OK, here is a link. Morgenstern did write a regular general column for the Herald Examiner in LA (late, lamented) and I did agree with him on a lot of the content of his columns. I have no idea if I agree with him as a film critic, but I know he has a fair accumulation of general awareness, from of course my own point of view.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/bios/bio_morgenstern.html
And, as long as I am here...Hi, Bree!
Hi, osso! Nice to see you again.
I'm just going on what Lightwizard reports as Morgenstern's reviewing pattern for the past year. He seems to have panned and/or underrated most of the adventurous, interesting American movies of 2002. This is not a good track record for a movie critic, not even the Wall St. Journal movie critic.
To be fair, I'd have to read all the Morgenstern reviews of the particular films but it does seem like there's a "conservative" bias underlining his ratings. He was also a reviewer for Newsweek and I don't generally find the weekly periodical critics to be all that reliable or even readable. It would be interesting to see the same body of critics that Sight and Sound polled for the top films of all times rate the films for 2002. MRQE (Movie Review Quiry Engine) at
www.mrqe.com (I believe that link is correct) also gives a list of reviews of each film with star ratings behind each.
Kenneth Turan and Rita Kempley (The Washington Post) both gave what could easily be called the most inventive film of the year, "Rodger Dodger," four stars but Kempley gave "Chicago" two stars. Turan gave "Minority Report" two stars. This seems to be a good year to criticize the critics as I certainly don't agree with many of their reponses to some really excellent films. It was a good year for films -- could it be their brains were overloaded? They were being conservative about giving out high ratings for fear of being perceived as push overs?
Again, this was posted as a point of discussion and an opportunity to criticize the critics. Several of them have lost even more credibility than they may have had before. "Minority Report," for instance, was the most tightly directed, effective science fiction film for many many years. It even made Spielberg's own "AI" seem more pallid than it probably was (still haven't been able to quite swallow his sentimentality mixed up with a Kubrick cerebral approach in a film that could have been inspired and profound). I always hoped some director would tackle Azimov's "I, Robot," the novel where he introduced the robotic laws.
Lightwizard, the only weekly critic who is consistently excellent is J. Hoberman of the Village Voice. You can read him on the Web. David Denby in the New Yorker is hit or miss, sometimes perceptive, sometimes way off base.
MINORITY REPORT was indeed outstanding for what it was, and much better than AI. It seems like you cannot make a bad movie if you start from a Philip K. Dick story or novel (BLADE RUNNER and TOTAL RECALL are also from Dick.)
I just can't understand a critic looking at MINORITY or for that matter CHICAGO and not at least appreciating the high level of craft that went into them. Makes me wish, yet again, that Pauline K. was still alive and reviewing...
I was a little concerned when "Minorty Report" with the use of filters to give the look a bluish grey, fuzzy resolution. However, it worked perfectly with the production design and made it look like one was time travelling into the future vision. The comany I worked for at the time created the fiber optics for "Blade Runner" (all the tiny blinking lights and illuminated windows in the architecture were fiber optics). I was surprised at "Total Recall" that I actually was able to accept Arnold in the lead role. The book is more of a sociological satire but as an adaptation, it was successful. I read Denby also but we're always going to think critics are off base if they disagree with us and on target when they do.
BTW, if anyone had trouble getting into the site and got some strange error screen with a line about a new server, that's been corrected. We had a DOS attack and the site had to be rebooted.
No, I thought Denby was off base about THE PIANIST even though he liked the movie as much as I did. Speak for yourself, lightwizard!
Where was Denby off base? I read his review but didn't keep the issue and don't remember anything drastic that I disagreed with -- the short reviews barely reveal anything. I was, of course, generalizing -- there's always something I've found in a review that doesn't exactly coincide with what I got out of the film. I'll try to find the review.
For one thing, unless my memory is inaccurate, Denby compared THE PIANIST unfavorably to SCHINDLER'S LIST--which is a poor comparison since the films have nothing in common except a very general subject. Denby also treated the Polanski film as if it were a minor effort, which it clearly is NOT, even though he basically liked it--which I found a strange take on a truly great, major film.
Lightwizard, you in general take the opinions of critics far more seriously than I do. 95% of them are just hacks--and having written for newspapers and magazines I can tell you that most people who write for a living are exactly that, hacks. Their opinions of movies are no better informed or more aesthetically grounded than yours or mine and often arguably less so. I wish that you would develop a healthy distrust for the "professionals" because as the PREMIERE survey should have taught you, they are frequently just plain wrong!
I don't know where you go the idea that I thought Premier's list was a paragon of critical prowess -- on the contrary, I posted it to show how far off the critics can be. I agree that the majority of them are just the average journalistic writer who can only be of any help if they often follow along with one's own taste. If you'll reread what I've stated, I wasn't kind at all to the weekly periodical reviewers.
The only thing I could find on the Denby review was in Metacritic, a short excerpt:
The New Yorker, January (?), 2003 / David Denby:
The movie is about preservation and restoration and the power of art. But with what gain in knowledge? It's as if Szpilman had no soul, and no will, apart from an endless desire to tickle the keys.
