To: Oscars
From: rtj
Activists as dates aren't handbags.
To: Certain Men in Hollywood
From: child actors
Boo.
1
Ava DuVernay and Reese Witherspoon could run a studio - and no one else would ever be allowed to have an original thought or disagree with either of them. These egos have become very distasteful to watch - it is not strength we see, it is rewriting of history and expecting that no one will have the courage to or clout to protest. She doesn't speak for all of us in any ethnic group but she speaks so loudly we are supposed to bow down.
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edited resend:
a pleasant exercise these memos...most amusing, mr scott's conflicted netflixing, least amusing, after rightly cautioning against historical ignorance (the nullification of history, it seems, is easier than the actual study of it), citing the use of extreme analogy (hitler, et al.) to bolster the opinionism that passes for discussion: "Please read some history. About...the...historical monsters and catastrophes you like to invoke when talking about whatever is bothering you in contemporary culture." and then, with "People who indulge in this kind of rhetorical inflation are like rats spreading bubonic plague, " mr scott does just that!
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Re popcorn: this kettle corn offered at my local multiplex is outstanding. You can even add butteresque topping, which I can barely resist.
A bit long but bear with me.
I think Ana DuVernay misrepresented the interactions between LBJ and MLK (have read the Caro biography of LBJ and hope Caro lives to finish Vol. III.) You make a film about history, get it right. I hope she will continue to be a presence as a director even though it seemed like writers bent over backwards to write around weaknesses in “Wrinkle In Time.” Come the dawn when a director who isn’t white and male can come off either a full out bomb or an underperforming effort, and still be in the mix for future big studio work.
Would love see Latinx, Asians of all stripes, and First Nations people from top to bottom and behind and in front of the camera in the industry. Wouldn’t you love too see a Bollywood director take on an MCU movie? Or a Latinx woman appear in what I call Nancy-Meyers-kitchen movies (see the upcoming Book Club as an example) as a principal and not the spitfire sassy sidekick? Let the tent poles and their overseas revenue and product tie-ins pay for taking a flyer on securing and distributing independent films. Or give directors of same studio support to keep making those kinds of films.
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Dear Film Critics,
Women are actors, not actresses. We've been actors for many years. How can you not get this? Women actors do the same work as that done by male actors, and therefore we're called actors. Would you call a female dentist a dentistress? A female lawyer a lawyeress? A female accountant or teacher an accountantress or teacheress? What gives?
Yours truly.
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@Jan Lewis Actually, I think it should have gone the other way. Everyone who does acting should be called an "actress", no matter gender. I find that the default to the previous male designation a bit much.
"The daily barrage of news reports about bad men in your industry (and many others) seems to have subsided"...
And we have to talk about why this is. Don't think that most of the "bad guys" have been caught. In fact, its the opposite. They were just the "open secrets". There are many, many more. But they are being shielded & protected by the same industry that's saying "Times Up". The fact that Netflix brought back Jeffrey Tambor, Bryan Singer is still on the X-Men projects and Ryan Lizza was quickly hired by Rolling Stone is evidence of this. The entertainment business will never be virtuous. Ever. It will always be about money and they will do anything to keep you buying tickets or paying for streaming subscriptions. The Roman Polanski & Bill Cosby booting out of The Academy wasn't a culture change. It was public relations.
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I agree with practically everything in this article, but I dislike the way it's written. It reads like a blog from Buzzfeed or Huffington Post. The passive-aggressive tone of voice, the low-key insults, the carefully placed filler words ("You were going to, er, disrupt the..."), starting sentences with conjunctions...it's very childish. No offense Ms. Dargis and Mr. Scott, but you two were definitely not writing this way years ago. Please stop trying to be "cool". It's lame.
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Much to the Times discredit, their movie reviewers are literary types or maybe verging on stereotypes, not true film buffs. They need to read Ebert's, How to Read a Movie repeatedly until they get it, which, as this waste of ink amply shows, they don't.
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TO: M.D.
Wrinkle in Time as qualification for running a studio or network ? Come on ... Did you actually watch that dreck ? If someone else had put out that garbage you would have roasted them, if you would have reviewed it at all.
