The Hot Blog

Like most people in the real world, I won't be able to see this until VERY late Dec. or early Jan. therefore, as much as I want to read this, I have to officially bypass everything about htis film. I've got the script in my hard drive, but refuse to get spoiled on this. So, i'll save htis one for later, DP.

Point of order...

Olivier played Van Helsing in John Badham's Dracula. Anthony Hopkins played Van Helsing in Coppola's Dracula.

There's no point in me reading this post. So I won't. But Dave I really wish you and others would stop with the early reviews. This movie won't be released until Christmas. This practice (one exclusive to the internet) is unfair to other critics, your readers and the artists themselves.

Thanks Ed... point fixed...

Of course, it's clearly not exclusive to the internet, as Todd McCarthy reviewed the film in Variety today.

But point taken, and I have to agree it's a big fucking tease to those of us who are not card-carrying members of the press.

But the film already played at a festival, didn't it? And once that happens, you'd think it would be open season.

Interesting stuff, Poland. Can't wait to see this.

I had the same third act issues with 310 TO YUMA, which while having a very entertaining first two acts and some strong acting, I consider a total fucking disaster because of the fraudulent ending. Same with WE OWN THE NIGHT, although that movie got awful a bit before the third act, even though it started interestingly enough.

I always call this Speilberg-disease. Start off amazing, but screw everything up by not trusting your story and screwing up the ending with corny sentimentality. See SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, MINORITY REPORT, SCHINDLER'S LIST, or any other number of otherwise exciting films that end like Lifetime weepies.

Well Dave you didn't see it at the Drafthouse though did you.. so you haven't 'experienced' it truly yet ; )

DP writes --- "There is a moment in There Will Be Blood where you can really feel the train going off the tracks. It really was the right choice for the characters. But it was a horrible mistake for The Movie" ------

To tell you the truth, I think PTA, as with all great filmmakers/ writers makes the 'correct' choice. If the film is not pandering to a blockbuster crowd, then surely its debt to the audience, is to tell the story of its characaters as truly as it possibly can.

To those who are annoyed at advance reviews.. don't read them. Pretty easy really.

The two things I take away from Poland's rambling, opaque review:

1) I was not aware that Daniel Day Lewis had been knighted.

2) If Danny Huston starred in a Ridley Scott movie, would the film be evenly rated?

Because I, like almost everyone else, has not seen the movie, I will approach this topic:

"...while the great naturalistic actors of the era, like Phillips Seymour Hoffman, just are and don’t ever seem to be aware or care whether you or the camera is there."

I am quite sure that PSH is always aware of the camera is quite often A-C-T-I-N-G to the rafters for it.

Respectfully, JBD, I think it's a question of ethics. One of Roger Ebert's criticisms of Thelma & Louise was that the last shot (of the ladies riding off the cliff) wasn't held long enough and that the end credit roll of the women earlier in the film undermined the impact of the finale. Now imagine that review ran two months earlier than the release and the studio decided that Ebert was right and changed it that way, whether the director agreed or not. It would be completely irresponsible on the part of Ebert.

This is just one of a dozen reasons why I find early reviews more ego-based "buzz building" than serious responsible criticism. Just saying.

Bull-shit.

I love your writing, Poland, but sometimes you can be so petty.

You were gunning for this film ever since it premiered in Texas and not in your precious little L.A. backyard.

Best part of the review:

The very end, where David includes the date he wrote the review, so you know he reviewed it before Todd McCarthy, even if McCarthy published yesterday.

Seriously, David... considering you have NEVER EVER included a date like that on any other review of yours I've seen, that is a spectacularly petty move.

Well played.

And David will respond to Drew, Goulet, and JBD with a rant that is at once defensive and defiant in five, four, three, two...

Poland did give indications of gunning for this movie but this review doesn't come off as an attack, it's mostly positive even if he does ultimately say the movie is flawed.

Now if he starts making snarky remarks about it everytime it comes up in relation to something else or continually harps on its lack of Oscar chances, then that's another thing.

Also I don't see why people seem to think some non-rave reviews mean anything. Citizen Kane didn't get unanimously good reviews. How many great movies really have? The Godfather? The Godfather 2? I don't think Kubrick would have ever made it above 80% at Rotten Tomatoes.

It wasn't meant to be petty, Drew... but your response is, as it so often is, your opportunity to "get" me.

Actually, the reason I included it was so that yahoos would not be claiming that I had cribbed off his review for the many ideas that both reviews share. I was actually shocked to see how many things matched.

It was defensive, but not petty. Because really, who the hell cares, Drew?

As I have always said, I don't give a good goddamn about who sees what when, so long as I neither have to listen to the buzz before I have the chance to make up my own mind - which then requires me to work doubly hard to make sure I am acting and not reacting - or have to listen to people claiming my opinion is a response to someone else's. I don't consider this a heinous request.