Along with what you seem to have remembered, it doesn't sound to me like he liked the film very much. With that statement, he certainly missed that Szpilman's will and soul had been battered and bled off by his circumstances -- it almost looks like he left the film before the last half hour! Again, not fair to judge from an excerpt out of context. The New Yorker does not archive its film reviews online.
I stand by my statement that you in general take critics much more seriously than I do. You are constantly citing them, alluding to them, etc. The very fact that you started this thread proves my point, as does your subscription to SIGHT AND SOUND, which is basically a magazine of movie reviews (not very good ones I'm afraid.)
Far From Heaven
We recently saw Far From Heaven, and thought well of the movie. I'm a big Julianne Moore fan (Larry, is she any relation to Michael Moore?). Anyway, there are a lot of good things to be said for this film. But what I want to tell you about is that I bought a copy of Sight and Sound as a test on LW's recommendation. I'm pretty sure this is the first movie magazine I ever bought. There is a feature article about Far From Heaven, apparently written by Nick James. There was mention of All that Heaven Allows the earlier film upon which Far From Heaven was based and which was directed by Douglas Sirk. Remembering how much I'd enjoyed Written on the Wind (also a Sirk film) when LW featured it earlier in this forum, I rented the DVD of All that Heaven Allows. Watching this movie is a real experience. It's a hoot. Talk about an overblown melodrama, this is it. Everything Ebert said in his essay about Written on the Wind is also true of this film. The final scene in this movie is almost the ultimate in exaggerated sentimentality: Rock Hudson, the hero, is in a coma on the couch, and as he comes out of it he sees Jane Wyman, the woman he loves but thought he'd lost, and there is the assurance of eternal love. Then the camera rises to the picture window just as a deer wanders up and looks in at them. It was the sweetest most precious thing I'd ever seen. I'd recommend this one to anybody who'd enjoy watching an old time weeper of the kind we're now much too sophisticated to take seriously.
David Thompson's review on "The Pianist" from Sight and Sound is one I found conclusive and I read it after I had seen the film (I would make an effort to see a Polanski film if I had to take a plane!). Actually, it would have compelled me to seek out the picture even though it is really difficult to find in Orange County. Sight and Sound is technically a trade magazine of the BFI -- the synopsis have a spoiler alert as they give away the entire plot! The feature articles are not reviews but writings about filmmaking in general or a particular film's production.
http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/2003_02/review02_pianist.html
So far as I know, Hazlitt, Julianne and Michael Moore are not blood relatives--a fact you could deduce from the fact that she is gorgeous and he looks the way he looks. She is also a good actress although not, I think, a great one, despite the raves she got last year.
Funny thing, Larry, I noticed the same difference between Julianne and Michael, and reached the same conclusion.
Michael Moore is definitely not gorgeous! I doubt we've seen Julianna Moore's best performance. Yet.
Julieanne Moore
On Julianne Moore
I agree with you, Lightwizard , that we have not seen the best movies that this woman will make. I am probably just prejudiced, but I thought her role in The Hours was more powerful than that of Nicole Kidman.
I saw her first in Cookies Fortune where she played the not-quite-with-it sister of Glen Close. That role was sufficiently memorable that I remembered her name and knew who she was the next time I saw her. This is proof of true excellence.
If it is not too out of line, I'd like to say a bit about Julianne Moore and nudity in the movies. Over a long period of years, I have always thought that nudity in the movies was presented in a very unnatural and self conscious way that really detracted from the realism of a scene rather than contribute to it. For example, a couple is under the sheets making love. The woman is nude, the man probably has on his skivvies (We are lucky if the man does not have on long pants with the zipper up). This is natural enough, no problem. Upon completion the woman wants to go the bath room or dressing room to put on her clothes, or whatever. So what happens? She slips out from under the sheet being careful to hold it between her and the camera for as long as possible, drops the sheet, and runs at the speed of a race horse across the screen. This is realism? The movie would be much better off without such an obviously self censored scene that serves only to make the audience feel that it is being treated as a child. I could describe many variations on this theme, but I spare you. In contrast to these contrived scenes, I like to point out that I always felt that Fred and Ginger were hopelessly and helplessly in love even though they were always fully dressed and on their feet. They seemed natural, and what passed between them was always something that I thought could really happen.
As an aside I acknowledge that I've seen exceptions to the above, and I note that I see limited numbers of movies, so I don't know all that has been done.
Then along comes Julianne Moore. I've seen her in Short Cuts, Boggie Nights, and The end of the Affair. In all of these movies she appears nude or partly so for extended periods before the camera. She is poised, seems natural, unaffected, and realistic. She puts her audience at ease and makes it feel as if it is seeing something that might really happen. I applaud her for this. She is the first major American actress, of whom I am aware, who has consistently taken on roles of this kind and done them right.
I wonder if others agree or disagree.
