The kind of person you want to be

June Thomas: I kinda hated it. And then…I…went home, I read A.O. Scott’s review in the Times, I saw the comments, that were so…A.O. Scott gave it an absolute…what would you call it, a love song, he wrote a love song of a review.

Dana Stevens: He called it a poem, right? He said this movie “feels like a poem?” The movie he describes in his review sounds so great, I wished I had seen that movie.

June Thomas: Yeah! From that review…I wish I had seen that movie. But the movie I saw, I hated. And then I read the comments, on the New York Times website, and I thought, “Okay, I don’t wanna be that kind of person. I don’t wanna be the kind of person who thinks that movie critics love obscure movies, and that real people need to say that ‘Oh! This is the emperor’s new clothes!’" You know, you guys are just, sending up a smokescreen, or something. So…now I’m quite conflicted so now I need…

Dana Stevens: But isn’t there a way to not love Somewhere without doing an emperor’s new clothes on it? Wait, let’s get Dan’s reaction first. Dan.

Dan Kois: Ah. I don’t mind being the kind of fatuous [unintelligible] who hates Somewhere.

—From "The Culture Gabfest, 'Phoning It In' Edition," Slate, December 29, 2010

Comments

[Kois]

I believe I called myself a fatuous dick.

[Glenn Kenny]

I thought that too, but I wasn't quite sure. I was trying to be kind.

[cmholbrook]

My question to you is: Why do you continue to put yourself through listening to those dolts? I've said it before, but I had been fading on the Culture Gabfest for sometime. Then, your linking to Metcalf's takedown of The Seachers tipped the scales for me. I made a clean break. Why do you keep doing it to yourself?

[Kois]

Yeah, why do you listen to us fatuous dicks?

[Glenn Kenny]

@cmholbrook: Generally somebody waves the stuff under my nose. In this case, it was essentially a dare from a Facebook "friend." What I found interesting here—aside from the obvious feature that, you know, this is what passes for something or other these days—is the notion articulated by Thomas that critical thought/analysis and maybe even the practice of criticism is somehow linked to the kind of person you want to be, or present yourself as. The whole thing kind of gives me vertigo. So I thought I'd share. I've got a review of "Another Year" coming up on MSN a little later today, and I'm really going to have to restrain myself from bringing up Longworth's Village Voice review of same—which was similarly waved under my nose, honest, sometimes I think people are JUST TRYING TO PROVOKE ME!!!—when I link to it. Although I think I may have a real point with respect to all that. We'll just have to see!

[bill]

Oh, I hope you do, Glenn. When you do that sort of thing, you do it very well, and though I don't read KL often, ever since her rave of THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE, I've felt a certain...I don't know...rage.

[Glenn Kenny]

@ Bill: That's funny, because my observation is, among other things, relative to her (gratuitous, beside the point) mention of "Centipede" in her "review" of "Year..."

[bill]

...Wah? I haven't seen ANOTHER YEAR, but I can't imagine how that would even be possible. That's like working a reference to BLOOD FEAST into a review of THE L-SHAPED ROOM.

[Fabian W.]

Or "Transformers 2" in a "Made in USA"-review.

[cmholbrook]

I confess, I get Julia Turner and June Thomas confused. (But there's no reason to go there.) One of them is the foreign editor I believe. Anyway, when I did listen to the show, the foreign editor lady was always talking about all the TV shows she watched. And she watched A LOT of them! I was always thinking, Shouldn't you be, like, reading or something? That and Metcalf being such an effeminate little shit.

[Glenn Kenny]

"...'Transformers 2' in a 'Made In USA' review..." Did White do that?

@ cmh: Yeah, Thomas is the "foreign editor" of Slate. I don't even know what the fuck that even MEANS. But I guess the fact that someone so relentlessly trivial holds such a position is one of those things that enables the existence of WikiLeaks, in a sense.

As a reflexive defender of effeminate males everywhere, I insist that said feature should be the least of one's complaints about the reliably awful Metcalf.

Now, off to the gym.

[Kent Jones]

I just read KL's review of ANOTHER YEAR. I'm reminded of Bosley Crowther.

