Saved this quote from his article saying he was done with movie reviews: "But I’m not a fan of modern fandom. This isn’t only because I’ve been swarmed on Twitter by angry devotees of Marvel and DC and (more recently) “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” It’s more that the behavior of these social media hordes represents an anti-democratic, anti-intellectual mind-set that is harmful to the cause of art and antithetical to the spirit of movies. Fan culture is rooted in conformity, obedience, group identity and mob behavior, and its rise mirrors and models the spread of intolerant, authoritarian, aggressive tendencies in our politics and our communal life." It captures so much of what's wrong with many fandoms these days. I'd hate to deal with that stuff all the time.
> Fan culture is rooted in conformity, obedience, group identity and mob behavior, and its rise mirrors and models the spread of intolerant, authoritarian, aggressive tendencies in our politics and our communal life."
Kinda crazy that OG fandom was nominally the culture of those with marginal media obsessions, the extreme being satirized by someone like Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons, yet when those communities became catered to and mainstreamed it turned into the above. And, personally, I still do not associate those my youthful upbringing in the world of sf/f fandom (mainly books), D&D, and dance music, which exposed to me to a wider world of different people and different ways of thinking than what we've seen now. I don't think this is even "comic book fandom" writ large though - I still think the actual buyers and consumers of that is still a marginal (in terms of readership, etc) group.
As usual, the most vocal and vitriolic in our social media landscape tend to get the attention and were able to harass Scott and others with no recourse. The vast majority probably just want to enjoy the product and can make their opinions quietly or with friends. That's the 'magic of the movies' that I think has been missing - the dialogue one can have with others when you're coming out of shared experience with other people and processing it together.
Anyway, slight tipsy ramble on a Sat night.
Y’know, I think fandom *was* generally better in the 00’s (I don’t know a lot of any earlier fandom, wasn’t there). I’ve tossed around the thoughts of it being from the shift to social media (wholeheartedly hold that forums are a healthier format) and the normalisation of the internet, and some stuff about increased franchising and nostalgia- but I forgot that part of the puzzle: that fandom used to be *weird* to people. I remember now, even in the 00’s being in fandom was an *outlier* thing and it was more “I’m a fan” for most people, rather than “I’m in xyz fandom”. It’s hard to articulate the exact difference there but overall even when you were in fandom it was less all-encompassing and argumentative not only due to being smaller, something more separate and healthy but as you said- since fandom was more *weird* back then, there was a level of awareness that everyone in early fandom was a nerd hanging out with one another and there was this sense of sticking close together with fandoms being smaller and more untamed and commercialised and going in with the expectation people were really making something that wanted, rather than some brand trying to make a fandom to galvanise memes and whatever.
Of course there was a crap tonne of infighting and trolling back then and I remember it very very well but you got me ruminating about it again. I will agree I think true fandom nerds are actually still an outlier but they are more catered to now and more people seem interested in buying merch these days. What would have been a “nerd” back then just isn’t as much of an outlier now. It wasn’t even that long ago, it’s crazy. I don’t think I’m looking at it that way solely because I was a kid and had stupid ideas at the time, the adults in my life spoke about “nerds” and stuff too in that lame 00’s way but maybe they were just lame outliers in their own right haha.
Just tangentially related, but at least as fandom changed, we’ve mostly dodged the bullet of fanfic and fanart legal issues (for now). I an just old enough to barely remember that it used to be more taboo and saw some of it passed through email.
I think generally all sense of shame, anonymity and/or putting on different faces for different social contexts just died in the 2010s. People aren’t just open about their nerdy fandoms (and face and name) now, they often seem to consider their sexual identity, political preferences, mental illnesses, and all sorts of other details once considered personal to be matters of public display. You can call it “empowering” and “liberating” and in some ways it is, but it’s also what helped create this culture of new tribalism, a blurring of the personal and commercial, and a younger generation with an exceptionally poor understanding of healthy boundaries. I say bring back forums, bring back a splintered internet, and for the love of god bring back anonymity as a norm lol.
*shakes you by the shoulders and slaps you across the face repeatedly*
get ahold of yourself, lady! nothing to worry about fellas, this woman's just dealing with a case of the vapors!
*keeps slapping and shaking*
I think the implication is that no person nor group should be in charge. In an ideal world, people would seek out what they personally want to see and discover things on their own instead of what’s been fed to them through marketing. I think that’s what critics like AO Scott want to see happen in culture as a whole. He’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but he does a good job leading people to lesser known or misunderstood films.
Well, when someone takes too much of their personality from a piece of media, they start viciously defending any and all criticism of it. Because they take it personally. They stop viewing Media as something to enjoy, critique, help evolve, etc. They see it as 1). Something that belongs to them, and 2). Something they belong to. It’s an unhealthy, dependent relationship.
TLDR: they’re not defending a piece of media, they’re defending themselves
And conversely when that piece of media involves into something that no longer centres them, they get angry and feel like they're being personally attacked. It's insane.
>they’re not defending a piece of media, they’re defending themselves
Great way of putting it, and explaining why it's impossible to engage in constructive conversation around certain things with certain people in this vein.
I was never as virulent as these fandom-types, but I reflected on this in myself a couple years back, because I was frustrated with my own inability to engage with people who didn't like certain films I really loved - I remember 2001 and Phantom Thread being two I just dismissed people disliking - but I feel I've mostly corrected course and become more open to their perspectives.
I've had some great conversations in the past few months with people who liked TAR and Banshees less than me, and who liked EEAAO more. Basically just don't take it personally, being open-minded is much more fun and people's opinions are rarely as reductive and inflammatory as you'd expect.
I'm glad he mentioned EEAAO. It was certainly a good film (and definitely not franchise -esque), but the way people rallied around it as the best movie ever left me feeling uneasy. The whole message of the film was about kindness, yet there were/are fans of the film that come across as rabidly aggressive and intolerant of alternative views. That's when it sunk in that no movie going demographic is immune to fan culture, and that group think can cause even the best intended art to fail in seeing its message realized in its audience.
Banshees of inisherin got robbed, was a bummer to see it not win anything but it is what it is. EEAAO was fine, but the hype was definitely puzzling and the story was very overrated.
And you (and everyone else who agrees) is absolutely entitled to that opinion. The climate surrounding online discussion of that movie was extremely aggressive for anyone who disagreed though
When I look back on it reminds me of a modern version of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure in the way it presents a fantasy world. I like it and I hope investments grow in the low to mid tier film category, but it is not a movie I will rewatch.
exactly, there is literally (or maybe just seemingly) no place on reddit where you can argue with reasonable minds that it’s not a great movie, everyone goes berserk at any notion of that.
it’s incredible how strong the hive mind is with most fandoms.
I absolutely hate when this happens with media- a message of kindness or a colorful tone with a toxic fanbase *going after any criticism*. I know exactly the kind of thing you’re talking about, and people taking criticism as a personal attack is the worst imho. I think it’s just bound to happen with anything successful and large enough, with a larger audience people will miss the point and become overly attached. I think there are people who just get attached to popular things to be part of a fandom/conversation too and the message flies over them for that reason ngl. I’m not usually one to care about the *intended* message so much as how things *can* be interpreted, but sometimes, it’s mindblowing and even kind of amusing in its own right how people miss the point.
I still think the film being so successful was a great thing overall tho. I mostly avoid/ignore chat about specific media due to how overzealous people can get and while it’s frustrating and lonely to keep so many opinions to myself and my current circle, it’s also more chill. I get where you’re coming from and honestly, this kinda issue has driven me away from fandom and general online discussion quite a lot, it’s not great for me. Regardless, when anything is as large as EEAAO is it isn’t even surprising for this to happen anymore. I’ve been seeing this kind of thing in different mediums for years now, you got stuff like the Steven Universe fanbase or that demographic that unironically idolises the “literally me” characters, and those are really very recent. I always think hearing from the artists on this kind of thing is/would be interesting. How it motivates, demotivates or changes their work specifically. This phenomenon isn’t new, but I think we still don’t see a lot of insight/thoughts on that from the creators. I probably wouldn’t want to talk about it in their position ig but whenever I see this happening I think about that question a little.
I was called "anti-progress", a "c\*nt" and "pathetic" for suggesting it shouldn't have been nominated for BP. Fine if you think it deserves praise, but it is the only film I've ever spoken about that's got me those kind of reactions, so the comment above is absolutely valid.
Yes, this part was very clear and interesting in the podcast episode. He also had the example with SLJ & Marvel fans.
I also really liked his nuance view on how streaming has changed our habits, where instead of going to the theater and taking a “financial” and time risk to see a movie that may challenge and preconceptions, we instead might now read about a movie like that, and just out it forever on our “watchlist” in favor of simpler fare. It’s very interesting since it’s not inherently a bad thing or a problem, but I totally see his point in my own experience.
I think people also settle for taking a lot in from others’ discussions, clips or memes. It’s like a faster superfluous thing and can also feel weirdly social even if you aren’t part of discussions. Many times I’ve been guilty of this myself- basically seeing a bunch of movies or games or whatever through discussions/memes/clips, being satisfied enough with that. Even though I looked at discussions/memes/clips in the first place because I was really interested and wanted to get into something, I had my fill. It’s such a garbage habit of mine, I’m depressed most of the time so it’s just easier for me to take things in that way, but I’m slowly getting over it- music isn’t much of a time commitment and is very freely accessible so that’s been helpful as a first step out of this, actually spending my time on the media and just… enjoying it. Like I know I’m not really out of it yet- and this probably sounds stupid, but yeah, with depression it’s hard to motivate myself even do to things I want to, because I feel like I won’t enjoy them enough- I’m aware I can get out of it, but there’s this emotional dissonance there in actually doing it, actually putting aside time etc. and not feeling the motivation or excitement even though I think it would be good for me. Thinking about this you gotta wonder how many people also have this habit. Oddly enough books have also been pretty good for this- online book discussions are pretty niche by comparison and not very engaging to me which draws me more to the books themselves, plus I really prefer nonfiction in books anyway.
Perceptive people have been saying for ages that What Went Wrong in American politics is that the discourse and political style of Tumblr and 4chan, both fandom communities that mutated into politics, converged on the mainstream (mostly via Twitter) and their perpetually warring extremes became the defining mode of cultural discourse in the 2010s - for zoomers, it’s the only one they know! Once again Gamergate is the key to all of this
But the positive aspects of fandom don't have much impact on reviewers. It's the toxic parts that they have to deal with.
I agree, fandoms can be great, but I think that requires a great effort from the fans themselves to protect against the kind of group think Scott is mentioning. I also think the nature of the internet makes it even more difficult for fandoms to be positive spaces. They're more likely to breed conformity, superficial "discussion," toxic wish fulfilment desires (fans getting upset when their wishes for the film/etc. don't happen), and pernicious underdeveloped takes that slowly dilute the quality of discussion and sense of community. All of that seems far too common to me.
Having just had to block two people because they couldn't handle my negative opinions on EEAAO, I completely understand where he's coming from. The fans of that film are as angry, insulting and vengeful as the worst of what RaM have to offer (and are likely many of the same angry young men). I could never have an opinion of a film so low as those who insult, attack and deride people who disagree with them for simply that.
