As someone that really loved Don’t Look Up and loves Adam McKay and all that he does, this is written by someone that doesn’t understand film criticism. First of all this part: Is factually not...
As someone that really loved Don’t Look Up and loves Adam McKay and all that he does, this is written by someone that doesn’t understand film criticism.
First of all this part:
One problem with film reviews is that they are often so concerned with evaluating the quality of a movie that they don’t get chance to seriously discuss the ideas it raises.
Is factually not true. If anything most (primarily American) film critics do the opposite. They’re often too concerned with the broader culture war and let that influence their reviews. There’s no better example of this than Joker. Which had high brow European support (including winning the Golden Lion and the Venice film festival) and then started getting negative reviews once American film critics started watching it. They were absolutely influenced by all the talk about how this movie is dangerous and how it’s gonna start a wave of mass shootings, and a bunch of other nonsense.
I think most film critics are turning on Adam McKay and his style. He hasn’t changed, the messaging of his movies haven’t changed. Not since The Big Short, but each subsequent movie gets worse and worse reviews.
It’s completely valid to not like a movie that is bringing up ideas you agree with. Sitting there and nodding your head is not what makes great cinema.
I agree. In my experience, the "smarter" the critic, more likely they are to evaluate a movie by its message, its "importance", or whatever, to the detriment of its quality. This seems also very...
I agree. In my experience, the "smarter" the critic, more likely they are to evaluate a movie by its message, its "importance", or whatever, to the detriment of its quality. This seems also very common with film festival judges, including in the US.
I do think the Joker is pretty great in both accounts though.
Edit: I actually enjoyed Don't Look Up, by the way...
This has to be satire, right? Am I just missing something here? What? The main point of a mainstream film review is to tell you whether or not it is a good movie! Acting, editing, screenplay -...
This has to be satire, right? Am I just missing something here?
One problem with film reviews is that they are often so concerned with evaluating the quality of a movie that they don’t get chance to seriously discuss the ideas it raises.
What? The main point of a mainstream film review is to tell you whether or not it is a good movie!
Reviewers are preoccupied with questions like: How is the acting? The editing? Is the dialogue sharp? The pacing energetic? Are certain mawkish indulgences by the director partly counteracted by a thoughtful score? In the case of a satire trying to make a point, does it make the point well, or does it do it “ham-fistedly”? Is it subtle and graceful or does it “beat you over the head”?
Acting, editing, screenplay - those are essential elements to discuss about a film! They are the basic building blocks of film as a medium. You can mess up one or two things and nail some of the more esoteric aspects and the film can still be good (for example, maybe the acting is just okay but the comedy or satire is strong enough to overcome that). But if you fail at too many of them, the whole thing doesn't work.
But more importantly, they get the message of the film backwards. One reason that these reviewers think that message is an obvious one is that they miss all the parts that are not necessarily obvious.
Then doesn't that speak directly to the fact that the filmmakers didn't do a good job? If everyone is missing the message, then was that message communicated successfully?
I think you are simply disagreeing with the point. Critics evaluate documentaries with one yard stick, comedies (dark or screwball) with another, and fictional stories with a third. Was this movie...
This has to be satire, right? Am I just missing something here?
I think you are simply disagreeing with the point.
Critics evaluate documentaries with one yard stick, comedies (dark or screwball) with another, and fictional stories with a third.
Was this movie attempting to inform you, make a joke, or tell a story? Or was it trying to make a point? By jabbing you in the eye balls? Repeatedly. For over 90 minutes?
And should it be reviewed differently because it clearly was trying to be different? <==== This is I think what the linked article is trying to say.
Clearly this is no Dr Strangelove or Network, which is a sad commentary on our attention span today.
It's like Idiocracy, but without all the Beavis & Butthead style low-brow humor.
As the article points out, in addition to the one obvious point the movie makes, there are also some subtle points that are easily missed.
Plot spoiler - quotation from linked article
> The crucial turning point in the plot is when the president decides the comet is too valuable for future GDP to destroy, and thus Silicon Valley needs to be allowed to try something experimental. This is not a simplistic, everyone-knows-this-already-how-obvious-can-you-be point. The same kind of thinking guides some of the worst public policy prescriptions on climate.
I think it's worth comparing this movie to Idiocracy. Idiocracy is not subtle. But the idea of Idiocracy is very sticky. I will likely never watch the movie again, but I love to talk about it. And I think Don't Look Up is very similar in that respect.
Idiocracy was favoribly well reviewed. But it wasn't well reviewed by the audience. And seriously bombed at the box office. It finally clawed it's way back to profitability with home video sales.
I think Idiocracy set back public knowledge of genetics and IQ. Did you know that average IQ has been going up in many countries? (Though it might have leveled off in recent years.) It's a stupid...
