THE NEW YORKER's Richard Brody on the Academy's lack of love for comedy.

Beyond the allegations of racism and rewarding Brand Names for Serious Intentions (Steven Spielberg's BRIDGE OF SPIES doesn't belong on the Best Picture Nominations list), there's the issue of comedy being largely ignored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Richard Brody discusses the "comedy doesn't show enough effort/gravitas/Serious Intentions" attitude of the Academy in his NEW YORKER article "The Baffling 2016 Oscar Nominees."

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/the-2016-oscar-nominees

Excerpt:
"The Best Director nominations go to three showy filmmakers (Adam McKay, George Miller, and Alejandro González Iñárritu) and two nearly invisible ones (Tom McCarthy and Lenny Abrahamson). McKay had the oddest inspiration of the five. He applied the freewheeling loopiness of his comedies (notably “Anchorman”) to a political subject, proving once more that comedy gets no respect—most significantly, in the absence of any nominations for “Trainwreck.” Outside of the oddball interpolations of star announcers in “The Big Short,” there’s hardly a giggle or a guffaw in any of the Best Picture nominees. (Leonardo DiCaprio gave one of the greatest comic performances in recent years in “The Wolf of Wall Street”; he’ll likely win an Oscar for his relentlessly grim grind through “The Revenant.”) Comedy that the Academy feels comfortable taking seriously, comedy that comes trademarked as topical—that’s what the members watch on TV or streaming. It’s exactly why the revitalization of big-screen comedy—a job that Judd Apatow took on a decade ago and is attempting all over again—is tougher than ever."

So David Denby of THE NEW YORKER reviews THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO early...and other ethical crises.

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2011/12/denby-rudin_exc.php
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2011/12/12/111212crci_cinema_denby

Not being a professional film critic/reviewer asked to sign a "don't write about this until X date" document, all I can do is provide some unembargoed opinions:
1. NEW YORKER film critic David Denby's mentor Pauline Kael wasn't afraid to take her time getting around to reviewing "new" releases; the haste of the current NEW YORKER regime to lunge for a "you gotta read/log onto this NOW" scoop shows it's a far different era.
2. Note to Scott Rudin: You're blackballing Denby and screaming red-velvet decibels of outrage over, in essence, a film review (and a positive one) running ONE WEEK EARLIER than you've planned (regarding magazine reviews).  Step back from your anger and recognize the silliness of it all.
3. Then again, Denby was a bit of an ass when trying to curry favor with Rudin over a putdown of Cameron Crowe's WE BOUGHT A ZOO--a film that, if reviewed in this week's NEW YORKER, would have likely been smirked to death by alternating NEW YORKER film critic Anthony Lane.
4. The remaining gambit to be played in this film review embargo crisis is whether or not Rudin tries to banish anyone else at THE NEW YORKER (Lane, Richard Brody, etc.) from seeing advance screenings of his other big holiday production EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE.

[UPDATE: David Fincher weighs in with a pro-Rudin, pro-control-media-access comment:
http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2011/12/fincher_on_denb.php]

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.]

Pauline Kael, although deceased, still provokes negative reactions.

Occasional NEW YORKER capsule film critic Richard Brody raises his leg and uses the late Pauline Kael's gravestone as a fire hydrant--in the context of a Kael vs. Andrew Sarris mention:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2009/06/critical-condition-part-2.html

As I recall, Kael had her biases (to put it mildly), but she liked a great variety of films and filmmakers (witness the 5001 NIGHTS AT THE MOVIES compilation of her capsule reviews). But you wouldn't know it from Brody's brief, bitchy throwaway remark.

But Kael's desire to be a Cinema Influence (a description the late film producer Saul David tagged her with in his book THE INDUSTRY) did anger a few people--and it could be said that the new Francis Coppola film TETRO (which I generally liked) has a key character (the tastemaker Alone, played by Carmen Maura) clearly intended as Coppola's version of Brody's critique.

But at least Francis put more effort into his characterization of Pauline Kael than Richard Brody does.