What Film Critics Do:

Smokler on August 31, 2002

I’ve only been reviewing for Filmcritic.com for a few weeks now and so far, it’s been a hoot. At least once a week, founder Chris Null will judiciously edit the hate mail (lots of it) that gets sent to the site and then circulate the most vile nonsense amongst the staff. Most of them are simply sad and pathetic and they usually end up on the site itself. A rare few are so hilarious in the utter hollowness of their indigation that we get them. Like the one I’m about to share with you. My answers (it’s hate mail disguised as a survey) are in italics.

>Chris, you sad little parasite.

Ugh, already a bad sign. Anyone who calls a critic “a parasite” has never been reviewed before and knows nothing about how film journalism works. You make a movie, a critic reviews it. It’s a symbiotic relationship. Deal.

>I would like you to answer a few questions, if it won’t take you away from the very important work that you’re doing.

By all means. That’s why we’re here, right?

>1.) How did you happen to see my film? It isn’t released yet.

Uh, since most film critics have neither smuggling rings nor super powers, probably because you sent us a copy, you twit. And the reason film reviews come out on the same day movies are released is because critics get to see them at special screenings BEFOREHAND. Need we repeat the basics again?
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>2.) What, do you feel, qualifies you as a movie critic?

Oy jeez, what is this, junior high school? “YOU DON’T KNOW ME. YOU CAN’T CRITICIZE ME? AND STAY AWAY FROM MY LOCKER!”
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>3.) What qualifies anybody as a movie critic?

The easy answer here is “what qualifies anyone to be a filmmaker?” but why get all existential?

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>4.) Have you ever attempted to create anything of your own? A screenplay? An actual film? A puppet show even? Or are you too busy sitting on the bag of cottage cheese you use for an ass and sucking down twelve-packs of diet coke in front of your computer altar and doling out your sage advice to those of us who haven’t reached the heights you have?

Ya know, every job has an occupational hazard. A film critic’s is listening to pompous spoild brats hurl sour grapes because you gave them a bad review. Everyone gets bad reviews and real filmmakers shrug and say “on to my next project.” GROW UP. Ever hear Martin Scorcese blame the critics? He’s too busy making movies.

Side Note: I’ve never seen this guy’s film but in this question, he tips his hand. I don’t need to see it now because I know it sucks. Anyone who gets personal with a critic is compensating for a three-ton load of insecurity about their own lack of talent. Whining about a bad review is like admiting the review is right.

5.) Do you revere the internet as a device which allows previously unnoticed trolls such as yourself to waddle out from under their bridge of uselesness and feel they are contributing to society in some pathetic way?

*Yawn* They said the same thing about television in 1950, radio in 1920, movies in 1890 and on and on.

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>6.) Do you agree with the popular theory that critics are doomed to sit on the sidelines as disgruntled observers, jealously slandering those people who have the guts to achieve what the critic can only dream about?

Boyo, this is only a popular theory amongst self-rightous beginning filmmakers resentful of anyone else’s success. Really it’s a myth, like Bigfoot or the Bermuda Triangle. I’ve been reviewing movies for twelve years and have never once met a film critic who wanted to make them. Never. It’s a different skill set, a different personality type. The most powerful ones, like Vincent Canby, Roger Ebert and the late, great Pauline Kael all had the clout and connections to do so and didn’t. Work an honest job for a few days and you’ll realize that few air traffic controllers really want to be pilots and few museum curators really want to be painters. To sum up: No one here envys you. And certainly not after this letter.

7.) Is “presumedly” a word? Or did you and your crack team of geniuses at Critics ‘R Us mean to say “presumably”?

What’s that buzzing noise?

>8.) If you feel that my movie wasted 77 minutes of your life, why would you waste another 15 minutes writing a critique about it?

*echo* *echo*

>9.) What are your five favorite and five least favorite films?

If this is a credibility test, I gave at the office.

>I would appreciate honest answers to all of these questions.

Nothing but the best for you, my friend. See above

Joly Good Show!

Smokler on August 27, 2002

The first screening of my new monthly film series, Monday Night at (S)Moklers, went off like gang busters. The film I choose, 1961’s The Misfits, which Clark Gable and Marylin Monroe both starred in right before they died, may have landed like a led balloon but the company (Laura, Kristin, Wendy, Jane, Scott, and Joe) was exquisite.

Just the first five minutes…

Smokler on August 17, 2002

Anyone know a way to download movie trailers and save them on your hard drive? I’d like to have my favorite trailers (yes, I have favorites. Quit giggling) saved somewhere for posterity.

Let me know.

Ira, as you never seen him before…

Smokler on August 15, 2002

My favorite public radio program, This American Life, has signed a two-year “first look” deal with Warner Bros. Pictures. This means that Warners gets the first shot at adopting TAL stories into film.

That faint whiff of snobbery in the air says that a public radio program should not be climbing into bed with the world’s largest media conglomerate. Bollocks to that. WB isn’t dictating the content of This American’s Life’s program nor does the show (one of public radio’s most successful) need this deal to stay afloat. Plus, perhaps this means the show doesn’t need to fundraise to the extent it has which frees up grant money for other deserving parties.

Does this mean that shows ostensibly “in the public interest” will now start targetting their content towards mass market consumption? Unlikely. What Warner Bros wants from TAL is great stories. What I’ve always liked about the show is it’s dedication to non-topical narrative instead a humorless, slavish interest in “important news.” And really, who is interested in a movie about corporate accounting reform (via Travelin’ Dave)?

Null Set:

Smokler on August 5, 2002

Met Christopher Null, founder of Film Critic.com for coffee today. We’d been trying to set something up for a few days now after Mighty Girl Maggie told him to get in touch with me about his first book, Half Mast. I’m going to give it a read and see if I can do a few reviews for his site. Insert “Full Circle” graphic here. My very first review gig was as a 15 year-old intern for the Ann Arbor News. The movie was Pump Up the Volume which I believe I called “Whitmanesque.” That makes no more sense to me now than it did then.

Back to the Screen:

Smokler on July 5, 2002

After hearing Roger Ebert pitch his new book, The Great Movies on City Arts & Lectures, I’ve decided I must make it mine, even though it’s still in hardcover. It’s a collection of the essays Ebert has been doing bi-monthly for the Chicago Sun-Times, re-examining Great Movies of the past. It’s not a Great Movies of All Time list per se but more movies that have moved Ebert significantly over his 30 year career and giving them another look.

There’s also a mission at work here: Ebert claims that, with the demise of late shows on TV, repatory movie theatres and the proliferation of Blockbuster Video, many young film fans think cinematic history began with Star Wars. A valid point perhaps, but it also discounts the growing influence of DVDs and Netflix and the boon I believe obsessing over the minutae of film will be for classic cinema, the success of Turner Classic Movies and American Movie Classics on cable TV and, as uninspired as they are, the extent to which those AFI Top 100 lists have movie fans making lists of movies they “should see.”

In the end, really, Roger Eberts is just another advocate, albeit a powerful one, for concerted, intelligent, arms-wide-open movie-watching. And I’m all about that. So on my wall his list goes, along with several others.

I have a lot of watching to do. And I couldn’t be happier about it.