Why? Because Crowther embodied the outlook and prejudices of his own era as thoroughly, and unconsciously, as KL embodies those of her era. Somehow, it's all there in this review: the addiction to gauntlet-throwing, the gnomic refusal to get inside the movie for fear of contamination, the careful and relentless cultivation of a correct stance relative to the movie (which relates to what Glenn describes above), the reflexive invocations of "entitlement" and "condescension," and so on. It isn't criticism. It's the latest in a series of absurd restatements of identity. Just as Crowther wasn't really a critic, but a writer who knocked himself out trying to do something impossible: act as a barometer of public taste. But even Crowther gave a more accurate picture of what the movie was actually like. The creeping, anxious self-consciousness in KL's writing, as if she were glancing in the rearview mirror every 1 1/2 seconds, leaves the movie itself in the dust.

[bill]

"It's the latest in a series of absurd restatements of identity."

Well, I'd say that about sums it up.

[D.P.]

Maybe this is off-topic, maybe not, but I have heard from someone who would know that Ms. Longworth has not yet seen TOKYO STORY.

Just thought I'd put that out there.

[bill]

Also, having now read that ANOTHER YEAR review, and seeing how she referenced HUMAN CENTIPEDE, I'm even more baffled. If I may quote it without trespassing on Glenn's land, she says: "I haven't seen a film this year that so openly invited me to revile each and every one of its characters — and I reviewed 'The Human Centipede'." For those who haven't seen CENTIPEDE, would you like to know, out of maybe 7 or 8 characters, how many the audience would have any reason at all to revile? One.

[Glenn Kenny]

@ d.p.: Well, that's just piling on, now.

In fairness to Longworth (yeah, I know, who'd duh thunk it), I hardly think she's the only reviewer to misapprehend this film, or other Leigh pictures. A lot of the time—I think of "Naked" and "Happy-Go-Lucky" in particular, as well as this—the reviewer, rather than deal with the material at hand, will puzzle over what Leigh ostensibly thinks of his characters, and of what's going on with them. You know, the old "what is the guy trying to say?" approach. Which is a convenient way of, among other things, avoiding what's actually on the screen, for whatever that's worth.

I will now run six miles. You all behave yourselves.

[bill]

That's too many miles. You shouldn't run that many.

[Kent Jones]

Glenn, I agree with you, but here there's no puzzling over anything in the review, nothing but absolute certainty of condescension and smugness on Leigh's part and abject hatred on her part. She doesn't even rise to the level of puzzling over the movie.

[warren oates]

I haven't seen ANOTHER YEAR yet, but from all of the other Leigh films I have seen, KL seems to have it exactly wrong. Leigh loves all his characters and judges none of them. His project is one of radical empathy, even with outliers like the protagonist of NAKED or the driving instructor in HAPPY-GO-LUCKY. But can KL be all bad? She did bookend her top ten list this year with JACKASS 3D and TRASH HUMPERS!

[EOTW]

It's funny, but I've never liked Sofia Coppola's films. I don't think she's much talented and i think she skates on her family's name. There's a pretty famous story (well, at least that's what I heard from JE at a party years ago) of her showing VIRGIN SUICIDES to the author of the book, who was shocked to see that she had taken ALL of the dialogue straight from the novel, so when the "written for the screen" credit came up, he actually called her on it. She won an Oscar for "writing" LOST IN TRANSLATION (before BLACK SWAN, it was the most overrated film in the last 10 years or so) when it's known there was no finished script and Bill Murray pretty much did his own thing in the film. that being said, I caught SOMEWHERE on a screener last weekend, late at night, and frankly, I was quite taken with it. I enjoyed the meandering, slow pace (it's not even 90 minutes before credits, so I think this is why) and I think it is the only thing she has done that has any soul to it. Of course, she steals everything from better directors and I just don't think she is capable of any real personal insight (see her ex husband's incredible body of work. Spike Jonze is a master filmmaker) but this picture sure was pretty, if nothing to go nuts about

[James Keepnews]

Glad I'm not the only one startled by KL's cavalier dismissal of ANOTHER YEAR, which she all but called "ANOTHER SOAP" in her review's opening sentence -- because, goodness knows, the first thing we think of when we think about NAKED, and TOPSY-TURVY, and VERA DRAKE, and cetera, is their uncanny resemblance to GUIDING LIGHT.