Your bias & pretentiousness is showing badly
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Love it! Thanks.
Hollywood, like society at large, is polarizing itself to the brink of extinction. There has always been the "war between the sexes" and it has been integral to artful dramatization for millennia. But "chick flicks" and "chick lit" have become more than just gender-oriented entertainment. Case in point: I have just sacrificed 6 hours of my life to watching "Big Little Lies" on DVD (from library.) I understand that there are a lot of creepy males, even or especially among the rich decadent class, with their testosterone poisoning and sense of privilege run amok. But BLL was unequivocal about the fault line. The only sympathetic male was the working schmo at the coffee shop, and he was (wrongly) assumed to be gay. The bonding of the sisterhood at the end was probably inspirational, the beast had been vanquished and all the other males abashed, but as a sensitive hetero elder (age 70) I was frankly offended. I should have stopped watching after the third episode, as I was tempted to.
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Manohla Dargis asks "What, exactly, is so complicated about dealing with discrimination and harassment?" This is a silly thing to say. If this was simple, it would have been dealt with long ago. It's like saying "What is so complicated about human sexuality?"
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The sarcasm wouldn’t have been so insufferable if all the “advice” were on point.
How have Ava DuVernay and Reese Witherspoon proven their “large screen” credentials? A Wrinkle in Time was DuVernay’s first big budget film. The reviews were middling and it didn’t even break even.
Brad Pitt and George Clooney are the only good White guys? With regard to... #MeToo? Racism? Do you mean men of a certain age? Because the next generation of leading White men—Chrises Hemsworth, Evans, Pine, Pratt; Gosling, etc.—has done an admirable job so far. Why not think beyond the (implicitly heterosexual) gender/race narrative for one second and discuss the impenetrable pink ceiling? Do you have any idea how many of gay male actors are still in the closet? They know coming out would kill their chances of ever landing a Captain America or James Bond. Hell, the only reason we know Rock Hudson was gay is because he died of AIDS.
And the Wes Anderson criticism is “cultural appropriation!!1!” run amok. Japan has the world’s third largest economy and one of its highest standards of living. Its corporations are ubiquitous. It was a genocidal colonial power less than a century ago for which it still refuses to apologize. The population is 99% ethnically Japanese. It accepts no refugees. Racism and xenophobia are a foundation of society. Which is why Japanese every movie is japanified and Japanese actors are almost exclusively cast for Western/non-Japanese roles. It is NOT marginalized.
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It's truly the best of times, worse of times for Hollywood, the world is sucking up their slop hook, line and sinker, they like the flash and trash concept of superhero movies and fast cars and heroes with no hair. That's the good news, super hero movies routinely blow past the billion dollar mark, the bad news: its junk food. None of it has any lasting impact, because superheroes may die, but they rarely stay dead, which is the problem. In real life people stay dead, and without realism the movies have no true emotional impact, they have all the lasting value of MTV Videos. how does a movie critic even review these things, do people even care about the reviews. Reviews, critiques are for true art, art gave birth to the social critic, because the ordinary mind can understand that they enjoy art, but they wanted to know why they enjoyed it. The love of art differs us from animals, and prove that we as human beings have souls-that there is more to us than just what you see, that there is a piece of god in all of us, and art shows us a higher path. these super hero movies are robbing us of our souls, and intellectual curiosity, they are turning us into those animals who can only understand primal needs. Where we once had movies like 2001 a space odyssey, a movie that made you feel alive, and showed the power of the human mind, a movie that set your imagination on fire, we now have ten versions of fast and furious , cars going fast, yet going nowhere..like Hollywood itself.
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I truly do wonder how it feels to stick one's head in the sand for 3 hours, I bet it feels something like reading this comment.
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Set your comment in the 1960's and replace superhero movies with "rock n roll" and we would get the same idea--everything is bad today and things in the past were better.
To: M.D. and A.O.S
From: A.C
Re: You Have Thoughts
"Liberated from what? Men? Marriage?" NO...from being treated as second-class citizens, whether it be in employment, pay scales, admission to elite colleges and a few other things heretofore giving us with a Y chromosome unfair advantages. My mother, her friends, and my teachers began teaching me this more than 50 years ago.
