29 janvier 2012

Shit Movie Reviewers say


Top10 Epic Fails of 2011 for the Film Press :
  1. "One thing I truly believe is that real critics and real cinephiles should have absolutely no track with common sense" (Adrian Martin Ph.D) PURE BULLSHIT (BRAINWASHING)
  2. "We should give the audience the tools to quit their jobs so they can devote their life to cinema" (Chris FujiwaraPURE BULLSHIT (DELUSION)
  3. "Meek's Cutoff is a waste of everyone's time, effort and money" (Neil Young) CENSORSHIP OF ARTISTIC EXPRESSION (DICTATORSHIP)
  4. "As I get older, I find I'm suffering from a kind of culture fatigue and have less interest in eating my cultural vegetables, no matter how good they may be for me..." (Dan Kois) ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM (COMPLACENCY)
  5. "The [Cannes] festival is something of France's answer to the Oscars (more so than the Césars, its annual film awards) and a modest bulwark against Hollywood hegemony." (Manohla Dargis) MISCHARACTERISATION (DELUSION)
  6. "Being a contrarian can be staying in your own personal comfort zone, of your taste, and your likes and dislikes. And I think that's indeed a danger. It can be something that is very self-indulgent." (Cristina Nord) INTELLECTUAL DISHONESTY (BRAINWASHING) 
  7. "There is always someone worse off than you. Watching starving peasants, or people in terrible dire straits, you leave the cinema and you think ' Well maybe things aren't so bad' In a way that's confirming you in your comfort zone" (Neil Young) SOPHISTRY (BRAINWASHING) 
  8. "[..] Il n'en va pas de même dans la critique. Celle-ci a une longue histoire de « copinages »" (Independencia) INTELLECTUAL DISHONESTY (BRAINWASHING) 
  9. "Therefore, 'film school' -and the attitudes and stigmas commonly associated with it- does not necessarily require a new kind of analysis, for no new kind of analysis can exist for a sensibility that has been heretofore hardly been analysed." (Ricky d'Ambrose) GRANDILOQUENCE (MANNERISM) 
  10. "That's right, when all else fails, denouncing this or that film festival for failing to measure up in some way or other works everytime. All you have to do is invent some expectation or obligation that said festival level failed to meet, add water, and voilà! And let's face it, everybody likes a good fight as long as they're not the punching bag. You think I'm joking, I'm not joking." (Gavin Smith) PETTINESS (COMPLACENCY) 
This is not reasonable nor responsible to declare such things in public, this is undermining an already moribund film culture.
After 60 years of Film Criticism history, what people write today must be at least as smart as what has been learnt and written in the past, or not written at all. 

Movie reviewers need to take themselves less seriously... 
and take Cinema more seriously.

If the journalists in your favourite newspaper, your favourite reviewer, your film teacher, a book written by a film scholar start to sound like the above bullshit without an hint of sarcasm, shame or remorse... then run away, run as far as you can! And learn to think by yourself, teach yourself to detect self-serving egos talking out of their asses for the sole purpose to occupy the public conversation even though they have nothing to say.

N.B. see links for the context of these quotes! 

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