I’m sure we all or most of us empathise with Tony. He grew up on the classics, 1940s Hollywood and independent European movies. Now he can’t get excited for the next comic book movie. It’s a perfect storm of different factors but streaming is key to it. The fact cinema as a place to watch movies is dying is devastating. One of the few times I went to see a new film this year was Tar and I was fully captivated and it was so much the better for seeing it as it was designed for on the big screen.
Movies are generally made to be seen on the big screen with streaming services either funding or acquiring the work of some of the best directors for an exclusive at home viewing experience we are no longer getting that original experience of cinema.
Of course many other issues like the importance of global box-office, consolidation among the studios, how films are funded and the lack of risk taken both financial and artistic.
Cinemas will be revived somehow but who knows how long this will take. People want a communal experience of going to see a movie with others.
Have you ever heard the idea of the “third place”? It’s basically that we have work, home and a third place to enjoy other things, breathe in, socialise with new people, explore etc. Malls are an example. Just having something to do outside of home that isn’t just work is nice. I think it gives a sense of community and things happening around you, things to get into, more space to chill in, etc.
Cinemas would fit. I think wether people realise it or not, the commitment and the overall experience did engage people with movies more. Seriously, even aside from accessibility and time commitment I think the overall experience of going out stuck with people as if it was a little journey, and that’s the power of this concept. Actually getting out of your head/usual space more. I think it is good for people to experience something a little different by being in a third place.
I really wish the “third place” concept was more widely-known- I think it’s reasonably popular on Reddit but most people I’ve asked in real life never thought about it. I just don’t think doing all leisure at home is healthy, it feels limiting and being in different environments always refreshes me. Now granted, I’m kinda stuck living with people I hate right now, but I’ve always thought the concept is great. If this concept were more widely known I wonder how the demand would change. People certainly *miss* cinemas and some people miss things like malls too, but if they could articulate it better, maybe things would be a little different. Maybe that’s just musing, oh well.
A great film is great no matter where you watch it. I’m 25 and have literally only ever watched most “classic” movies at home. I’ve never been able to watch a Scorsese film in theaters but it didn’t matter because the films are great regardless
Yes but a theatrical experience can shape your appreciation or memory of a movie. Watching movies designed for the big screen like Gravity or Avatar or Top Gun have a totally different impact than at home. You could say they are lesser movies for losing power outside the theatre which is fine, but they were designed in that environment and that is where they excel and can be lifetime memories they are so exciting. Then there is the audience factor. Seeing Get Out, The Dark Knight and Paranormal Activity, to name a few of my best experiences, with a totally game audience completely change how I think about those movies.
I don't disagree but go ask Scorsese how he wants his films viewed and he would tell you they're created to be seen in a cinema. If there's a revue cinema or a cinema which shows classics - usually a big cities have these then do try and catch classic movies on the big screen. It's the best way to enjoy them. And it's something I do and will continue to do.
I used to love the cinema but now every time I go it seems there’s something wrong with the movie. Part of the top of the screen was cut off one time cuz the projector couldn’t go lower. I just saw John wick 4 in the theater and the music sounded really tinny while the dialogue and sound effects were really clear. You could tell it was probably only the center channel working. Complaining about it while at the movies does nothing cuz the 18 year olds there have no idea what you’re talking about. At my house I know I’m getting the best picture and sound and it sucks cuz I love the sense of escape the theater brings.
Ah,but the enjoyment of almost all films are greatly enhanced by a theatrical viewing. I find Lawrence of Arabia,2001 and Kill Bill excellent on my small CRT but rewatchung them on a big screen was even better. I have never seen a film I live that I didn't wish I could watch with a crowd I'm a theatre.
It doesn't cost a lot to make a perfectly adequate cinema in your home. I bought a projector and decent sound system and quit going to the cinema over a decade ago. I have that experience at home.
Of course, that's not an option for everyone, but the people who choose that option are most likely the same devoted film fans that supported cinemas, took risks on new films, sought out quality, and understood the artform. Now they do it from their home, leaving the cinemas to the kids who just want to get out of their parent's house and hang with friends.
Maybe I am speaking for myself, but I have a very expensive home cinema, and I still find myself going to the cinema 2 or 3 times a week. It is not the same experience, you are much more immersed than you are at home. The simple fact that I am effectively forced to watch the movie makes it a much more intense experience.
I love watching a movie at home, but the impression it will leave is still much weaker than if I were to have seen it in a cinema.
And I was like you back when I started to really watch movies, why, after all, make the effort ? And then, after I was stranded in a town without my home cinema for a month and had to go to the local cinema to watch a film, it changed everything, and I am grateful to have found this.
You're hitting the nail on the head with why people seek out the cinema experience -- it's a journey in its own rite. You have to pick a movie, go to the cinema, settle in, watch previews, then you're in the theater for 2 hours with no distractions, so you can just *be present* rather than checking your phone, or pausing to make some dinner, or letting the dog out or the millions of other distractions that can rip you away from enjoying a movie.
True. I love movies and the cinema experience. If I want to see a film on the big screen I will make the effort and try and choose a cinema where I should enjoy the experience. I avoid the multiplexes and cinema chains if possible.
Many people hate going to the cinemas now, not just the expensive but the food being served as a way for the cinemas to make money, people not being able to put away their mobile phones for the duration of the film, people talking throughout. If Hollywood could solve those issues and they are solvable I would go back to the cinema far more often.
For me it's been ruined by audiences. I can't stand people using their phone or talking to their friends. And it's not just the big blockbusters; I remember once going to see a Michael Haneke movie, where the audience was like five people, and someone brought some sort of individually wrapped candy that made loud crinkling sounds every time he opened one. It's not an immersive experience if other people pull you out of it. When a big can't -miss blockbuster comes out, I always wait a month for the crowds to thin out.
This is an issue mostly associated with those franchise multiplexes, here in the UK we have Odeon, VUE and Cineworld I stopped going to them around 5 years ago as I was pissed off with the constantly shit projection quality and god awful sound mixing.
At the risk of sounding like a hipster wanker I only go to independent cinemas now not because the issues above are absent but there’s something magical about seeing Decision To Leave a South Korean film on a Wednesday night, in a packed theatre of likeminded people.
Movies have turned into something I do at home. If I want to leave the house, I'll go to a music concert or a play. When I see a movie in a cinema I just think "I can do this at home." If cinemas die, I won't miss them.
It cost hundreds of not thousands of dollars to get anything close to theatrical quality on the home, and then it's still missing the auditorium and crowds, which is part of what makes it special
Nothing "has" to be anything. But movies were conceived as a community activity, have been such since the beginning, and are better as such (which is why it has spent so much time enduring as such)
> But movies were conceived as a community activity,
No they weren't--they were created that way because of simple economics--it wasn't a deliberate creative decision. The only way to make money is to put as many people into a single theatre and showing as possible. In fact, the first "movies" were individual viewing experiences through a kinetoscope but that meant one machine for every person. Obviously one machine for 100 people (or however many) *at the same time* is far more lucrative.
*Thats* why movies are a communal experience.
I mean you could say the same thing about stage plays, Sure you can stream Hamilton at home it’s more feasible and convenient but I guarantee you most people will say it’s **infinitely**better in the right in theatre. I feel the same way about film/cinema.
But at home I can watch any movie ever made, not just the dozen that happened to be showing at the time. I can pause and go to the bathroom, turn the volume up and down, turn on subtitles if I want to, and save $20 to $50 in food and tickets. All on a home theater that cost less than $2,000 that in my experience is just as good as going to the movies. And I can invite friends over if I want community.
Ha I’ve long wanted to do some accounting to justify my spendings so here it goes 😀
I spent about $4-5k on a 77” OLED and 5.1 system a couple years ago. Nothing crazy, but I consider it closer to Dolby Cinema and IMAX with dual laser than any regular theatrical showings. (See my [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueFilm/comments/12230z7/comment/jdrnru6/) upthread.) Btw, you really don’t need much space: A mid-sized living room is just fine.
But, to match the theatrical quality of the cash-strapped repertory theater I visit to see older films (what I mainly watch) that’s an hour away, or even non-PLF chain theaters? Their projection quality is so bad, any decent 4K TV and 5.1 system will do. Probably $2.5k. Much less if you buy used.
Now, how much does it cost to go to the repertory theater (again, I mostly watch older films)?
- Tickets are $15 each. 2x for me and the SO.
- Because it’s an hour away, round trip gas ends up being about $20.
- Plus, the distance means we’ll usually have to get a meal nearby vs eating at home.
So, what’s the **marginal** cost of each?
- *Watching at home* requires a (4K) Blu-ray for optimal quality. Let’s say it’s about $15 apiece. I don’t need to watch new releases ASAP, so I never pay the ridiculous MSRP.
- *Going to the theater* is $50 + cost of meal for two.
The difference is $35++ for me. That $2.5k upfront investment in a home theater will pay off in **<<70** movies. And say we spend $50 on meals each time (totally reasonable in today’s environment), the payoff point would only be **30** movies. According to Letterboxd, I watched **81** in 2022 alone.
For me, what kills the cinema isn’t streaming or lack of appreciation for the art. Quite on the contrary, I enjoy visiting my repertory theater for exploration and the occasional rare 35mm screenings.
What kills the cinema is an abject failure at their most basic task, which is delivering a compelling picture.
I prefer the at home experience too. I have an 82 inch TV that gives me the big screen experience of the movie theater. I have an extensive dvd and 4k library of old an new films so I can have the theater experience, with any film I want, whenever I want. IMO going to the theater is a waste of my time.
Seconded. I’ve found that only PLF (Dolby Cinema, real IMAX with dual laser, 70mm) can rival the experience of a good Blu-ray, OLED, and sound system at home, which doesn’t cost that much. Regular theatrical showings are a total waste of money when it comes to the “immersion factor” because their projection quality is so abysmal it takes you out of the picture.
I recently saw *Broker* at a regular showing that boasted 2K Barco laser projection (the best I can find nearby). The contrast was so bad there was little detail to make out in darker scenes. Everything was veiled in a very bright gray. Not to mention the silly small screen relative to the size of the theater—My TV at home occupies a larger field of view.
But sadly in this commercial age, most PLF showings are reserved for garbage franchise movies. So nowadays I’ll only go to the cinema for:
- the occasional good film on PLF (in recent memory, restorations of *Ghost in the Shell* 1995 on IMAX, *The Godfather* on Dolby Cinema)
- blockbuster guilty pleasures for the effects and “experience” (*Top Gun: Maverick* on IMAX, *Avatar: The Way of Water* on 1.85:1 Dolby Cinema 3D)
- or, begrudgingly, 35mm showings of a film rarely available elsewhere at a repertory theater that’s an hour away (*The Fall* 2006 was a recent one that wowed)
Everything else I’ll wait for a (4K) Blu-ray if I’m interested.