As to Hollywood female elites getting together to, oh, buy a studio. Is this Supply Side entertainment? Are those on lower rungs of the pay scale - women as well as men - going to benefit or will women running companies try to keep down costs as do men running companies? Instead of actresses having their pay raised, don't you think lowering those of their male counterparts will better affect their bottom line?
Stop thinking Betty Friedan and Germaine Greer and put more into Bella Abzug and Shirley Chisolm, the latter two not from the school of Trickle Down Feminism.
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Dear Hollywood,
So long and thanks for all the popcorn.
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Yes - when it was Popcorn
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Hey A.O. and Manohla,
You could have added the following:
- A subscription service where we can see movies made in the last 5 years - Amazon, Netflix, Hulu - it's all the same stuff every month
- How about something on real representation from all walks of life in film and movies?
- Equal pay for everyone in the industry regardless of job, gender and race
- How about casting more diverse actors instead of constantly seeing the same people i.e. Cate Blanchett, a Hemsworth, Melissa McCarthy, Scarlett Johannsen, Matt Damon etc...see a pattern? They are all white.
- Does the industry have any original thoughts now or are we just going to be recycling stuff from 20 to 30 years ago, remaking them or doing sequel after sequel? (I mean did we really need a CHiPs movie?)
- This is going to sound nostalgic but why do most movies today have violence, sex and/or foul language in them? No one can make a movie without people using profanity, hurting each other or graphically portraying sex? There is something great about movies with story and dialogue. Those days seem to be long gone.
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To A24, Please seriously consider AOS's request to distribute high quality foreign language films for the American market (either theatrically or via a streaming platform). I will be sending you my resume for when you decide to hire a person to help curate this selection. -- J
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These critics are living in a time warp.
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Let's be honest: Netflix's selection stinks. All of the categories seem to feature the same 10 movies, there are no new releases, and the back catalog is woefully underrepresented. At the end of the day, it offers so-so movies that you'll watch when there's nothing else on, and little more. The shows Netflix creates are largely a waste of time.
Let's also be honest: Anderson's decision to not use subtitles was genius. I watched Isle of Dogs with my 5-yo daughter, and we both understood it perfectly fine, and put us in the shoes of the dogs, who couldn't follow what they were saying, either.
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While Anderson's decision to not use subtitles could have been better explained (in that he wanted to give his native English speaking audience the experience of the incomprehensible babble our dogs must deal with everyday) I think the umbridge was that somehow subtitles were themselves bad or aesthetically unpleasing.
1
I don't know, as a longtime consumer of anime I don't agree, subtitles have never intruded on the visuals of any anime that I've watched, they have only ever served to open the door of an otherwise alien artform and culture to someone who does speak the language. They never intruded or distracted from the picture, you're (presumably) an adult, you can read and look at a picture at the same time. Ask anyone who watches anime, even with the option of a well dubbed version, it is still better in Japanese with subtitles.
3
You may think you can read and look at a picture at the same time, but you're really reading, then looking at the picture -- you may be able to do it very quickly, but you're doing it. I enjoy a good foreign film, subtitles and all, but I wish we had something like a multilingual flash drive we could pop in our brains, so I could enjoy the film without switching back and forth.
To: Brad Pitt
From: not A.O.S.
If you're all us white guys who don't want to be like other white guys have, please invest in some acting lessons. You've been a boring actor for as long as you've been a beautiful one. Looking like an old-fashioned movie star doesn't make you a compelling performer.
To: George Clooney
You actually do have the talent (and the wit) to back up your status as a white-guy movie star. But where is the work? We're all happy for your marriage and your kids and we wish all of you well but doing one movie every three years isn't going to add up to a notable career. Especially when the work you've been doing of late is of the caliber of Monuments Men, Tomorrowland and Money Monster.
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Dear Netflix: I do love you as a shareholder and you could return the love by giving us dividends. Keep giving us those great European and Scandinavian TV series and I'll keep watching.
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Have you two ever considered that your joint comments strongly resemble the movies you deride? I mean self-congratulatory, over-stated, and jejune.
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You actually used "jejune" in a sentence. Woody Allen's Love and Death says thank you.
Fun breakfast read!
