and you are right.
Nobody's interested in the vitriolic ravings of a bitter man who
attacks and rips apart movies that the great majority of viewers find
well worth their time and money. Turan has lost touch with the joys of
film viewing as most people would define it. He has lost touch,
therefore, with his readership, and no longer serves a useful purpose.
When critics like Roger Ebert or Janet Maslin talk about film, they
demonstrate a deep knowledge of and respect for their subject, a
respect for filmmakers regardless of the specific blunders made on a
particular film, and a genuine unwavering joy at the magic of cinema.
Even when they don't like something of mine, I respect the source.
They make me want to try harder.
Give us a critic who actually likes movies. Give us a critic who has
at least some slight understanding of the toil and energy, the hopes
and dreams that go into a movie, any movie. Give us a critic who shows
respect for our chosen art, and whom we can respect in turn. And give
us one who respects the paying audiences who look to him or her for
guidance, not for lectures on how stupid they are for liking what they
like.
Forget about Clinton--how do we impeach Kenneth Turan?
JIM CAMERON
Santa Monica
Monday, March 29, 2010
Should film critics become professionally celibate?
http://www.movieline.com/2010/03/when-the-critic-met-the-star-a-movieline-ethics-seminar.php
The above concerns LOS ANGELES TIMES film critic Kenneth Turan and his relationship with actress Zoe Kazan (REVOLUTIONARY ROAD) plus Kazan's parents writer/director Nicholas (son of Elia) Kazan and writer/one-time director Robin Swicord. Besides proving that West Los Angeles suburb Pacific Palisades, CA must be like a small town, Turan's article is illuminating for his I-won't-recuse-myself-from-championing-Zoe's-new-movie candor.
This kind of forthright yes-I-have-friends-who-make-movies opinionating hasn't been seen too often. Andrew Sarris was one exception--he was forthright about his friendship with filmmaker Robert Benton (STILL OF THE NIGHT, NOBODY'S FOOL, THE HUMAN STAIN) in the pages of THE NEW YORK OBSERVER.
Pauline Kael's I'll-write-about-you-but-I'll-keep-my-relationship-with-you-private attitude towards Sam Peckinpah, Paul Schrader, Warren Beatty and Robert Altman has been the norm with regards to the practice of film criticism.
And I haven't even brought up the topic of critics who allegedly hustle screenplays to actors/filmmakers.
The above concerns LOS ANGELES TIMES film critic Kenneth Turan and his relationship with actress Zoe Kazan (REVOLUTIONARY ROAD) plus Kazan's parents writer/director Nicholas (son of Elia) Kazan and writer/one-time director Robin Swicord. Besides proving that West Los Angeles suburb Pacific Palisades, CA must be like a small town, Turan's article is illuminating for his I-won't-recuse-myself-from-championing-Zoe's-new-movie candor.
This kind of forthright yes-I-have-friends-who-make-movies opinionating hasn't been seen too often. Andrew Sarris was one exception--he was forthright about his friendship with filmmaker Robert Benton (STILL OF THE NIGHT, NOBODY'S FOOL, THE HUMAN STAIN) in the pages of THE NEW YORK OBSERVER.
Pauline Kael's I'll-write-about-you-but-I'll-keep-my-relationship-with-you-private attitude towards Sam Peckinpah, Paul Schrader, Warren Beatty and Robert Altman has been the norm with regards to the practice of film criticism.
And I haven't even brought up the topic of critics who allegedly hustle screenplays to actors/filmmakers.
Friday, December 18, 2009
This time, Kenneth Turan gives a more-or-less good review to a James Cameron movie.
Not sure how many people remember the....let's call it titanic...... anger that James Cameron displayed in a letter to the LOS ANGELES TIMES in early 1998 because chief film critic Kenneth Turan gave a harsh review to Cameron's then hugely-popular and now semi-forgotten film about two young lovers on a doomed ocean liner. Feel free to Google Turan's original review and Cameron's response.
Now, here's a tinyURL link to Turan's review of Cameron's AVATAR: http://shar.es/aDAiQ
Feel even more free to judge for yourself whether Turan's opinion (partially a sense of awe over AVATAR's technical achievements) is genuine or not this time around.
For my part, I was surprised that Turan didn't recuse himself and give second-chair Betsy Sharkey the assignment--or even offer it to now-freelance Kevin "I like just about everything" Thomas.
Now, here's a tinyURL link to Turan's review of Cameron's AVATAR: http://shar.es/aDAiQ
Feel even more free to judge for yourself whether Turan's opinion (partially a sense of awe over AVATAR's technical achievements) is genuine or not this time around.
For my part, I was surprised that Turan didn't recuse himself and give second-chair Betsy Sharkey the assignment--or even offer it to now-freelance Kevin "I like just about everything" Thomas.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
LACMA to pull plug on its weekend film series, but looks for donors to pay for another one.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-lacma29-2009jul29,0,1659237.story
Regarding the above story, Mr. Horn and Ms. King's assertion that the availability of classic films on DVD helped to bring about the LACMA weekend film series' demise is a bit too neat--and lets the museum off the hook.
