Mine, I think, is still Roger Ebert. I occasionally go back and revisit his reviews and I'm always struck by how smart and funny he often is. I didn't always agree with the guy -- like his two star review of "Die Hard" -- but even when I felt he missed the boat on a movie I still reveled in his wordsmanship. The film reviewing community just isn't the same without him.
shareOnce he made the rounds with Siskel on the numerous talk shows of the circa condemning with no reservation slasher movies (to comprehensive applause), then those two pimping "Last House on the Left" with twin thumbs up I had nary use for either of them again.
shareI saw an excerpt of this just this past week while watching Going to Pieces : The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film. It created feelings of nostalgia and made me smile.
shareEbert did love "Halloween." And he did give a positive review to "Candyman" (which paled next to Clive Barker's brilliant short story "The Forbidden" which it was based on). But his half star review of "Hellraiser" confused me (he called it, among other things, "unoriginal," which I think even "Hellraiser"'s biggest detractors would concede "Hellraiser" is many things but unoriginal is not one of them) and Gene and Roger's holier-than-thou, above-it-all indictments of slasher films have not aged well at all.
shareEbert liked Last House. Siskel hated it.
shareBut, both put their thumbs up. I understand what happened there= there was no social media, no cell phone, no way to immediately hold them to accounts. And they knew it. So they went on the tv show circuit to riotous applause, then squeezed in their Saturday evening show, hoping never the twain shall have met. And it didn't.
It was reprehensible.
Pauline Kael, a real critic, not a mere reviewer. Unfortunately, most folks don’t know what the difference is.
shareLike Crist she was a leftist though & made nary pretense of it.
Choose someone else, R_K. :)
Leftists can still be gifted writers -- and Kael was one of the most gifted writers ever in the realm of film criticism.
shareShe was indeed. She was thorough & focused.
shareIf you’re writing for The New Yorker, you are seriously good. I think of her as the dean of modern film criticism.
What’s the difference between a reviewer and a critic, of any art form? A reviewer offers a personal opinion, unfettered by any formal structure. S/he liked it, or didn’t like it. The reviewer is free to bring any personal tastes, prejudices, life experiences and pathologies to the table. In short, a review is really not worth much. A critic appraises a work of art from the prespective of a defined structure, and appraises the work within those confines and not with his or her personal taste etc. For example, I personally detest Fight Club because its prima facie message that it sends so effectively to young men about fighting affronts me as a former martial arts instructor, but I think that it’s a great movie, by virtue of script, directing, acting and editing. The touchstone for criticism is the definition to which the critic turns for what is a great work in the area under her/his purview: feature film, short film, novel, short story, symphony, painting, cuisine, popular music, and so on. In feature movies, I rely on Alfred Hitchcock’s definition of a great movie: “Three great scenes, no bad scenes.” Hard to dispute that. Therefore, a critic’s politics, religious beliefs, sexual preference, personal taste, person opinions, predilections, biases and insanities are as much removed from the conclusions s/he reaches as a mathematician’s are from an equation s/he is resolving.
Any jackass can create a review. It takes a scholar and a philosopher, armed with a powerful discipline, to be a critic.
PS I forgot about Judith Crist. She was wonderful! And also a true critic. I was writing after two hours of legs, triceps, biceps and core muscle group at the gym, and not all my blood was getting to my head!
PPS My favorite critic, so far, ever, though far removed from film, is Henry Louis Mencken, one hell of a literary and social critic, and very far from being a Leftist. It was Mencken who wrote that “Nobody ever went broke by underestimating the taste of the American public,” which is even more true today than it was when H. L. wrote it, over 80 years ago. He was one of the first to champion the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald. In his critique of The Great Gatsby, H. L. wrote, “This book is very easy to read. How he must have suffered in writing it.”
I think we could use every H. L. Mencken that we could get, today.
i've never actually read any of kael's stuff, though i certainly know her reputation. i have about 15 books in my queue right now, but i see that we have an anthology of her writings at our library, and i think i'm going to bump it to the top of my list.
shareEbert...not even a competition
Truth is im a horror and action fan and he barely gave my genres the time of day but he wrote from the heart, meant what he said and never failed to be thoughtful and honest
I loved Roger Ebert...im really sad that he is gone
We will never see one like him again.
He loved the Indiana Jones movies (even the fourth one!).
And he gave subtler horror movies like "The Blair Witch Project" very high marks.
But, even when he tore into horror or actions films, as he was often wont to do, one part of me disagreed with him vehemently, the other part admired how he wrote with love, even as he spared someone's work no mercy.
Exactly as you say Angular!
Roger absolutely savaged my beloved slashers and action movies, then would heap praise on The Last House on the Left and First Blood!
Ebert was a fine original...
I miss him very much though i was often confounded by him
RIP Ebert
A grand fellow
there are a few that i follow on twitter (i got blocked by scott weinberg the other day - i thought he was being a complete dink & called him on it), and there are quite a few i know through podcasts & yt channels as well, but my two favourites are:
matt singer
michael phillips
singer i like because he's a quirky guy, has some esoteric tastes that sometimes line up with my own.
michael phillips is just a terrific writer, and he's also a clever, witty guest every time he pops up on the filmspotting podcast.
I think the best film critics are mimes
shareMark Kermode.
share