May 2, 2024
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Review: Little Women (no spoilers)
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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
I’m interested in reasoned reviews. Slant may have gone negative on Inception, but their review makes a solid case. It doesn’t make it sickeningly personal.
Sorry for repeating myself as I mentioned this elsewhere, but with an evening ticket going for $11 (and with limited opportunities these days), I wanted to be pretty sure that I would like Predators. I don’t always trust the horror geeks and AICN, so I focused on more mainstream reviews. Had it received AVP reviews I never would have gone. I read a decent sampling and concluded that I’d probably like it, which I did.
If I’m deciding to see a movie or not based on reviews, then it’s not the percentage so much as it is the actual reviewers themselves. I read the ones that, over the years, I have some respect for, and whose opinions I’ve gotten to know. It doesn’t necessarily matter if I agree with them or not; if I’m familiar with what I like and what they like (and don’t like), then I have a pretty good sense about how their opinion will relate to mine (about the film in question).
So, generally speaking, I’ll take a look at: Ebert, Turan, Morgenstern, Edelstein, the New Yorker, the NY Times, Mike D’Angelo, James Berardinelli, Mick La Salle (got used to reading him when I lived in the Bay Area), the LA Weekly, DP, Wells, slate.com, etc etc. If it’s a geek film I’ll take a glance at places like Cinematical, SlashFilm, Collider, io9, and the like.
I sympathize with Stella. As a fan of horror films I’ve been burned time and again by the “horror geeks” who seem to give anything a pass if it’s got lots of gore, is directed by a legend (even if said legend is washed up) or a meaningless cameo by someone like Tony Todd.
I still read sites like Dread Central from time to time but as a source of reviews it’s useless to me.
Krazy Eyes, I have also found that horror geeks like the folks at Dread Central tend to be blinded by anyone who professes genre love, giving really awful flicks a pass or rave if the director claims to love horror.
Poland always talks about how big his readership is, so why do his polls end up getting fewer than 20 responses?
No I seem to remember Poland saying his readership is big during awards season and small but quite dedicated the rest of the time.
I’m with Telemachos; broad spectrum of critics whose tastes I know/understand more or less. The comments/debates of certain blogs factor in as well, but usually I have a fairly good idea of what to expect from films as I follow the talent I’m interested in and thus some films from
their inception (heh).
The only films where critics can influence what I watch are small indies and other films by unknowns that are therefore not on the radar, and some genre films (predators is a good ex) where things could go either way.
But usually i read the reviews post watching the film for analysis and insight different than my own, to stimulate thought/conversation
These polls are silly and tell you nothing. They’re like polls on FOX or MSNBC. White noise.
Readership is fine, thanks… in season (which is larger) and off.
Counting who clicks on a poll or how many comments is pretty silly.
And Christian, the point of asking questions is to stimulate thinking, not to claim The Answer. So… do you have anything to add to the conversation or do you and Wreck just want to piss in the garden all day?
Me? I like real reviews from real people. I don’t like just ratings. I need solid reasons.
Isn’t a bit pointless to differentiate between print and on-line critics anymore? I mean, as pointless as differentiating between paperback and hardcover books? Sure, there are paperback origins, just as there are on-line only critics. But, really, aren’t all critics on-line critics now? I can’t give you a precise percentage, but if you told me half of my Variety reviews from the past three years were web-only reviews, I would not be surprised.
Er, should read: Sure, there are paperback ORIGINALS. D’oh.
Agree completely, Joe.
The ratio of lurkers to posters on most sites is absolutely huge, maybe upwards of 4-6 orders of magnitude. Surveys get more participation than comment threads, but still — this poll got 20 responses in just two hours. I don’t have trouble believing, say, 10,000 people, as a lower bound, saw this post within that time.
…On the other hand, the regulars here — and there are roughly 20 of us, maybe? — seem to refresh this blog hourly, so maybe the first 20 were all the regulars. But that still means 26 non-regulars have answered in the 22 hours since. 20 regulars + 26 lurkers answering a poll sounds reasonable. That would scale up to roughly 40K people on the lower bound, with 400K not out of the question.
Obviously this is REALLY rough, with the potential for massive margins of error. My point isn’t to arrive at a real figure, just simply to make the point that 46 survey responses in 24 hours is perfectly consistent with impressive traffic figures.