I think Idiocracy set back public knowledge of genetics and IQ. Did you know that average IQ has been going up in many countries? (Though it might have leveled off in recent years.)
It's a stupid movie, with an inner movie that's also stupid (the amusement park ride), showing that its creators knew what they were doing: creating entertainment.
Sure Idiocracy is a stupid movie. Based on the average audience reviews, I think most people would agree. Yet the critics did not seem to think so. Hence the relevance to this discussion. Why did...
Sure Idiocracy is a stupid movie. Based on the average audience reviews, I think most people would agree. Yet the critics did not seem to think so. Hence the relevance to this discussion.
Why did Idiocracy fare so better with critics and Don't Look Up fared better with audiences?
Either critics missed the point with Don't Look Up, or they missed the mark on Idiocracy.
I agree with you here. Not only does he seem to miss the point of film criticism, but I didn’t find the messaging of the movie particularly incisive. Almost every character the screenplay wants to...
I agree with you here. Not only does he seem to miss the point of film criticism, but I didn’t find the messaging of the movie particularly incisive. Almost every character the screenplay wants to bash is rendered almost maliciously. The writing just oozed a level of mean-spiritedness, cynicism, and contempt for its subjects that I had trouble getting past. And not the entertaining sort of contempt either, but more a kind of smug and smarmy attitude (think Bill Maher) that I find to be grating.
If it wanted to paint the picture of manipulation Robinson wants us to focus on, it would need to make the central characters seem more relatable and less ridiculously venal. It feels less like a clear look at the ghoulishness of any real people and more like someone is resentful about not being one of those people.
The central premise is hardly original, and it’s understanding about the causes or mechanisms behind how any of it happens is facile. So what are we left with? Mediocre screenplay with some great actors doing some excellent work chewing scenery.
If obvious means "predictable", I did not find that to be the case. Some of the twists were genuinely surprising. But "subtle" it was not, lol. It had (mild spoilers) what felt like a ten minute...
If obvious means "predictable", I did not find that to be the case. Some of the twists were genuinely surprising. But "subtle" it was not, lol. It had (mild spoilers) what felt like a ten minute scene with Ariana Grande and Kid Cudi literally singing "just look up".
Now that you say it, I think my problem with that scene was that it was not funny. It was funny for 5 seconds (i.e. the absurdity of it existing) but then it played through the whole song and if...
Now that you say it, I think my problem with that scene was that it was not funny. It was funny for 5 seconds (i.e. the absurdity of it existing) but then it played through the whole song and if there was an emotion it was supposed to trigger, it was being moved by the characters' actions. Or maybe it was just having such an expensive celebrity singer in the movie and producers wanting to get their money's worth.
Maybe it's not the best example. But there definitely were a lot of in-your-face moments of political message that weren't that clever.
Yes, you are correct, that's not a particularly rich, complex, or original concept, and it goes on for a lot more than it should. That's actually true about the whole movie as well. Not many...
Yes, you are correct, that's not a particularly rich, complex, or original concept, and it goes on for a lot more than it should. That's actually true about the whole movie as well. Not many comedies warrant a 2h15min runtime, and this is not one of them.
As someone that really loved Don’t Look Up and loves Adam McKay and all that he does, this is written by someone that doesn’t understand film criticism.
First of all this part:
Is factually not true. If anything most (primarily American) film critics do the opposite. They’re often too concerned with the broader culture war and let that influence their reviews. There’s no better example of this than Joker. Which had high brow European support (including winning the Golden Lion and the Venice film festival) and then started getting negative reviews once American film critics started watching it. They were absolutely influenced by all the talk about how this movie is dangerous and how it’s gonna start a wave of mass shootings, and a bunch of other nonsense.
I think most film critics are turning on Adam McKay and his style. He hasn’t changed, the messaging of his movies haven’t changed. Not since The Big Short, but each subsequent movie gets worse and worse reviews.
It’s completely valid to not like a movie that is bringing up ideas you agree with. Sitting there and nodding your head is not what makes great cinema.
The author should read this piece by Matt Zoller Seitz titled “Please Critics, write about the filmmaking.”
I agree. In my experience, the "smarter" the critic, more likely they are to evaluate a movie by its message, its "importance", or whatever, to the detriment of its quality. This seems also very common with film festival judges, including in the US.
I do think the Joker is pretty great in both accounts though.
Edit: I actually enjoyed Don't Look Up, by the way...
This has to be satire, right? Am I just missing something here?
What? The main point of a mainstream film review is to tell you whether or not it is a good movie!