There is, to be sure, always the danger of the lovingly hand-crafted surface details Leigh and his actors manifest in his storied "process" cascading over into caricature, and it has happened on occasion even with his best performers (e.g., the otherwise incomparable Katrin Cartlidge in CAREER GIRLS). But one of the marvels of said "process" is the degree to which that has NOT happened, and it's always telling how much certain critics obsess over these literally superficial details rather than see the forest that emerges from that complex interplay of behaviors developed by these characters. Going through the litany of all the tics and knowing glances/innuendi Ms. Longworth itemizes in her review makes me think she should read it carefully one more time and reflect, among other things, on her critique of Ms. Manville's acting, and her cutting intimation that quantity is not synonymous with quality. Tell us about it!

[Fabian W.]

"Did White do that?"

Indeed.

[Oliver_C]

I am almost as tall as Bill Murray, and not once during 6 years in Japan did I stay in a hotel with comically low shower-heads.

[warren oates]

Kent is right on. All of this critical posturing smacks of preadolescent sibling rivalry. "I can't like/hate that movie because so-and-so does. And I don't want to be that kind of person."

[lipranzer]

No offense, EOTW, but you're coming off as someone who still hasn't gotten over Francis Coppola casting Sofia in GODFATHER III...

I really liked SOMEWHERE (though I don't think Stephen Dorff quite reaches the depths he's obviously trying for in that last phone call scene), though I can understand why others don't. It's not just that it's a mood film rather than a story film (oddly enough, I saw this the same day as ANOTHER YEAR, which is also a mood film; also, both films struck me as being about loneliness), but also because I can see how people might be put off by the repetition Coppola uses to set the mood with (the pole dancing). What drew me into the movie for good was the scene of Elle Fanning ice skating, and Dorff's gradual awakening, for lack of a better word, while he watches her. Does anyone know the song used in that scene?

[Glenn Kenny]

Lipranzer, if I recall correctly, the song she's skating to is "Cool" by Gwen Stefani. The soundtrack really is a very canny mixing of the tailored-for-the-film Pheonix tunes and the L.A. pop that Hollywood types listen to.

[lipranzer]

I'm listening to it right now, and yes, I think you're right. Thanks, Glenn!

[MovieMan0283]

I agree with lip - Coppola's strength is less in storytelling than in the mood (a trait she shares with Wes Anderson, though I think she's more successful at integrating the two concerns than she has been lately). So questioning her authorship of screenplays doesn't really seem the most effective critique.

[Zach]

Good points being made by many; KJ's regarding what passes for criticism among the less-than-critical is surely a gem. I merely scanned KL's review (for fear of spoilers) but it did indeed seem to contain the hallmarks of shallowness, especially those that pop up most egregiously in assessment's of Leigh's singular cinema. I was a big booster of Happy-Go-Lucky, and didn't understand a lot of the negative reaction to it. Kent's remark about refusing to "get inside" the movie makes a lot of sense; in the case of HGL, some people seemed to think that the film was some kind of jury-rigged ode to positive thinking, whereas I saw a really honest examination of what makes some people tick - the advantages as well as the hazards of reflexive optimism (and its limits.) I'm super-psyched to check out Another Year.

And, for that matter, Somewhere. Not having the fortitude (or is it perverse curiosity?) of Glenn, I can't submit to one of those awful podcasts. Once was more than enough - but I salute you, sir, for going there that I will never have to.

[Kent Jones]

Zach, I found ANOTHER YEAR a very moving, troubling film, with an unusual tone: serene but unsettled. The sense of mortality and regret is so quietly potent that every ellipsis leaves you wondering if everyone is still okay. I think Ruth Sheen is every bit as mesmerizing as she was 20 years ago in HIGH HOPES.