… Anthony Lane write this review before seeing the film?
It’s not that a pan of Sweeney Todd is impossible or even improbable for some. It’s that with the exception of a notice of Edward Sanders as Toby, this “review” mostly seems like a pre-screening musing on Burton’s carer limitations as Mr. Lane sees them, is really not much about the film.
Odd.
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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
At worst, I think that Anthony Lane had pretty much made up his mind before he actually viewed the film. What he saw on screen, he selected to merely reinforce his beliefs.
But that aside, what would WB do if such a high profile critic were to go ahead and review a film when WB knew that said critic had not attended the press screening?
Does anyone know of such a thing ever happening?
I know that in the UK, when the revered critic Dillys Powell was alive, they ALWAYS delayed the screenings in London until she had taken her seat (legend has it, she was customarily 2 minutes late).
I didn’t mean literally. I am sure he did see the film. But very little in the piece has much to do with the seeing as much as the anticipating.
He’s simply not a good critic, in the sense that he never illuminates or makes connections between the movies and other art forms or the culture at large or suggests new ways of viewing. He’s a quipster, a bon mot artist, and his reason for being is to appease that section of The New Yorker’s readership who don’t like movies and are happy to have someone belittle them with cutting wordsmanship every other week.
Except when he genuinely likes a movie and is able to deliver that to the reader. I enjoy his writing. Less so when he’s attacking something I like. But when you’ve walked away despising a movie, especially one that seems to be loved by most of the main or geek streams, he’s a lot of fun. He’s not the only one I read, but I’m glad he’s in my overall mix of critics I read.
Honestly? I think Lane should hang them up. Stick a fork in him, he’s done.