Acting, editing, screenplay - those are essential elements to discuss about a film! They are the basic building blocks of film as a medium. You can mess up one or two things and nail some of the more esoteric aspects and the film can still be good (for example, maybe the acting is just okay but the comedy or satire is strong enough to overcome that). But if you fail at too many of them, the whole thing doesn't work.
Then doesn't that speak directly to the fact that the filmmakers didn't do a good job? If everyone is missing the message, then was that message communicated successfully?
I think you are simply disagreeing with the point.
Critics evaluate documentaries with one yard stick, comedies (dark or screwball) with another, and fictional stories with a third.
Was this movie attempting to inform you, make a joke, or tell a story? Or was it trying to make a point? By jabbing you in the eye balls? Repeatedly. For over 90 minutes?
And should it be reviewed differently because it clearly was trying to be different? <==== This is I think what the linked article is trying to say.
Clearly this is no Dr Strangelove or Network, which is a sad commentary on our attention span today.
It's like Idiocracy, but without all the Beavis & Butthead style low-brow humor.
As the article points out, in addition to the one obvious point the movie makes, there are also some subtle points that are easily missed.
Plot spoiler - quotation from linked article
> The crucial turning point in the plot is when the president decides the comet is too valuable for future GDP to destroy, and thus Silicon Valley needs to be allowed to try something experimental. This is not a simplistic, everyone-knows-this-already-how-obvious-can-you-be point. The same kind of thinking guides some of the worst public policy prescriptions on climate.I think it's worth comparing this movie to Idiocracy. Idiocracy is not subtle. But the idea of Idiocracy is very sticky. I will likely never watch the movie again, but I love to talk about it. And I think Don't Look Up is very similar in that respect.
Idiocracy was favoribly well reviewed. But it wasn't well reviewed by the audience. And seriously bombed at the box office. It finally clawed it's way back to profitability with home video sales.
The opposite happened with Don't Look Up, it bombed with the critics, but seems to be well liked, even by conservatives.
Both movies are successful in that they are forcing a dialogue. The word of mouth dialogue is what drove Idiocracies success with home video sales.
I think the linked article makes a valid point. A lot of the critics missed the subtlety. But then, so did most of the audience.
But ultimately, I don't think it matters what the critics write.
If people keep on talking about it, more folks will be curious enough to watch it.
And that I think fundamentally is what is most interesting to me. That the movie is worth talking about.
I think Idiocracy set back public knowledge of genetics and IQ. Did you know that average IQ has been going up in many countries? (Though it might have leveled off in recent years.)
It's a stupid movie, with an inner movie that's also stupid (the amusement park ride), showing that its creators knew what they were doing: creating entertainment.
Sure Idiocracy is a stupid movie. Based on the average audience reviews, I think most people would agree. Yet the critics did not seem to think so. Hence the relevance to this discussion.
Why did Idiocracy fare so better with critics and Don't Look Up fared better with audiences?
Either critics missed the point with Don't Look Up, or they missed the mark on Idiocracy.
Because they both fall in a very similar genre.
I agree with you here. Not only does he seem to miss the point of film criticism, but I didn’t find the messaging of the movie particularly incisive. Almost every character the screenplay wants to bash is rendered almost maliciously. The writing just oozed a level of mean-spiritedness, cynicism, and contempt for its subjects that I had trouble getting past. And not the entertaining sort of contempt either, but more a kind of smug and smarmy attitude (think Bill Maher) that I find to be grating.
If it wanted to paint the picture of manipulation Robinson wants us to focus on, it would need to make the central characters seem more relatable and less ridiculously venal. It feels less like a clear look at the ghoulishness of any real people and more like someone is resentful about not being one of those people.
The central premise is hardly original, and it’s understanding about the causes or mechanisms behind how any of it happens is facile. So what are we left with? Mediocre screenplay with some great actors doing some excellent work chewing scenery.
If obvious means "predictable", I did not find that to be the case. Some of the twists were genuinely surprising. But "subtle" it was not, lol. It had (mild spoilers) what felt like a ten minute scene with Ariana Grande and Kid Cudi literally singing "just look up".
Not necessarily a problem, a lot of good comedy is not subtle at all.
Now that you say it, I think my problem with that scene was that it was not funny. It was funny for 5 seconds (i.e. the absurdity of it existing) but then it played through the whole song and if there was an emotion it was supposed to trigger, it was being moved by the characters' actions. Or maybe it was just having such an expensive celebrity singer in the movie and producers wanting to get their money's worth.
Maybe it's not the best example. But there definitely were a lot of in-your-face moments of political message that weren't that clever.
Yes, you are correct, that's not a particularly rich, complex, or original concept, and it goes on for a lot more than it should. That's actually true about the whole movie as well. Not many comedies warrant a 2h15min runtime, and this is not one of them.
Kind of a weird way to approach an art-form