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The only important things in the movie business are those pieces of printed cotton and linen with the faces of dead Presidents on them. Everything else - everything - is just flummery.
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Can we get some new blood in the acting industry? Pitt and Clooney are mentioned -- really, these geezers are all that's left for men? The picture of the women in black dresses are the same actresses in the same movies over and over and over. I know the supply greatly outweighs the demand for acting, go find some new people, please.
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Two words. Cary. Grant.
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And Gregory Peck.
Very thoughtful commentary on one of America's most potent business's when it comes to influencing our culture. During wars it is used for propaganda, during civil unrest it does the same thing. Its importance cannot be overstated.
Now if more time could be devoted to inspirational movies, perhaps hope will be restored in this country, if not the world.
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When once I went to as many as four movies a week, last year I went to only four all year. Two so far this year and one of those was a stinkaroo. I'd be lost without Netflix and HBO.
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To: Hollywood. Care of: Who it may concern. Is there anyway we can metaphorically go back in time to 1969-1975. That golden age where Movie studios decided to give all these bright young directors a chance to try their hand at mirroring the realism movement imported from Europe. When Movies told gritty stories about gritty people, and dealt with the complex psychology found in the human mind and human heart. These were the kind of movies that, as Teyve would say to Lazer Wolf in 'Fiddler on the roof" : "Give you something to think about." Yes, the movies of that age, dealt with human beings, and the struggle, or to use the vernacular of todays youth: "The process"- The process of getting through llife from various points of view, like single mothers 'Alice doesn't live here anymore' or maybe the process of a city falling apart masquerading as a crime drama: " The French Connection." These movies riveted us, churned us, and left an indelible impression. Then along came Steven Spielberg with his stupid Shark that showed that slick merchandising and a high volume publicity machine could make a zillion times more than that story about the single mom who packed up and left for Phoenix. And just like that, in a flash that magical moment in time for the movies was gone. And all the great writing, great acting and depth of emotion gone with it. Spielbergs Shark begat a bunch of guys in Superhero jock straps. Lets use the Time stone to go back.
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I don't know how Ava DuVernay would perform as a studio head but if it would result in more high-quality movies like "Selma", then I'm all for that!
I'd include a note to George Clooney: find another profession than movie making and acting. I've never been impressed by him or his work.
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I'll hold George Clooney as Michael Clayton (Do I look like I'm negotiating?) up to any of the old-time greats.
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But on the other hand if it resulted in more films of “Wrinkle InTime” quality, no thanks.
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Why does it even have to be said?
All White filmmakers,
Stop casting main roles based on Asian or Asian American themes, content, IP with White actors. If you're going to set your film in Asia hire local artists as screenwriters, set design, cinematographers etc.
All White actors,
Just step aside when offered that part. I know it was cool to work with Cameron Crowe that time, but what did Emma Stone gain playing an Asian American?
All White Hollywood with money & power,
Follow Brad Pitt's lead and be the quiet producer/money/power supporting quality movies created by Black, Asian, Native, and Latinx Americans.
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Why are white Latinos nonwhite? I ask this in all seriousness, not sarcastically. My daughter, who does not look white, was told she was a 'white oppressor' by a blond haired blue eyed rich kid from Argentina who said he was 'nonwhite' and 'oppressed."
So should my daughter, from a low income background, who looks nonwhite and therefore is probably not cast, 'step aside' for him? Why?
Why do Asians need help from White people? They've been making terrific movies for decades. Why do you think the power resides with "White People" and their job is to paternalistically fund everyone else, like benevolent father figures?
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There is no one so wise as the person telling other people how to do what they have never done themselves.
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Oh c'mon, Steve. Does one have to be able to write like Shakespeare in order to have an opinion about a production of 'Hamlet'? Does one have to be a top chef to know whether a two hundred buck meal was a rip-off?
I assume that you have opinions, too. Are they only about those endeavours at which you are expert? I doubt it, somehow.
p.
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Memo to A.O. and Manohla: Love this!! It's all funny and true, seriously insightful and pointed. Take serious note, Hollywood, what is said here is a fine summary of what of a lot of us who dole out $10 a movie believe.