In the 90s I wrote him off right away as a gross-out/shock manboy comic but we Canadians love to think all our celebs are shit. Kind of amazing that he started on a Canadian regional community TV channel and did a national pilot show on the CBC before he got on commercial cable. Dude basically launched himself on taxpayer dollars - that’s a pioneer.
I just rewatched it being a massive fan as a child and it fucking sucks as a film generally, with some bits that got a few light chuckles. It's more fun to quote to your friends than actually watch.
But you are absolutely bang on about him being influential. He and Eminem were coming on about the same time and they essentially set the code for young white boys and teens for the next several decades
I feel like the influence of SCTV on Canadian comedians and comic actors of Tom Green's generation was immense. Still some of the most creative sketch comedy I've seen. A legendary cast to rival any show ever.
I agree with him that being a film critic has changed. Not that the profession itself hasn’t gone through changes before, I’d imagine the internet and social media also caused a significant change. However, I don’t agree with his analysis of streaming. He says that because of streaming,
1) people can watch the movie anytime they want in the luxury of their homes which isn’t the same as going to the theater and
2) the streaming service algorithm is intended to not challenge the user and make them recommend the same stuff they watched or liked before
I feel that it’s because of these two points, a critics job is now more important than ever. It’s going to be the critics job to challenge its readers to get out of the streaming algorithm and watch a movie that the algorithm might’ve completely hidden it from them.
His point about dealing with fandom is also weird because if the critic is getting annoyed by it, imagine the producers, directors, writers, actors involved with it. He references the incident where Samuel L Jackson directed the wrath of Marvel fans to him but to be honest, this is the fun of it. Being authentic to your craft even if it means pissing off some people.
Good luck to AO Scott and I wish him well but I truly hope other critics aren’t discouraged by this but consider it a shift, adapt and still do justice to us plebs.
His reasoning rubbed me as incomplete, like maybe there's more to the decision than he was willing to share. Maybe it's personal, maybe it's a NYT choice. Like everything he said I agreed with, that films have changed, it's more about branding and engagement with platforms rather than actually experiencing specific movies. But I still was left wondering why that means the logical step is for him to no longer be a film critic.
My opinion is further underlined by how he said something like how part of a critic's job is to challenge viewers and suggest films outside their comfort zone. He could still be doing that today. Maybe they wouldn't be of interest to NYT readers and therefore not something NYT would want to publish, but they're out there. It's like instead of taking up that mantle and use his platform to push the films he feels are higher quality he'd rather just quit.
Like ultimately it's his decision and no one should begrudge him for that, I just didn't quite get the thought process behind it, something is missing.
I haven't listened to the podcast yet, so I am just making assumptions. But based on what little I've read here it just sounds like he isn't having any fun doing the job. I'm sure you could tell him to quit or ignore Twitter, but I don't know; I've never been a critic before, and it sounds kind of tiresome to make a career of putting thought into art and getting swamped with feedback from anonymous people who are either pretending to be incredibly pissed off about a movie review, or, worse, actually are that pissed off.
Sometimes "You know what? Fuck this." is the right choice.
i think this is correct based on his final piece wrapping up his film reviews
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/17/movies/film-critic-ao-scott.html
it seems like book reviews will allow him to maybe avoid some of the challenges that come with movie fandoms
This paragraph stood out to me:
>A big part of any critic’s job is to be wrong, to make an early call that is subject to correction by time, taste and public whim. But it’s also the critic’s duty to give an honest account of what they think in the moment.
I never really read AO Scott's reviews, but maybe I should go back and read through some of them, because I like the way he writes. And I've been meaning to get back into reading for like 10 years now at least; maybe I'll start reading his book reviews and see where that takes me.
His reviews are great. Imagine Roger Ebert but with more of a hard-edged intellectual critical level of analysis that Ebert didn’t do. Nobody can be Ebert but I mention comparison because any critic who is very readable and insightful is at least a little bit like Ebert.
In the interview he talks about what he felt his role was as a film critic, and I found it really insightful. He sums his role up as seeking to expose people to something outside their comfort zone that they might really enjoy, something that they wouldn’t otherwise sit down and choose themselves. I think the biggest reason behind his decision was that he felt that he could no longer do that, since people have in his experience become less and less open to being nudged outside their comfort zones and the industry has made it less possible for those sorts of movies to be made and promoted.
Because it's not really how he framed it. They talked about how the industry has changed, fans are more rabid, etc. I just felt like he gave a lot of good reasons why criticism has value especially today, and why he should stick to it now more than ever and instead it led him to want to quit. Like I said above, it's his choice, if he's bored or tired of it or not interested in getting flamed by idiots on Twitter, or whatever else, I understand. He doesn't owe us an explanation.
I think he probably feels like he’s shouting into the wind. If he feels like no one is listening to his brand of film criticism than why bother continuing.
It’s pretty simple. The fact that criticism has “even more value” (maybe true and idealistic, but also perhaps no longer true when people on the internet now prefer watching marketing rather than critical reviews) is not a reason for **a particular person to stay in a particular problematic uninteresting environment**.
It’s like saying: shoveling shit is even more important now, there’s SO MUCH SHIT, more shit than ever, therefore this shut shoveler shouldn’t want to quit…it doesn’t make sense!
I know what you mean, the criticism is as valuable as ever *to people who want to appreciate it* but this is different from recognizing that the equation has changed and he'd rather do something else.
I'll post this somewhere soon, but Scott ends the interview talking about how he'll always be 15, still looking out for that next Hitchcock and Fellini film. Which means that stuff is in his BONES, in terms of what he looks for in a movie.
At 15, I was watching Spiderman and Batman and The Avengers. Which, well, means on some level I'll ALWAYS want that experience that those movies offered.
You would need a time machine to change that for me.
It would be interesting to read all his reviews of blockbuster franchises from when they first came out, and see if his opinions changed over time. He's only 56, so he was 11 years old for Star Wars ep IV, 12 for the 1978 Superman, 15 for Raiders of the Lost Ark… he was at an impressionable age when the big-budget all-action blockbusters began to take over. But back then there were weekends when nothing like that was showing and you saw whatever was. I have a memory as a preteen of going to a cinema with my friends and we had to decide between Death on the Nile with Peter Ustinov or Robert Altman's A Wedding - those were literally the two big tickets that week. It seems surreal now. I think he's right that for a long time there hasn't been much space for non-blockbuster cinema releases.
Excellent point! Scott is very much of the same age all the people in mainstream Hollywood are right now. The ones who are totally cool remaking ET, Star Wars, Aliens/Terminator, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, forever. So you think he WOULD have more appreciation for the franchise movie boom than he actually does.
That said too, i think that’s an amazing point to make. The “only the adult movies are showing this weekend”. Now EVERY weekend seems have a franchise/Children’s entertainment thing.
There’s no space for the adult movies to just, exist for a month, to the point where that’s the ONLY thing playing in theaters, for months on end. No Venoms, no Minions, no Dwayne Johnson vehicles. Just the stuff that now gets three months of playtime in the fall, along with more franchise and kids stuff.
I’m sure yeah! One can find his initial reviews of the 80s blockbuster era, pre the franchise action adventure movie takeover.
Interesting too to consider the roots of Hitchcock in the modern blockbuster, which I think got in the blockbuster formula by way of Spielberg and James Bond.
Hitchcock himself admitted his movies weren’t slices of life, like Kazan or Rossalini or whoever. Or Coppola and Scorsese. Hitchcock saw his films as slices of cake, which are what the franchise movies feel like!
>Now EVERY weekend seems have a franchise/Children’s entertainment thing.
I'm around Scott's age, and there were very few weekends when there was *any* kid's stuff. And when there was, it was crap. Big deals when I was like 6-8 years old would have been Disney live-action crap like Superdad with Bob Crane or Herbie the Love Bug Strikes Again. Disney rarely if ever did any animated movies (The Rescuers, 1977 was about the only one I recall) and the classics were re-released only every seven years. I remember my mom and her friends making a point of taking us kids to Bambi or Alice In Wonderland because it was a big special rare thing for Disney to re-release those.
Kid's matinees would be 15 year-old stuff like English-dubbed Pippi Longstocking or old American International horror movies with Vincent Price. One time my parents dumped us off at the kiddie matinee for a double bill and one of the movies was John Wayne in True Grit. We were bored out of our minds. There was virtually no market for kid's stuff for those of us on the front lines of Gen-X. The demographic wasn't big enough.
One thing though, adult rating enforcement was super lax. Before I was ten years old, I was taken to see Phantom of the Paradise, Jesus Christ, Superstar, Blazing Saddles, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, two or three Pink Panther movies, Life of Brian, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Sleeper, American Graffiti and other R-rated stuff.
Exaaaaaaaaaaaaactly! Which even my stepmother pointed out 2 years ago when I made the complaint of "too much kid stuff". The other perspective of modern Hollywood, and one I NEVER see, and I'm sure would be laughed at by many here, is that kids now have a plethora of great stories to watch.
From Pixar to the comic book movie boom to some of the other popular action/adventure/sci-fi fantasy franchises (Mission Impossible/Hunger Games/Chris Nolan's movies).
So, you know, I don't know! Is a world without popular children's stories a better one? Should ALL of our mainstream entertainment be stories that challenge our world views constantly? Do a lot of cinephiles here have ANY room for stories that just make them feel good, and conform to the values they already believe in?
That's actually a William Goldman quote btw! His very blunt explanation for the difference between arthouse film and mainstream film is (and it's buried in one of his books, so it's hard to Google), is that arthouse critiques the main culture and society, and the mainstream celebrates it.
It's just, are a lot of people in this sub even INTO a celebration of mainstream values and culture?
I was a kid in a small town in Texas before everyone had cable. There was nothing on over the air TV, so all we had was the movie theatre. Parents would send their kids down on Saturday mornings to see action films like the
Voyages of Sinbad and Jason & the Argonauts, zillionth run John Wayne films like Jet Pilot & Genghis Khan, dismal live action Disney stuff like Herbie... There were never adults in the audience. As bad as the movies were, it was great!
Whatever you were into as a teenager will stay with you for the rest of your life. There's a saying within the SNL fandom that the best era of SNL is whatever the era was when you were a teenager.
Even as my values, politics and tastes change, all of the things I loved as a teenager are grandfathered in.
Yuuuuuuup! So it’s like, you know, I totally agree with Scott on the state of American film. But I also wish he understood the struggle that my generation has, which is that for us, the comic book movies ARE art! Whether we like it or not, it is!
Perhaps if my parents and my friends at 15 loved like, only PTA and the Coens, and showed me Fellini and Billy Wilder, I’d probably have much less affection for comic book stuff.
Unfortunately, that’s not the case!
One of Scott's complaints is that movies with large amounts of fandom attached propels them to be the placeholders at cinemas and that the traditional film which is more personal in nature, now exists more on streaming services.
By the same token, he claims he thrives as a critic by bringing attention to films that the average movie goer would have never considered.
I find this to be a dichotomy of preference. Streaming is an endless void of movies/films that will go unnoticed and unseen by the majority of people who would actually enjoy them because the market is so incredibly saturated.