When original series curator/programmer Ron Haver died around 1993, LACMA mostly shifted the focus of the film series from film-as-popular-art to film-as-ART. And museum director Michael Govan and now-part-time-employee Ian Birnie should take some responsibility for the decline in audience and loss in revenue. Ideally, a successful museum film program should find equal room for the works of, say, Alain Resnais (now the closing LACMA retrospective), Kathryn Bigelow, William Wyler, Andrei Tarkovsky and Tsui Hark.
Having said that, I should share some responsibility (as an audience member) for not attending LACMA film programs nearly as often as I did from, say 1988 to the mid-90s. The last time I saw a film at LACMA's Bing Theatre was in late 2004 when there was an advance screening of Martin Scorsese's THE AVIATOR.
[UPDATE 7/30/09: Kenneth Turan offers his opinion--a strong one--regarding LACMA's decision: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-critic-lacma30-2009jul30,0,5900670.story]
[UPDATE 7/31/09: Here's a snobbish pro-Birnie take on LACMA and the film program:
http://filmjourney.weblogger.com/2009/07/30/lacma-jettisons-film-program/]
[UPDATE 8/5/09: A petition to send to Michael Govan re LACMA's film program:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/save-LACMA-film]
Regarding the above story, Mr. Horn and Ms. King's assertion that the availability of classic films on DVD helped to bring about the LACMA weekend film series' demise is a bit too neat--and lets the museum off the hook.
When original series curator/programmer Ron Haver died around 1993, LACMA mostly shifted the focus of the film series from film-as-popular-art to film-as-ART. And museum director Michael Govan and now-part-time-employee Ian Birnie should take some responsibility for the decline in audience and loss in revenue. Ideally, a successful museum film program should find equal room for the works of, say, Alain Resnais (now the closing LACMA retrospective), Kathryn Bigelow, William Wyler, Andrei Tarkovsky and Tsui Hark.
Having said that, I should share some responsibility (as an audience member) for not attending LACMA film programs nearly as often as I did from, say 1988 to the mid-90s. The last time I saw a film at LACMA's Bing Theatre was in late 2004 when there was an advance screening of Martin Scorsese's THE AVIATOR.
[UPDATE 7/30/09: Kenneth Turan offers his opinion--a strong one--regarding LACMA's decision: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-critic-lacma30-2009jul30,0,5900670.story]
[UPDATE 7/31/09: Here's a snobbish pro-Birnie take on LACMA and the film program:
http://filmjourney.weblogger.com/2009/07/30/lacma-jettisons-film-program/]
[UPDATE 8/5/09: A petition to send to Michael Govan re LACMA's film program:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/save-LACMA-film]
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Another low for LA TIMES critic/cheerleader Betsy Sharkey.
No doubt Betsy Sharkey's a dream-come-true for THE LOS ANGELES TIMES in that she's willing to do the at-one-with-blockbusters cheerleading that mostly-fuddy-duddy Kenneth Turan can't lower himself to accomplish.
But this article of Ms. Sharkey's in today's edition is rather disgraceful pandering:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-heroes5-2009jul05,0,2815935.story
And it makes me miss Ms. Sharkey's immediate predecessor, Carina Chocano (who had her flaws, but at least a bit more integrity)--plus the critics long departed from the TIMES' pages (Michael Wilmington, Sheila Benson, Charles Champlin, Peter Rainer, Manohla Dargis).
But this article of Ms. Sharkey's in today's edition is rather disgraceful pandering:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-heroes5-2009jul05,0,2815935.story
And it makes me miss Ms. Sharkey's immediate predecessor, Carina Chocano (who had her flaws, but at least a bit more integrity)--plus the critics long departed from the TIMES' pages (Michael Wilmington, Sheila Benson, Charles Champlin, Peter Rainer, Manohla Dargis).
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Roger Ebert on film criticism making way for more celeb gossip.
Thanks to Jeffrey Wells' HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE blog for alerting me to the following blog entry from Roger Ebert about the latest blow to film criticism--the Associated Press wanting its film-related articles to be no longer than 500 words: http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/11/death_to_film_critics_long_liv.html
Maybe another death blow was dealt recently when Kenneth Turan, the LOS ANGELES TIMES film critic who angered James Cameron by essentially evaluating TITANIC as mediocre schlock which lowered the standards of mainstream Hollywood filmmaking, gave a pass to the current girl-loves-vampire film TWILIGHT (come to think of it, so did Richard Corliss, who once in FILM COMMENT had his issues with Ebert and the late Gene Siskel about the SISKEL AND EBERT TV show's effects on the criticism profession).
The future of mainstream film criticism will increasingly be inherited by get-along-by-going-along careerists like the AP's Christy LeMire and Ben "I love going to junkets" Lyons. And most younger people won't mourn this because they don't have the time to read more than 500 words at one sitting.
Maybe another death blow was dealt recently when Kenneth Turan, the LOS ANGELES TIMES film critic who angered James Cameron by essentially evaluating TITANIC as mediocre schlock which lowered the standards of mainstream Hollywood filmmaking, gave a pass to the current girl-loves-vampire film TWILIGHT (come to think of it, so did Richard Corliss, who once in FILM COMMENT had his issues with Ebert and the late Gene Siskel about the SISKEL AND EBERT TV show's effects on the criticism profession).
The future of mainstream film criticism will increasingly be inherited by get-along-by-going-along careerists like the AP's Christy LeMire and Ben "I love going to junkets" Lyons. And most younger people won't mourn this because they don't have the time to read more than 500 words at one sitting.
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