As for you sexual predators who thought a squeeze here and a glib comment there was all in fun, so glad you finally got the memo that sexual harassment takes many forms. Most of you got away with it, receding into the sunset, and now getting ready for the bright lights again. The world can certainly move on perfectly without you and your Oscar-worthy apologies and your shameful payouts for women's silence. As Jack Lemon said in "The Out of Towners," I have a list! And I won't pay anymore to see your movies as long as you are its director or even bit player.
But back to the memo by Messengers Dargis and Scott: This is a perfect homage to the movies, this flickering screen we love that redefines our dreams, ourselves. Behind the suspension of belief and lifelong analysis of what a movie did to us -- I'm still working out the pull of "The Sound of Music," PTSD from "Bambi" and the how powerfully "Alien" transformed a spacewoman and her cat and women and girls everywhere into heroines -- are critics like yourselves who bring astonishing cultural intelligence (and humor at times) to your reviews. Of this dreams are made as well. Thank you!
14
Oh, dear God. I’m a Democrat. I voted for Hillary. I even contributed to her campaign. And I’m so tired of hearing about #metoo from Hollywood.
Trickle down doesn’t work in the general economy. The notion that actresses will be paid a few million more to achieve parity with their crazy-rich male colleagues doesn’t mean that waitresses and accountants and other workers are suddenly going to achieve parity too.
Just like the movies, you’re living in a fantasy world.
Can’t we just get a few good stories on the screen?
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David, I'm going to assume you're a man from your name. I am sorry you're tired of #MeToo. As a woman, I am far from tired of #MeToo, and I'm glad to see it spreading beyond Hollywood. I don't think the main point is trickle-down equality of pay, but raising awareness of harassment and double standards. This is already making things easier for women in other fields, if not as broadly and comprehensively as we would like (yet).
14
To directors of classic movies produced by Harvey Weinstein, could you please recut your movies without the gratuitous nudity? For example, I rewatched the English Patient recently, and the scene where the luminous actress Kristen Scott Thomas shows full frontal nudity while stepping out of a bath is entirely superfluous. I'm a heterosexual male but experienced this scene as unnecessary and detracting from the movie. There are many other movies with such scenes. Could you take a second look?
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Also, can you please take Harvey's name off the credit reels? If Ridley Scott can take Kevin Spacey out of a movie body and soul how difficult would it be to remove a producer's name from the credits?
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Please goddess of the above abyss, less star warsy junk and more humanistic/fun/relevant movies of much enjoyment.
Heaven protect us from the Disney cabal...
37
Why single out Star Wars when that is actually an example of how to do that sort of movie right?? How is Star Wars not humanistic, fun or relevant? The films are based upon timeless mythological storytelling and deal with family drama and human triumphs and foibles. Something doesn't become such a hugely ingrained part of society if it doesn't connect with people on a deep and universal level. The films have always had a great sense of fun, wonder, heart and have never been a few mindless 30 minute long random action sequences tied together.
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Highly doubtful that Brad and George will ever be guilty of sexually improper behavior towards women...more likely to be the other way around.
6
Here are a couple of questions you missed.
1-When are you Hollywood guys gonna stop putting out or at least heavily restrict gratuitous R rated violent gun movies aimed at our youth especially inner city youth fostering the minority side of our cultural gun sickness that kills/wounds 100k+ Americans year after year, an aberration re our peer
countries.
2-When are you Hollywood guys gonna stop enabling and co depending predators like Weinstein. By Hollywood guys I don't mean all man, many women like M. Streep, many actresses who went along with it until the roles stopped, pols. like Hillary or orgs like NOW who said nothing as long as the money was coming in.
Also to you NY Times, when are your gonna stop reviewing these vile pictures like Spring Breakers, where you said, it put somebody on the map. It was a vile perversion of the innocent beach flicks of the 60s. Also when are you gonna print as part of your me too movement, the aspect of females enabling and co depending on predators.
Thank you.
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No, thank you.
I have long wondered why those Hollywood hypocrites, who put their liberal politics out there, keep starring in hyper violent, gun- crazy films. The violence is way out of proportion to real world violence. And filmed in increasingly sickening manner...slo mo, graphic, explosions of blood.