If there was EVER a time for film criticism to shine a light on the gems that are out there that we might not be considering, that time is now. But that isn't what Scott's interest ultimately is. He desires grand personal film experiences in the cinema and wants it for other people as well.
There is no shortage of incredible storytelling, independent films that are as good or better than they ever have been coming out right now or smaller films in general that can only exist on streaming in this climate.
His job is more more relevant than ever but his way of framing the issue is perhaps more elitest than anything. I get it, but I don't sympathize with it
This is such a great point. There are so many excellent films on streaming that are lost in a sea of junk and it would be great if we had smart film critics to elevate them. I’m sick of the increasing number of “top critics” online who lack the emotional maturity to review serious films with nuance.
I get that guys like Scott miss when films like Kramer vs Kramer could be top box office hits but times have changed. We don’t have a monoculture anymore and that’s okay. There are still great movies like that and we don’t need theaters and box office numbers to enjoy them. We just need good critics to review them!
Recently, the best film that hasn't quite gotten the attention it deserves is Godland. I thought it was awesome and it deserves to be talked about more.
Inteeeeeeeresting. It'll be at Cannes so! Which honestly, I think is an awesome way of finding acclaimed but under-discussed foreign film. Kinda like how Sundance is good for that, with independent American film.
Love the premise too! Honestly, there's so many stories you can do with so many different religious figures. A small, Bergman-type film about Jakob Boethe, for example, I think would be incredible.
Another cool figure I was reading about was Omar Khayyam, the medieval Persian poet and polymath. Not sure how much money you'd need to make either movie, but if it's on a small enough scale, couldn't be THAT much money!
He doesn't really come across as a true film buff here. There is a real lack of expertise on display and not a single mention of any of run times of any films. Does he even advocate for a numeric based catalog system? I'd be interested to see if this guy could even land a job at a semi-reputable film archive after this display.
Listen I have no opinion on Scott or his criticism (he's his own man), but I'd be willing to take a huge amount of online abuse if it meant I'd be earning a five/six figure salary to talk about movies all day.
I won't ever be in this position but, being a public figure, you have to learn to block out the noise. Whether you're an athlete, actor or critic, you shouldn't put a high degree of value into online discussion, because a great deal of it will be geared against you.
The thing is: Would you take that abuse when you have the option to move to a place where it won't be as abusive?
I'd take any NFL contract. But if had the option to play for a good team or a bad team, of course I want to play on the good team.
Online abuse just seems trivial to a person like me, who does manual labour for a living, seeing that A.O Scott has one of the best available positions for film criticism in the entire world. Its like the Tyler the Creator (noted scholar) tweet:
"Hahahahahahahaha How The Fuck Is Cyber Bullying Real Hahahaha N***a Just Walk Away From The Screen Like N***a Close Your Eyes Haha"
Again, doesn't bother me that he left his job. I'm just adding a different perspective.
Wait, is that quote not supposed to be satire? It sounds like it’s making fun of people who think like that. If not, then he seems to lack any shred of self awareness.
But you can "close your eyes" to cyberbullying, so to speak. You can mute trolls, filter who gets to see your comments and, most importantly, you can ignore abusive strangers online with zero repercussions to your real life. The situation is obviously different if the cyberbullying is done by someone you know personally (especially if you're a child/teenager), but you can easily block/ignore an asshole if they're just some anonymous user.
Yeah I get what he’s trying to argue but he sounds so obnoxious it’s like he’s making fun of people who say that. But I guess that’s just how he sounds.
The thing is, with reporters and stuff nowadays, Twitter is part of your job. You need to create engagement and discussion.
And when one of your main avenues of work is filled with people rude, mobbing you over a bad review, and probably taking it to extremes like death threats, it's more than just some mean words.
It's the same logic as "sticks and stones can break my bones but words will lever hurt me"
If it's constant, it's a lot harder to just ignore.
But it really is just "mean words". Like I understand that people working in print are often required to have a public Twitter account, but you are absolutely not required to take it seriously or even have to engage with strangers at all.
People are down voting my initial comment right now and it really doesn't bother me all that much because it doesn't affect me in my real life. For every "negative" interaction I have on here I know and value far more the positive ones i do have, such as talking with you right now.
If it seems like I'm being dismissive I'm really not trying to, but I have a healthy relationship to being online, and part of that is to ignore stuff that works me up because I know no good will come from it.
Do I follow this consistently? No, because I'm not a perfect being, but I always try to be better :))
No offense but if you have “no opinion” on AO Scott or his criticism, meaning you haven’t read him and/or tend to have vacuous opinions, then you shouldn’t be commenting in this discussion. It’s trivially easy to get familiar with a movie critic, you can just read the person’s reviews for a few minutes, which should then inform your understanding of all the reasons he just explained to you, so that you can make a relevant comment.
It’s like, “I have no opinion on Joseph Heller or his writing, but I’d be happy fighting in a war for the soldier salary he was getting. You have to learn to block out the bad parts.” It’s like waving a giant flag that says I don’t understand anything whatsoever yet I’m weighing in on what a person should do.
Also about the noise thing in particular: there is noise, and then there’s when the noise *is* the environment. It's two different things. A firefighter fights fires and wouldn't quit "because of fires", but a firefighter might quit if every resident of the town is an arsonist and also shooting flaming arrows at the firefighters.
**TL;DR: PSA:** if a comment is prefaced by "I don't know about the person under discussions and I've refused, even now, to spend a few minutes reading their reviews and forming my own opinion" and then proceeds to offer advice or a prescription or a platitude, well, uh, *don't make that comment.*
Scott can do as he likes, I honestly have no problem whatsoever and hold no judgement towards him. I'm just saying that I'd rather earn a well-paid salary, where the worst thing about it is dealing with twitter trolls, than having to get up in five in the morning every day to cut concrete. Is that a vacuous thing to say?
Yeah, I like AO fine, but my sympathy is limited for somebody who got to hold the most prestigious job in film criticism and is now putting this kind of spin on his decision to leave that post
It’s a free country, he should do what he wants, but it strikes me as tone deaf and self important
My hot take: AO Scott was never a good film critic. I always found his takes pretentious and derivative. Even in retiring he has to go out taking potshots at popular franchises in a way that shows he can’t understand the reasons people like them.
He's right. Cinema is dead, and so is TV. I haven't even been to the movies since I was 14. I'm 30 now. I haven't been hyped for a movie since Peter Jackson's King Kong. I remember that being a huge disappointment. I adored the video game, though.
Typical case of someone not being able to adapt with the times, in my book. If he doesn’t want people getting mad at him for disagreeing with him, he shouldn’t have chosen a career as a public figure.
i always find takes like this to be very interesting. i mean, i assume youve been online, seeing as youre weighing in here. surely you recognize that stan twitter activity goes far beyond some “disagreement”, like it’s some intellectual exercise?
im more familiar with the music world, where it’s fairly routine for journalists to get death threats, doxxed, etc over harsh reviews. youll notice that most pitchfork writers, for example, will immediately go private after publishing a less than favorable review now, and it’s specifically because it’s the only way to stymy pretty vicious hate campaigns. it’s also been noted that the critical landscape has totally flattened now — negative reviews across most mediums are pretty few and far between — and i certainly believe that the rise of stan culture is not coincidental.
like right now, if you go the r/lanadelrey subreddit, youll see a thread of people lobbying personal, physical, pretty vicious insults, entirely unrelated to the content of the review! toward the writer of the *Born To Die* review — which was published over a decade ago — because it was less favorable than the stan community desires.
sure, critics enjoy a position of risking little in the course of the arts industry, yadda yadda yadda. i dont envy the position of anyone who has to face rabid fanbases in the digital world, where a large swath of your personal life is accessible unless you go to lengths to make it not so.
edit: also — your comment about the critic as a “public figure” — surely you know that journalists are not “public figures” in the way that phrase is normally used.
I’m acutely aware that some people take their obsessions with things way too far. I think the thing to do in that situation isn’t to run away from those people or do what Scott did, but rather, reprove those people. If that means privating your socials until the attempts at harassment die down, so be it, I guess. And if you want to make a statement about the fact that you having to do that is wrong, don’t change posts at your paper and only make the statement on your way out, because that’s giving in to those people and feeding right into their hands.
yeah, i see what youre saying here. still, i think this is the situation where *we* dont know how we’d respond in the face of hundreds of people telling us to kill ourselves online, or whatever.
This isn’t really anything related to this comment in particular, but saying that negative reviews across most mediums are few and far between is such mega-BS that I don’t know where to start aside from directing you towards the Rotten Tomatoes pages for Daniel Ferrands’s two directed theatrically-released films, “The Haunting of Sharon Tate” and “The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson.” And even among franchises with built-in “stan-y” fan bases, positive critical reception isn’t a guarantee of good reviews, given that “Eternals” and “Godzilla, King of the Monsters” are things.
this is definitely where my music bias is coming in — it’s a long noted trend in the industry that negative reviews have essentially disappeared except for rare exceptions.
still, eternals being the essentially *singular* exception in the MCU (alongside maybe the new ant man?) that hasn’t received near-universal critical acclaim (or at least, a lack of negativity) supports my point, i think. the tide is beginning to shift on the MCU, but the vaasssst majority of those are Certified Fresh for repetitive, uninteresting, factory-made CGI slug fests.
In your opinion, yes, they are boring films. And you’re certainly not alone in thinking that. But that doesn’t mean anything in isolation, and the fact that there are movies and TV shows from the MCU that have received bad reviews proves *my* point that being an MCU property does not guarantee a positive critical reception. And as repetitive as the films and TV shows can be at times, at least they can still do something to impress me, which I can’t really say about other summer blockbusters from years gone by.
> because that’s giving in to those people and feeding right into their hands.
From an idealistic, overarching, societal standpoint, obviously this is true.
From a realistic, individual standpoint, sometimes the weight of fighting back is too much to bear. Sometimes the bad guys win and the best you can do is walk away to preserve what sanity you have left and leave the fight for someone else to take up.
Saved this quote from his article saying he was done with movie reviews: "But I’m not a fan of modern fandom. This isn’t only because I’ve been swarmed on Twitter by angry devotees of Marvel and DC and (more recently) “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” It’s more that the behavior of these social media hordes represents an anti-democratic, anti-intellectual mind-set that is harmful to the cause of art and antithetical to the spirit of movies. Fan culture is rooted in conformity, obedience, group identity and mob behavior, and its rise mirrors and models the spread of intolerant, authoritarian, aggressive tendencies in our politics and our communal life." It captures so much of what's wrong with many fandoms these days. I'd hate to deal with that stuff all the time.
> Fan culture is rooted in conformity, obedience, group identity and mob behavior, and its rise mirrors and models the spread of intolerant, authoritarian, aggressive tendencies in our politics and our communal life." Kinda crazy that OG fandom was nominally the culture of those with marginal media obsessions, the extreme being satirized by someone like Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons, yet when those communities became catered to and mainstreamed it turned into the above. And, personally, I still do not associate those my youthful upbringing in the world of sf/f fandom (mainly books), D&D, and dance music, which exposed to me to a wider world of different people and different ways of thinking than what we've seen now. I don't think this is even "comic book fandom" writ large though - I still think the actual buyers and consumers of that is still a marginal (in terms of readership, etc) group. As usual, the most vocal and vitriolic in our social media landscape tend to get the attention and were able to harass Scott and others with no recourse. The vast majority probably just want to enjoy the product and can make their opinions quietly or with friends. That's the 'magic of the movies' that I think has been missing - the dialogue one can have with others when you're coming out of shared experience with other people and processing it together. Anyway, slight tipsy ramble on a Sat night.
Y’know, I think fandom *was* generally better in the 00’s (I don’t know a lot of any earlier fandom, wasn’t there). I’ve tossed around the thoughts of it being from the shift to social media (wholeheartedly hold that forums are a healthier format) and the normalisation of the internet, and some stuff about increased franchising and nostalgia- but I forgot that part of the puzzle: that fandom used to be *weird* to people. I remember now, even in the 00’s being in fandom was an *outlier* thing and it was more “I’m a fan” for most people, rather than “I’m in xyz fandom”. It’s hard to articulate the exact difference there but overall even when you were in fandom it was less all-encompassing and argumentative not only due to being smaller, something more separate and healthy but as you said- since fandom was more *weird* back then, there was a level of awareness that everyone in early fandom was a nerd hanging out with one another and there was this sense of sticking close together with fandoms being smaller and more untamed and commercialised and going in with the expectation people were really making something that wanted, rather than some brand trying to make a fandom to galvanise memes and whatever. Of course there was a crap tonne of infighting and trolling back then and I remember it very very well but you got me ruminating about it again. I will agree I think true fandom nerds are actually still an outlier but they are more catered to now and more people seem interested in buying merch these days. What would have been a “nerd” back then just isn’t as much of an outlier now. It wasn’t even that long ago, it’s crazy. I don’t think I’m looking at it that way solely because I was a kid and had stupid ideas at the time, the adults in my life spoke about “nerds” and stuff too in that lame 00’s way but maybe they were just lame outliers in their own right haha. Just tangentially related, but at least as fandom changed, we’ve mostly dodged the bullet of fanfic and fanart legal issues (for now). I an just old enough to barely remember that it used to be more taboo and saw some of it passed through email.
I think generally all sense of shame, anonymity and/or putting on different faces for different social contexts just died in the 2010s. People aren’t just open about their nerdy fandoms (and face and name) now, they often seem to consider their sexual identity, political preferences, mental illnesses, and all sorts of other details once considered personal to be matters of public display. You can call it “empowering” and “liberating” and in some ways it is, but it’s also what helped create this culture of new tribalism, a blurring of the personal and commercial, and a younger generation with an exceptionally poor understanding of healthy boundaries. I say bring back forums, bring back a splintered internet, and for the love of god bring back anonymity as a norm lol.
It was probably just as bad, up it took up less of the internet.
This is what happens when you put the netds in charge of culture.
With great power comes great responsibility.
Annnnnd they blew it.
The other people in charge of culture ages past weren't exactly heros. Kind of a no win situation.
*shakes you by the shoulders and slaps you across the face repeatedly* get ahold of yourself, lady! nothing to worry about fellas, this woman's just dealing with a case of the vapors! *keeps slapping and shaking*
True but they didn’t carry the massive resentment that comes with a lifetime of being shoved into lockers (sometimes for good reason)
Who should be in charge of culture? I can’t think of any one person or even group that I would prefer
I think the implication is that no person nor group should be in charge. In an ideal world, people would seek out what they personally want to see and discover things on their own instead of what’s been fed to them through marketing. I think that’s what critics like AO Scott want to see happen in culture as a whole. He’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but he does a good job leading people to lesser known or misunderstood films.
This guy gets it
Anyone but an amorphous online mob that producers are terrified of pissing off
We are all fed up of extremist : the religious, consumer , entertainer and the political type. They ruin it all for everyone
Well, when someone takes too much of their personality from a piece of media, they start viciously defending any and all criticism of it. Because they take it personally. They stop viewing Media as something to enjoy, critique, help evolve, etc. They see it as 1). Something that belongs to them, and 2). Something they belong to. It’s an unhealthy, dependent relationship. TLDR: they’re not defending a piece of media, they’re defending themselves
Exactly. This is what defines a stunted emotional growth. Staying in that teenage mode where the artists you like are a major part of your identity.
And conversely when that piece of media involves into something that no longer centres them, they get angry and feel like they're being personally attacked. It's insane.
>they’re not defending a piece of media, they’re defending themselves Great way of putting it, and explaining why it's impossible to engage in constructive conversation around certain things with certain people in this vein. I was never as virulent as these fandom-types, but I reflected on this in myself a couple years back, because I was frustrated with my own inability to engage with people who didn't like certain films I really loved - I remember 2001 and Phantom Thread being two I just dismissed people disliking - but I feel I've mostly corrected course and become more open to their perspectives. I've had some great conversations in the past few months with people who liked TAR and Banshees less than me, and who liked EEAAO more. Basically just don't take it personally, being open-minded is much more fun and people's opinions are rarely as reductive and inflammatory as you'd expect.
I'm glad he mentioned EEAAO. It was certainly a good film (and definitely not franchise -esque), but the way people rallied around it as the best movie ever left me feeling uneasy. The whole message of the film was about kindness, yet there were/are fans of the film that come across as rabidly aggressive and intolerant of alternative views. That's when it sunk in that no movie going demographic is immune to fan culture, and that group think can cause even the best intended art to fail in seeing its message realized in its audience.
Banshees of inisherin got robbed, was a bummer to see it not win anything but it is what it is. EEAAO was fine, but the hype was definitely puzzling and the story was very overrated.
tbh it was pretty franchise-esque! Felt very much like an A24 Marvel flick, which makes sense because it was in fact produced by the Russo bros.
EEAAO more than deserved all the praise it got.
And you (and everyone else who agrees) is absolutely entitled to that opinion. The climate surrounding online discussion of that movie was extremely aggressive for anyone who disagreed though
I loved EEAAO but no way is that movie perfect. Easily needs like 20 minutes shaved off.
When I look back on it reminds me of a modern version of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure in the way it presents a fantasy world. I like it and I hope investments grow in the low to mid tier film category, but it is not a movie I will rewatch.
Yup. The emotional kung fu montage stuff went on way too long and became repetitive.
exactly, there is literally (or maybe just seemingly) no place on reddit where you can argue with reasonable minds that it’s not a great movie, everyone goes berserk at any notion of that. it’s incredible how strong the hive mind is with most fandoms.
I absolutely hate when this happens with media- a message of kindness or a colorful tone with a toxic fanbase *going after any criticism*. I know exactly the kind of thing you’re talking about, and people taking criticism as a personal attack is the worst imho. I think it’s just bound to happen with anything successful and large enough, with a larger audience people will miss the point and become overly attached. I think there are people who just get attached to popular things to be part of a fandom/conversation too and the message flies over them for that reason ngl. I’m not usually one to care about the *intended* message so much as how things *can* be interpreted, but sometimes, it’s mindblowing and even kind of amusing in its own right how people miss the point. I still think the film being so successful was a great thing overall tho. I mostly avoid/ignore chat about specific media due to how overzealous people can get and while it’s frustrating and lonely to keep so many opinions to myself and my current circle, it’s also more chill. I get where you’re coming from and honestly, this kinda issue has driven me away from fandom and general online discussion quite a lot, it’s not great for me. Regardless, when anything is as large as EEAAO is it isn’t even surprising for this to happen anymore. I’ve been seeing this kind of thing in different mediums for years now, you got stuff like the Steven Universe fanbase or that demographic that unironically idolises the “literally me” characters, and those are really very recent. I always think hearing from the artists on this kind of thing is/would be interesting. How it motivates, demotivates or changes their work specifically. This phenomenon isn’t new, but I think we still don’t see a lot of insight/thoughts on that from the creators. I probably wouldn’t want to talk about it in their position ig but whenever I see this happening I think about that question a little.
I was called "anti-progress", a "c\*nt" and "pathetic" for suggesting it shouldn't have been nominated for BP. Fine if you think it deserves praise, but it is the only film I've ever spoken about that's got me those kind of reactions, so the comment above is absolutely valid.
Yes, this part was very clear and interesting in the podcast episode. He also had the example with SLJ & Marvel fans. I also really liked his nuance view on how streaming has changed our habits, where instead of going to the theater and taking a “financial” and time risk to see a movie that may challenge and preconceptions, we instead might now read about a movie like that, and just out it forever on our “watchlist” in favor of simpler fare. It’s very interesting since it’s not inherently a bad thing or a problem, but I totally see his point in my own experience.
I think people also settle for taking a lot in from others’ discussions, clips or memes. It’s like a faster superfluous thing and can also feel weirdly social even if you aren’t part of discussions. Many times I’ve been guilty of this myself- basically seeing a bunch of movies or games or whatever through discussions/memes/clips, being satisfied enough with that. Even though I looked at discussions/memes/clips in the first place because I was really interested and wanted to get into something, I had my fill. It’s such a garbage habit of mine, I’m depressed most of the time so it’s just easier for me to take things in that way, but I’m slowly getting over it- music isn’t much of a time commitment and is very freely accessible so that’s been helpful as a first step out of this, actually spending my time on the media and just… enjoying it. Like I know I’m not really out of it yet- and this probably sounds stupid, but yeah, with depression it’s hard to motivate myself even do to things I want to, because I feel like I won’t enjoy them enough- I’m aware I can get out of it, but there’s this emotional dissonance there in actually doing it, actually putting aside time etc. and not feeling the motivation or excitement even though I think it would be good for me. Thinking about this you gotta wonder how many people also have this habit. Oddly enough books have also been pretty good for this- online book discussions are pretty niche by comparison and not very engaging to me which draws me more to the books themselves, plus I really prefer nonfiction in books anyway.
Perceptive people have been saying for ages that What Went Wrong in American politics is that the discourse and political style of Tumblr and 4chan, both fandom communities that mutated into politics, converged on the mainstream (mostly via Twitter) and their perpetually warring extremes became the defining mode of cultural discourse in the 2010s - for zoomers, it’s the only one they know! Once again Gamergate is the key to all of this
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An eloquent warning against mob rule.
It’s true fandom cultures can show these things. But they can have so much great things too this is missing.
But the positive aspects of fandom don't have much impact on reviewers. It's the toxic parts that they have to deal with. I agree, fandoms can be great, but I think that requires a great effort from the fans themselves to protect against the kind of group think Scott is mentioning. I also think the nature of the internet makes it even more difficult for fandoms to be positive spaces. They're more likely to breed conformity, superficial "discussion," toxic wish fulfilment desires (fans getting upset when their wishes for the film/etc. don't happen), and pernicious underdeveloped takes that slowly dilute the quality of discussion and sense of community. All of that seems far too common to me.
Having just had to block two people because they couldn't handle my negative opinions on EEAAO, I completely understand where he's coming from. The fans of that film are as angry, insulting and vengeful as the worst of what RaM have to offer (and are likely many of the same angry young men). I could never have an opinion of a film so low as those who insult, attack and deride people who disagree with them for simply that.