And perhaps actresses newly energized by the #metoo movement can start refusing gratuitous nude scenes meant only for titillation, or at least demanding a male nude scene for every female one.
Perhaps someone can start counting and comparing....
6
Thank you for reply MD Monroe. We can only hope. The NYTimes is a great newspaper but re the two issues I brought up they are woefully lacking in objectivity to say the least and to say the most compliance in our cultural abuse deadly gun sickness and actively co depending and enabling the predators against women.
2
Typo, meant to say complicit not compliance.
The reviewers of the NY Times do not realize how much they are like the NRA, ie basically their entertainment wing promoting vile, gun graphic violent R rated flicks targeted at our youth, especially those of color.
2
How could you not take Wes Anderson to task for his lack of female characters? Subtitles or not Isle of Dogs clearly shows Anderson's universe as a male, male, male, male, male, male world. I imagine going to an all boys school warped his sense of reality, but the gender disparity in his films is ridiculous.
13
His movies include females in them.
1
Critiquing an industry that releases 15 pieces of pandering trash for every 1 reasonably good movie is like, well, arguing that Bozo uses too much eye make-up.
Get some perspective, folks. Otherwise you're as ridiculous as the industry you're paid to observe.
28
I love you guys and savor your reviews, but I take issue with your taking issue with the subtitles in "Isle of Dogs."
The film's explanation was that dog language (e.g., barking, whining, etc.) was translated into English for the benefit of the audience, which, given the film's distribution, was assumed to be largely English speaking. Why translate "dog" into another language that the majority of the audience wouldn't understand? Much of the humor and pathos derives from the subtlety of the characters' inflections and tone of voice, which in Japanese would be lost on the majority of the audience. The voice is vital!
Dialogue for the Japanese characters, which accounted for a much smaller portion of the film's running time, was wisely subtitled instead.
Even as a speedy reader, I have to agree with Wes Anderson that subtitles distract from the visuals and, in this case, would have diminished the emotional impact of the story for most viewers.
21
Re: Subtitles.
I have hearing loss and I need the subtitles in order to watch movies on my TV; if they don't have subtitles, I might as well not watch them. I can hear the sound of rising and falling voices as a blur of sound, but not the actual words they're saying. There are plenty of people like me. It could happen to you.
22
Either I'm getting older or these actor types need diction training. Better enable the subtitles!
12
I too need subtitles for hearing impairment. Presently, many American films fail to provide them, as they have nothing to say, and are merely demonstrations of noise from comic book sound effects. What a waste of time!
9
sometimes the blame for bad sound goes to the Sound Editor.
2
TO: MD
Your current gender heroes are forgettable, as are their movies. Please try keep identity politics out of the arts, even arts as dubious and transitory as the movies. And it's not altogether clear that a movie studio owned by Oprah is a good thing -- even if the Almighty gives her the nod on the acquisition.
17
Storytelling is as old as humanity and movies are yet another iteration of storytelling; so, your claim that movies are transitory is ill-informed opinion, and pretentious as well.
As a Netflix subscriber, I agree with Mr. Scott that the service’s best films and television shows are outstanding. And I agree with his admonition regarding potential abuses of monopolistic power.
In eyeing Netflix critically, however, I’m surprised Scott didn’t mention one of its primary weaknesses: it’s still the elephants’ graveyard for films that never made it to theatrical distribution because they were sunk by weak writing, direction, acting, or all three. The proportion of this padding to watchable content is too big, and it would be nice to see more discernment in Netflix’s curating. (I don’t expect it will happen.)
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Very true. However the IMDB web site has reviews (by users and by critics) of most (not all) films & series - which can help in deciding what to view. (Often the user reviews are more useful than the critic's).
Interesting reading. Todays actresses should look to those of years gone by. Marlene, Kate Hepburn etc. to see how they stood up to the factory that is Hollywood , these are true women of inspiration in the entertainment field.
Clooney and Pitt actually do seem to be the only two that lend class to their field and have been highly outspoken on the mess that is Weinstein among others.
I don't really go to the movies all that often because of the noise and the phony CGI but I will make the effort to see any Wes Anderson movie or Frances McDormand film. Without hesitation.
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