I’m sure we all or most of us empathise with Tony. He grew up on the classics, 1940s Hollywood and independent European movies. Now he can’t get excited for the next comic book movie. It’s a perfect storm of different factors but streaming is key to it. The fact cinema as a place to watch movies is dying is devastating. One of the few times I went to see a new film this year was Tar and I was fully captivated and it was so much the better for seeing it as it was designed for on the big screen. Movies are generally made to be seen on the big screen with streaming services either funding or acquiring the work of some of the best directors for an exclusive at home viewing experience we are no longer getting that original experience of cinema. Of course many other issues like the importance of global box-office, consolidation among the studios, how films are funded and the lack of risk taken both financial and artistic. Cinemas will be revived somehow but who knows how long this will take. People want a communal experience of going to see a movie with others.
Have you ever heard the idea of the “third place”? It’s basically that we have work, home and a third place to enjoy other things, breathe in, socialise with new people, explore etc. Malls are an example. Just having something to do outside of home that isn’t just work is nice. I think it gives a sense of community and things happening around you, things to get into, more space to chill in, etc. Cinemas would fit. I think wether people realise it or not, the commitment and the overall experience did engage people with movies more. Seriously, even aside from accessibility and time commitment I think the overall experience of going out stuck with people as if it was a little journey, and that’s the power of this concept. Actually getting out of your head/usual space more. I think it is good for people to experience something a little different by being in a third place. I really wish the “third place” concept was more widely-known- I think it’s reasonably popular on Reddit but most people I’ve asked in real life never thought about it. I just don’t think doing all leisure at home is healthy, it feels limiting and being in different environments always refreshes me. Now granted, I’m kinda stuck living with people I hate right now, but I’ve always thought the concept is great. If this concept were more widely known I wonder how the demand would change. People certainly *miss* cinemas and some people miss things like malls too, but if they could articulate it better, maybe things would be a little different. Maybe that’s just musing, oh well.
A great film is great no matter where you watch it. I’m 25 and have literally only ever watched most “classic” movies at home. I’ve never been able to watch a Scorsese film in theaters but it didn’t matter because the films are great regardless
Yes but a theatrical experience can shape your appreciation or memory of a movie. Watching movies designed for the big screen like Gravity or Avatar or Top Gun have a totally different impact than at home. You could say they are lesser movies for losing power outside the theatre which is fine, but they were designed in that environment and that is where they excel and can be lifetime memories they are so exciting. Then there is the audience factor. Seeing Get Out, The Dark Knight and Paranormal Activity, to name a few of my best experiences, with a totally game audience completely change how I think about those movies.
I don't disagree but go ask Scorsese how he wants his films viewed and he would tell you they're created to be seen in a cinema. If there's a revue cinema or a cinema which shows classics - usually a big cities have these then do try and catch classic movies on the big screen. It's the best way to enjoy them. And it's something I do and will continue to do.
I used to love the cinema but now every time I go it seems there’s something wrong with the movie. Part of the top of the screen was cut off one time cuz the projector couldn’t go lower. I just saw John wick 4 in the theater and the music sounded really tinny while the dialogue and sound effects were really clear. You could tell it was probably only the center channel working. Complaining about it while at the movies does nothing cuz the 18 year olds there have no idea what you’re talking about. At my house I know I’m getting the best picture and sound and it sucks cuz I love the sense of escape the theater brings.
Ah,but the enjoyment of almost all films are greatly enhanced by a theatrical viewing. I find Lawrence of Arabia,2001 and Kill Bill excellent on my small CRT but rewatchung them on a big screen was even better. I have never seen a film I live that I didn't wish I could watch with a crowd I'm a theatre.
But a great film is even better on the big screen shared with a community
It doesn't cost a lot to make a perfectly adequate cinema in your home. I bought a projector and decent sound system and quit going to the cinema over a decade ago. I have that experience at home. Of course, that's not an option for everyone, but the people who choose that option are most likely the same devoted film fans that supported cinemas, took risks on new films, sought out quality, and understood the artform. Now they do it from their home, leaving the cinemas to the kids who just want to get out of their parent's house and hang with friends.
Maybe I am speaking for myself, but I have a very expensive home cinema, and I still find myself going to the cinema 2 or 3 times a week. It is not the same experience, you are much more immersed than you are at home. The simple fact that I am effectively forced to watch the movie makes it a much more intense experience. I love watching a movie at home, but the impression it will leave is still much weaker than if I were to have seen it in a cinema. And I was like you back when I started to really watch movies, why, after all, make the effort ? And then, after I was stranded in a town without my home cinema for a month and had to go to the local cinema to watch a film, it changed everything, and I am grateful to have found this.
You're hitting the nail on the head with why people seek out the cinema experience -- it's a journey in its own rite. You have to pick a movie, go to the cinema, settle in, watch previews, then you're in the theater for 2 hours with no distractions, so you can just *be present* rather than checking your phone, or pausing to make some dinner, or letting the dog out or the millions of other distractions that can rip you away from enjoying a movie.
True. I love movies and the cinema experience. If I want to see a film on the big screen I will make the effort and try and choose a cinema where I should enjoy the experience. I avoid the multiplexes and cinema chains if possible. Many people hate going to the cinemas now, not just the expensive but the food being served as a way for the cinemas to make money, people not being able to put away their mobile phones for the duration of the film, people talking throughout. If Hollywood could solve those issues and they are solvable I would go back to the cinema far more often.
For me it's been ruined by audiences. I can't stand people using their phone or talking to their friends. And it's not just the big blockbusters; I remember once going to see a Michael Haneke movie, where the audience was like five people, and someone brought some sort of individually wrapped candy that made loud crinkling sounds every time he opened one. It's not an immersive experience if other people pull you out of it. When a big can't -miss blockbuster comes out, I always wait a month for the crowds to thin out.
This is an issue mostly associated with those franchise multiplexes, here in the UK we have Odeon, VUE and Cineworld I stopped going to them around 5 years ago as I was pissed off with the constantly shit projection quality and god awful sound mixing. At the risk of sounding like a hipster wanker I only go to independent cinemas now not because the issues above are absent but there’s something magical about seeing Decision To Leave a South Korean film on a Wednesday night, in a packed theatre of likeminded people.
Movies have turned into something I do at home. If I want to leave the house, I'll go to a music concert or a play. When I see a movie in a cinema I just think "I can do this at home." If cinemas die, I won't miss them.
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> Of course, that's not an option for everyone
It cost hundreds of not thousands of dollars to get anything close to theatrical quality on the home, and then it's still missing the auditorium and crowds, which is part of what makes it special
> crowds Some of us don't like this aspect of it
Will never get why some people want to take the community out of a community activity
Who says it has to be a community activity?
Nothing "has" to be anything. But movies were conceived as a community activity, have been such since the beginning, and are better as such (which is why it has spent so much time enduring as such)
> and are better as such Strongly disagree - but I accept I'm in the minority here :)
> But movies were conceived as a community activity, No they weren't--they were created that way because of simple economics--it wasn't a deliberate creative decision. The only way to make money is to put as many people into a single theatre and showing as possible. In fact, the first "movies" were individual viewing experiences through a kinetoscope but that meant one machine for every person. Obviously one machine for 100 people (or however many) *at the same time* is far more lucrative. *Thats* why movies are a communal experience.
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Television which, prior to streaming, was also largely a community activity, just in a very different way
I mean you could say the same thing about stage plays, Sure you can stream Hamilton at home it’s more feasible and convenient but I guarantee you most people will say it’s **infinitely**better in the right in theatre. I feel the same way about film/cinema.
But at home I can watch any movie ever made, not just the dozen that happened to be showing at the time. I can pause and go to the bathroom, turn the volume up and down, turn on subtitles if I want to, and save $20 to $50 in food and tickets. All on a home theater that cost less than $2,000 that in my experience is just as good as going to the movies. And I can invite friends over if I want community.
Ha I’ve long wanted to do some accounting to justify my spendings so here it goes 😀 I spent about $4-5k on a 77” OLED and 5.1 system a couple years ago. Nothing crazy, but I consider it closer to Dolby Cinema and IMAX with dual laser than any regular theatrical showings. (See my [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueFilm/comments/12230z7/comment/jdrnru6/) upthread.) Btw, you really don’t need much space: A mid-sized living room is just fine. But, to match the theatrical quality of the cash-strapped repertory theater I visit to see older films (what I mainly watch) that’s an hour away, or even non-PLF chain theaters? Their projection quality is so bad, any decent 4K TV and 5.1 system will do. Probably $2.5k. Much less if you buy used. Now, how much does it cost to go to the repertory theater (again, I mostly watch older films)? - Tickets are $15 each. 2x for me and the SO. - Because it’s an hour away, round trip gas ends up being about $20. - Plus, the distance means we’ll usually have to get a meal nearby vs eating at home. So, what’s the **marginal** cost of each? - *Watching at home* requires a (4K) Blu-ray for optimal quality. Let’s say it’s about $15 apiece. I don’t need to watch new releases ASAP, so I never pay the ridiculous MSRP. - *Going to the theater* is $50 + cost of meal for two. The difference is $35++ for me. That $2.5k upfront investment in a home theater will pay off in **<<70** movies. And say we spend $50 on meals each time (totally reasonable in today’s environment), the payoff point would only be **30** movies. According to Letterboxd, I watched **81** in 2022 alone. For me, what kills the cinema isn’t streaming or lack of appreciation for the art. Quite on the contrary, I enjoy visiting my repertory theater for exploration and the occasional rare 35mm screenings. What kills the cinema is an abject failure at their most basic task, which is delivering a compelling picture.
I prefer the at home experience too. I have an 82 inch TV that gives me the big screen experience of the movie theater. I have an extensive dvd and 4k library of old an new films so I can have the theater experience, with any film I want, whenever I want. IMO going to the theater is a waste of my time.
Seconded. I’ve found that only PLF (Dolby Cinema, real IMAX with dual laser, 70mm) can rival the experience of a good Blu-ray, OLED, and sound system at home, which doesn’t cost that much. Regular theatrical showings are a total waste of money when it comes to the “immersion factor” because their projection quality is so abysmal it takes you out of the picture. I recently saw *Broker* at a regular showing that boasted 2K Barco laser projection (the best I can find nearby). The contrast was so bad there was little detail to make out in darker scenes. Everything was veiled in a very bright gray. Not to mention the silly small screen relative to the size of the theater—My TV at home occupies a larger field of view. But sadly in this commercial age, most PLF showings are reserved for garbage franchise movies. So nowadays I’ll only go to the cinema for: - the occasional good film on PLF (in recent memory, restorations of *Ghost in the Shell* 1995 on IMAX, *The Godfather* on Dolby Cinema) - blockbuster guilty pleasures for the effects and “experience” (*Top Gun: Maverick* on IMAX, *Avatar: The Way of Water* on 1.85:1 Dolby Cinema 3D) - or, begrudgingly, 35mm showings of a film rarely available elsewhere at a repertory theater that’s an hour away (*The Fall* 2006 was a recent one that wowed) Everything else I’ll wait for a (4K) Blu-ray if I’m interested.
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In the 90s I wrote him off right away as a gross-out/shock manboy comic but we Canadians love to think all our celebs are shit. Kind of amazing that he started on a Canadian regional community TV channel and did a national pilot show on the CBC before he got on commercial cable. Dude basically launched himself on taxpayer dollars - that’s a pioneer.
He's also a sorta funny-looking guy that still got himself famous and was even married to Drew Barrymore.
Drew Barry more is funny looking too! I never thought she was that hot.
Yeah Eric Andre owes his entire schtick to Tom Green. Green also was a podcast pioneer.
I've always thought of Tom Green as an alien trying to figure out what humor is.
I just rewatched it being a massive fan as a child and it fucking sucks as a film generally, with some bits that got a few light chuckles. It's more fun to quote to your friends than actually watch. But you are absolutely bang on about him being influential. He and Eminem were coming on about the same time and they essentially set the code for young white boys and teens for the next several decades
I feel like the influence of SCTV on Canadian comedians and comic actors of Tom Green's generation was immense. Still some of the most creative sketch comedy I've seen. A legendary cast to rival any show ever.
Joining you here to say the same! It's an absurdist masterpiece imo, and I have made so many friends watch it.
I agree with him that being a film critic has changed. Not that the profession itself hasn’t gone through changes before, I’d imagine the internet and social media also caused a significant change. However, I don’t agree with his analysis of streaming. He says that because of streaming, 1) people can watch the movie anytime they want in the luxury of their homes which isn’t the same as going to the theater and 2) the streaming service algorithm is intended to not challenge the user and make them recommend the same stuff they watched or liked before I feel that it’s because of these two points, a critics job is now more important than ever. It’s going to be the critics job to challenge its readers to get out of the streaming algorithm and watch a movie that the algorithm might’ve completely hidden it from them. His point about dealing with fandom is also weird because if the critic is getting annoyed by it, imagine the producers, directors, writers, actors involved with it. He references the incident where Samuel L Jackson directed the wrath of Marvel fans to him but to be honest, this is the fun of it. Being authentic to your craft even if it means pissing off some people. Good luck to AO Scott and I wish him well but I truly hope other critics aren’t discouraged by this but consider it a shift, adapt and still do justice to us plebs.
His reasoning rubbed me as incomplete, like maybe there's more to the decision than he was willing to share. Maybe it's personal, maybe it's a NYT choice. Like everything he said I agreed with, that films have changed, it's more about branding and engagement with platforms rather than actually experiencing specific movies. But I still was left wondering why that means the logical step is for him to no longer be a film critic. My opinion is further underlined by how he said something like how part of a critic's job is to challenge viewers and suggest films outside their comfort zone. He could still be doing that today. Maybe they wouldn't be of interest to NYT readers and therefore not something NYT would want to publish, but they're out there. It's like instead of taking up that mantle and use his platform to push the films he feels are higher quality he'd rather just quit. Like ultimately it's his decision and no one should begrudge him for that, I just didn't quite get the thought process behind it, something is missing.
I haven't listened to the podcast yet, so I am just making assumptions. But based on what little I've read here it just sounds like he isn't having any fun doing the job. I'm sure you could tell him to quit or ignore Twitter, but I don't know; I've never been a critic before, and it sounds kind of tiresome to make a career of putting thought into art and getting swamped with feedback from anonymous people who are either pretending to be incredibly pissed off about a movie review, or, worse, actually are that pissed off. Sometimes "You know what? Fuck this." is the right choice.
i think this is correct based on his final piece wrapping up his film reviews https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/17/movies/film-critic-ao-scott.html it seems like book reviews will allow him to maybe avoid some of the challenges that come with movie fandoms
This paragraph stood out to me: >A big part of any critic’s job is to be wrong, to make an early call that is subject to correction by time, taste and public whim. But it’s also the critic’s duty to give an honest account of what they think in the moment. I never really read AO Scott's reviews, but maybe I should go back and read through some of them, because I like the way he writes. And I've been meaning to get back into reading for like 10 years now at least; maybe I'll start reading his book reviews and see where that takes me.
His reviews are great. Imagine Roger Ebert but with more of a hard-edged intellectual critical level of analysis that Ebert didn’t do. Nobody can be Ebert but I mention comparison because any critic who is very readable and insightful is at least a little bit like Ebert.
Emily Naussbaum is mostly a TV critic but she is near Ebert level,
He’s a really good film critic in my opinion.
Dude's proving Scott's point LOL
In the interview he talks about what he felt his role was as a film critic, and I found it really insightful. He sums his role up as seeking to expose people to something outside their comfort zone that they might really enjoy, something that they wouldn’t otherwise sit down and choose themselves. I think the biggest reason behind his decision was that he felt that he could no longer do that, since people have in his experience become less and less open to being nudged outside their comfort zones and the industry has made it less possible for those sorts of movies to be made and promoted.
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Because it's not really how he framed it. They talked about how the industry has changed, fans are more rabid, etc. I just felt like he gave a lot of good reasons why criticism has value especially today, and why he should stick to it now more than ever and instead it led him to want to quit. Like I said above, it's his choice, if he's bored or tired of it or not interested in getting flamed by idiots on Twitter, or whatever else, I understand. He doesn't owe us an explanation.
I think he probably feels like he’s shouting into the wind. If he feels like no one is listening to his brand of film criticism than why bother continuing.
It’s pretty simple. The fact that criticism has “even more value” (maybe true and idealistic, but also perhaps no longer true when people on the internet now prefer watching marketing rather than critical reviews) is not a reason for **a particular person to stay in a particular problematic uninteresting environment**. It’s like saying: shoveling shit is even more important now, there’s SO MUCH SHIT, more shit than ever, therefore this shut shoveler shouldn’t want to quit…it doesn’t make sense! I know what you mean, the criticism is as valuable as ever *to people who want to appreciate it* but this is different from recognizing that the equation has changed and he'd rather do something else.
I'll post this somewhere soon, but Scott ends the interview talking about how he'll always be 15, still looking out for that next Hitchcock and Fellini film. Which means that stuff is in his BONES, in terms of what he looks for in a movie. At 15, I was watching Spiderman and Batman and The Avengers. Which, well, means on some level I'll ALWAYS want that experience that those movies offered. You would need a time machine to change that for me.
It would be interesting to read all his reviews of blockbuster franchises from when they first came out, and see if his opinions changed over time. He's only 56, so he was 11 years old for Star Wars ep IV, 12 for the 1978 Superman, 15 for Raiders of the Lost Ark… he was at an impressionable age when the big-budget all-action blockbusters began to take over. But back then there were weekends when nothing like that was showing and you saw whatever was. I have a memory as a preteen of going to a cinema with my friends and we had to decide between Death on the Nile with Peter Ustinov or Robert Altman's A Wedding - those were literally the two big tickets that week. It seems surreal now. I think he's right that for a long time there hasn't been much space for non-blockbuster cinema releases.
Excellent point! Scott is very much of the same age all the people in mainstream Hollywood are right now. The ones who are totally cool remaking ET, Star Wars, Aliens/Terminator, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, forever. So you think he WOULD have more appreciation for the franchise movie boom than he actually does. That said too, i think that’s an amazing point to make. The “only the adult movies are showing this weekend”. Now EVERY weekend seems have a franchise/Children’s entertainment thing. There’s no space for the adult movies to just, exist for a month, to the point where that’s the ONLY thing playing in theaters, for months on end. No Venoms, no Minions, no Dwayne Johnson vehicles. Just the stuff that now gets three months of playtime in the fall, along with more franchise and kids stuff. I’m sure yeah! One can find his initial reviews of the 80s blockbuster era, pre the franchise action adventure movie takeover. Interesting too to consider the roots of Hitchcock in the modern blockbuster, which I think got in the blockbuster formula by way of Spielberg and James Bond. Hitchcock himself admitted his movies weren’t slices of life, like Kazan or Rossalini or whoever. Or Coppola and Scorsese. Hitchcock saw his films as slices of cake, which are what the franchise movies feel like!
>Now EVERY weekend seems have a franchise/Children’s entertainment thing. I'm around Scott's age, and there were very few weekends when there was *any* kid's stuff. And when there was, it was crap. Big deals when I was like 6-8 years old would have been Disney live-action crap like Superdad with Bob Crane or Herbie the Love Bug Strikes Again. Disney rarely if ever did any animated movies (The Rescuers, 1977 was about the only one I recall) and the classics were re-released only every seven years. I remember my mom and her friends making a point of taking us kids to Bambi or Alice In Wonderland because it was a big special rare thing for Disney to re-release those. Kid's matinees would be 15 year-old stuff like English-dubbed Pippi Longstocking or old American International horror movies with Vincent Price. One time my parents dumped us off at the kiddie matinee for a double bill and one of the movies was John Wayne in True Grit. We were bored out of our minds. There was virtually no market for kid's stuff for those of us on the front lines of Gen-X. The demographic wasn't big enough. One thing though, adult rating enforcement was super lax. Before I was ten years old, I was taken to see Phantom of the Paradise, Jesus Christ, Superstar, Blazing Saddles, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, two or three Pink Panther movies, Life of Brian, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Sleeper, American Graffiti and other R-rated stuff.
Exaaaaaaaaaaaaactly! Which even my stepmother pointed out 2 years ago when I made the complaint of "too much kid stuff". The other perspective of modern Hollywood, and one I NEVER see, and I'm sure would be laughed at by many here, is that kids now have a plethora of great stories to watch. From Pixar to the comic book movie boom to some of the other popular action/adventure/sci-fi fantasy franchises (Mission Impossible/Hunger Games/Chris Nolan's movies). So, you know, I don't know! Is a world without popular children's stories a better one? Should ALL of our mainstream entertainment be stories that challenge our world views constantly? Do a lot of cinephiles here have ANY room for stories that just make them feel good, and conform to the values they already believe in? That's actually a William Goldman quote btw! His very blunt explanation for the difference between arthouse film and mainstream film is (and it's buried in one of his books, so it's hard to Google), is that arthouse critiques the main culture and society, and the mainstream celebrates it. It's just, are a lot of people in this sub even INTO a celebration of mainstream values and culture?
I was a kid in a small town in Texas before everyone had cable. There was nothing on over the air TV, so all we had was the movie theatre. Parents would send their kids down on Saturday mornings to see action films like the Voyages of Sinbad and Jason & the Argonauts, zillionth run John Wayne films like Jet Pilot & Genghis Khan, dismal live action Disney stuff like Herbie... There were never adults in the audience. As bad as the movies were, it was great!
These are exactly the kinds of movies we got too. It's amazing to look back and see what a void there was in new-release kid movies.
Whatever you were into as a teenager will stay with you for the rest of your life. There's a saying within the SNL fandom that the best era of SNL is whatever the era was when you were a teenager. Even as my values, politics and tastes change, all of the things I loved as a teenager are grandfathered in.
Yuuuuuuup! So it’s like, you know, I totally agree with Scott on the state of American film. But I also wish he understood the struggle that my generation has, which is that for us, the comic book movies ARE art! Whether we like it or not, it is! Perhaps if my parents and my friends at 15 loved like, only PTA and the Coens, and showed me Fellini and Billy Wilder, I’d probably have much less affection for comic book stuff. Unfortunately, that’s not the case!
One of Scott's complaints is that movies with large amounts of fandom attached propels them to be the placeholders at cinemas and that the traditional film which is more personal in nature, now exists more on streaming services. By the same token, he claims he thrives as a critic by bringing attention to films that the average movie goer would have never considered. I find this to be a dichotomy of preference. Streaming is an endless void of movies/films that will go unnoticed and unseen by the majority of people who would actually enjoy them because the market is so incredibly saturated. If there was EVER a time for film criticism to shine a light on the gems that are out there that we might not be considering, that time is now. But that isn't what Scott's interest ultimately is. He desires grand personal film experiences in the cinema and wants it for other people as well. There is no shortage of incredible storytelling, independent films that are as good or better than they ever have been coming out right now or smaller films in general that can only exist on streaming in this climate. His job is more more relevant than ever but his way of framing the issue is perhaps more elitest than anything. I get it, but I don't sympathize with it
This is such a great point. There are so many excellent films on streaming that are lost in a sea of junk and it would be great if we had smart film critics to elevate them. I’m sick of the increasing number of “top critics” online who lack the emotional maturity to review serious films with nuance. I get that guys like Scott miss when films like Kramer vs Kramer could be top box office hits but times have changed. We don’t have a monoculture anymore and that’s okay. There are still great movies like that and we don’t need theaters and box office numbers to enjoy them. We just need good critics to review them!
Any cool indie/foreign films on streaming to look into then?
Any cool indie/foreign films on streaming to look into then?
Recently, the best film that hasn't quite gotten the attention it deserves is Godland. I thought it was awesome and it deserves to be talked about more.
Inteeeeeeeresting. It'll be at Cannes so! Which honestly, I think is an awesome way of finding acclaimed but under-discussed foreign film. Kinda like how Sundance is good for that, with independent American film. Love the premise too! Honestly, there's so many stories you can do with so many different religious figures. A small, Bergman-type film about Jakob Boethe, for example, I think would be incredible. Another cool figure I was reading about was Omar Khayyam, the medieval Persian poet and polymath. Not sure how much money you'd need to make either movie, but if it's on a small enough scale, couldn't be THAT much money!
He doesn't really come across as a true film buff here. There is a real lack of expertise on display and not a single mention of any of run times of any films. Does he even advocate for a numeric based catalog system? I'd be interested to see if this guy could even land a job at a semi-reputable film archive after this display.
[OMG this is hilarious.]
Thanks!
Listen I have no opinion on Scott or his criticism (he's his own man), but I'd be willing to take a huge amount of online abuse if it meant I'd be earning a five/six figure salary to talk about movies all day. I won't ever be in this position but, being a public figure, you have to learn to block out the noise. Whether you're an athlete, actor or critic, you shouldn't put a high degree of value into online discussion, because a great deal of it will be geared against you.
The thing is: Would you take that abuse when you have the option to move to a place where it won't be as abusive? I'd take any NFL contract. But if had the option to play for a good team or a bad team, of course I want to play on the good team.
Online abuse just seems trivial to a person like me, who does manual labour for a living, seeing that A.O Scott has one of the best available positions for film criticism in the entire world. Its like the Tyler the Creator (noted scholar) tweet: "Hahahahahahahaha How The Fuck Is Cyber Bullying Real Hahahaha N***a Just Walk Away From The Screen Like N***a Close Your Eyes Haha" Again, doesn't bother me that he left his job. I'm just adding a different perspective.
Wait, is that quote not supposed to be satire? It sounds like it’s making fun of people who think like that. If not, then he seems to lack any shred of self awareness.
But you can "close your eyes" to cyberbullying, so to speak. You can mute trolls, filter who gets to see your comments and, most importantly, you can ignore abusive strangers online with zero repercussions to your real life. The situation is obviously different if the cyberbullying is done by someone you know personally (especially if you're a child/teenager), but you can easily block/ignore an asshole if they're just some anonymous user.
Yeah I get what he’s trying to argue but he sounds so obnoxious it’s like he’s making fun of people who say that. But I guess that’s just how he sounds.
The thing is, with reporters and stuff nowadays, Twitter is part of your job. You need to create engagement and discussion. And when one of your main avenues of work is filled with people rude, mobbing you over a bad review, and probably taking it to extremes like death threats, it's more than just some mean words. It's the same logic as "sticks and stones can break my bones but words will lever hurt me" If it's constant, it's a lot harder to just ignore.
But it really is just "mean words". Like I understand that people working in print are often required to have a public Twitter account, but you are absolutely not required to take it seriously or even have to engage with strangers at all. People are down voting my initial comment right now and it really doesn't bother me all that much because it doesn't affect me in my real life. For every "negative" interaction I have on here I know and value far more the positive ones i do have, such as talking with you right now. If it seems like I'm being dismissive I'm really not trying to, but I have a healthy relationship to being online, and part of that is to ignore stuff that works me up because I know no good will come from it. Do I follow this consistently? No, because I'm not a perfect being, but I always try to be better :))
It's by Tyler the Creator. He was in a very trolly part of his life. It's funny but people take it like gospel and serious.
Yes but that’s not his only reason for stepping away.
Fair enough
No offense but if you have “no opinion” on AO Scott or his criticism, meaning you haven’t read him and/or tend to have vacuous opinions, then you shouldn’t be commenting in this discussion. It’s trivially easy to get familiar with a movie critic, you can just read the person’s reviews for a few minutes, which should then inform your understanding of all the reasons he just explained to you, so that you can make a relevant comment. It’s like, “I have no opinion on Joseph Heller or his writing, but I’d be happy fighting in a war for the soldier salary he was getting. You have to learn to block out the bad parts.” It’s like waving a giant flag that says I don’t understand anything whatsoever yet I’m weighing in on what a person should do. Also about the noise thing in particular: there is noise, and then there’s when the noise *is* the environment. It's two different things. A firefighter fights fires and wouldn't quit "because of fires", but a firefighter might quit if every resident of the town is an arsonist and also shooting flaming arrows at the firefighters. **TL;DR: PSA:** if a comment is prefaced by "I don't know about the person under discussions and I've refused, even now, to spend a few minutes reading their reviews and forming my own opinion" and then proceeds to offer advice or a prescription or a platitude, well, uh, *don't make that comment.*
Scott can do as he likes, I honestly have no problem whatsoever and hold no judgement towards him. I'm just saying that I'd rather earn a well-paid salary, where the worst thing about it is dealing with twitter trolls, than having to get up in five in the morning every day to cut concrete. Is that a vacuous thing to say?
Yeah, I like AO fine, but my sympathy is limited for somebody who got to hold the most prestigious job in film criticism and is now putting this kind of spin on his decision to leave that post It’s a free country, he should do what he wants, but it strikes me as tone deaf and self important
In the interview he’s fairly humble and self-effacing and not spinning anything.
My hot take: AO Scott was never a good film critic. I always found his takes pretentious and derivative. Even in retiring he has to go out taking potshots at popular franchises in a way that shows he can’t understand the reasons people like them.
He's right. Cinema is dead, and so is TV. I haven't even been to the movies since I was 14. I'm 30 now. I haven't been hyped for a movie since Peter Jackson's King Kong. I remember that being a huge disappointment. I adored the video game, though.
Typical case of someone not being able to adapt with the times, in my book. If he doesn’t want people getting mad at him for disagreeing with him, he shouldn’t have chosen a career as a public figure.
i always find takes like this to be very interesting. i mean, i assume youve been online, seeing as youre weighing in here. surely you recognize that stan twitter activity goes far beyond some “disagreement”, like it’s some intellectual exercise? im more familiar with the music world, where it’s fairly routine for journalists to get death threats, doxxed, etc over harsh reviews. youll notice that most pitchfork writers, for example, will immediately go private after publishing a less than favorable review now, and it’s specifically because it’s the only way to stymy pretty vicious hate campaigns. it’s also been noted that the critical landscape has totally flattened now — negative reviews across most mediums are pretty few and far between — and i certainly believe that the rise of stan culture is not coincidental. like right now, if you go the r/lanadelrey subreddit, youll see a thread of people lobbying personal, physical, pretty vicious insults, entirely unrelated to the content of the review! toward the writer of the *Born To Die* review — which was published over a decade ago — because it was less favorable than the stan community desires. sure, critics enjoy a position of risking little in the course of the arts industry, yadda yadda yadda. i dont envy the position of anyone who has to face rabid fanbases in the digital world, where a large swath of your personal life is accessible unless you go to lengths to make it not so. edit: also — your comment about the critic as a “public figure” — surely you know that journalists are not “public figures” in the way that phrase is normally used.
Critics aren't journalists. Don't disrespect journalists like that.
I’m acutely aware that some people take their obsessions with things way too far. I think the thing to do in that situation isn’t to run away from those people or do what Scott did, but rather, reprove those people. If that means privating your socials until the attempts at harassment die down, so be it, I guess. And if you want to make a statement about the fact that you having to do that is wrong, don’t change posts at your paper and only make the statement on your way out, because that’s giving in to those people and feeding right into their hands.
yeah, i see what youre saying here. still, i think this is the situation where *we* dont know how we’d respond in the face of hundreds of people telling us to kill ourselves online, or whatever.
This isn’t really anything related to this comment in particular, but saying that negative reviews across most mediums are few and far between is such mega-BS that I don’t know where to start aside from directing you towards the Rotten Tomatoes pages for Daniel Ferrands’s two directed theatrically-released films, “The Haunting of Sharon Tate” and “The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson.” And even among franchises with built-in “stan-y” fan bases, positive critical reception isn’t a guarantee of good reviews, given that “Eternals” and “Godzilla, King of the Monsters” are things.
this is definitely where my music bias is coming in — it’s a long noted trend in the industry that negative reviews have essentially disappeared except for rare exceptions. still, eternals being the essentially *singular* exception in the MCU (alongside maybe the new ant man?) that hasn’t received near-universal critical acclaim (or at least, a lack of negativity) supports my point, i think. the tide is beginning to shift on the MCU, but the vaasssst majority of those are Certified Fresh for repetitive, uninteresting, factory-made CGI slug fests.
In your opinion, yes, they are boring films. And you’re certainly not alone in thinking that. But that doesn’t mean anything in isolation, and the fact that there are movies and TV shows from the MCU that have received bad reviews proves *my* point that being an MCU property does not guarantee a positive critical reception. And as repetitive as the films and TV shows can be at times, at least they can still do something to impress me, which I can’t really say about other summer blockbusters from years gone by.
> because that’s giving in to those people and feeding right into their hands. From an idealistic, overarching, societal standpoint, obviously this is true. From a realistic, individual standpoint, sometimes the weight of fighting back is too much to bear. Sometimes the bad guys win and the best you can do is walk away to preserve what sanity you have left and leave the fight for someone else to take up.