And really, wouldn't any negative review have sent Goulet into "you were gunning for this movie" and any rave be read by him (and his like) as me getting on the bandwagon to try to get more readers or some such idiotic notion?

So where does that leave me?

It's true... I shouldn't be paying any attention to any of the backbiting. But I do sometimes. One of my many faults.

David - I thought it was a thoughtful, well-written criticism (much along the lines of the review you worte for ZODIAC) and I look forward to disagreeing with it as much as I did that one. Though T. Holly dismissed this as "1950 words of grandstanding" on another website Whose Name Shall Not Be Mentioned (Did she actually count? Do I really want to know?), I was much more satisifed in seeing this lengthy a review as opposed to three paragraphs of "No, not for me, thanks." Well done.

Respectfully Crow, I find that serious responsible criticism usually comes AFTER the films release, when the dust has settled and ideas and themes have had time to percolate. The bulk of the advance reviews are too inherently reactive to take as serious criticism.

Yeah, I sort of agree with Boam on that score - negative stuff should wait until after the film is released but that rule seems to have gone up in smoke - last year and now this year. I guess it was never really a rule just a common courtesy.

and isn't T. Holly a man?

"And really, wouldn't any negative review have sent Goulet into 'you were gunning for this movie' and any rave be read by him (and his like) as me getting on the bandwagon to try to get more readers or some such idiotic notion?"

Actually, if you had reacted with a rave I would have considered that a re-assessment of the film and the filmmakers, and not some "try to get on the bandwagon" approach. I don't like it when people who write about film pre-judge any movie before they see it, and your rants about the venue it premiered at were embarrassing to read. An extremely positive review would have had me reconsider your thinking about the whole thing.

That said, this isn't a negative review by any real stretch of the imagination. It's mixed at best and you found much to admire in it. So I do think this is an honest viewpoint about what worked and what didn't work for you about this movie. After reading some people's takes on what you wrote, I expected a rabid hatred spewing from your fingers and that's not the case at all. I know how your tastes contrast with mine (you're just wrong about ZODIAC and TAOJJBTCRF, deal with that, and ONCE is if anything underrated) so I'll have to weigh that with your review here. In any case, I'm seeing this film.

Christ God Almighty, the lot of you are nothing but a bunch of pissing and moaning fucks. Except Drew; he's just a giant vagina. I can't read his "comments" without hearing Comic Book Guys' voice ... gibbering between enormous, studio cock-sucking labia.

Anyway, regardless of all this pseudo-intellectual grandstanding, the newest trailer (now over on Apple) for TWBB is bland as all get out, which is odd considering the film is anything but. I'm hoping Paramount Vantage doesn't bungle this one, even though that seems to be their modus operandi; they're like Fox Searchlight without the smarts.

Call me a little Hitler, but film criticism is fine (McCarthy), but everything else is a riff with a comments section, and as written by esteemed individuals, should wait until a small semblance of the public has had an opportunity to see it and participate.

Ah... you so are a New Media bigot, T Holly! Makes perfect sense... except that you troll new media like a it matters...

Please, as always, feel free to push off. I don't really care if you read me. But don't be a fucking hypocrite and tell me I shouldn't be writing it because I am not important enough while you are lapping up every word.

Commenting is open here because I believe you have a right to shoot off your mouth and that I might actually grow from listening to you. If you find me a dissapointment, try sitting on this side of it sometimes.

I don't believe test screening reviews are the right thing to do because they are process. That has always been my position. And reviewing finsihed product is what I do. I saw this movie, just like Todd, at the studio's whim, on the studio's schedule, and without an embargo date.

The era of "it's what Variety said" is dead and gone. It is now the era of "it's what Todd McCarthy said" or "it's what Joe Leydon said" or " it's what Drew McWeeny said" or whomever... and you can read it now or read it later and you can assign the value to it that you assign to that writer and the quality of the work.

As for when it is written, I deal with waves of interest on reviews like this. Four different people, including critics who haven't seen the film, engaged me in conversations about the film last night at the AFI opening. Next week, a new wave of them will have seen it. (Vantage and Rudin are still playing "hide the salami" on this film for God knows what reasons.) And then they will engage in a different way. Then guild members will start seeing it out here... and they will engage. And last in the group, I am sorry to say, will be civilians who don't live in LA or NY and are finally given a chane to lay down the $10 or more to see the film.

I write to all of these groups. It is the way it is. People who comment in here have an odd notion of being the only people I should worry about. But you are less than 1% of the readership of this blog. I love that you participate - when you are not being assholes... and I'm sure many of you would say the same of me - but the family is bigger than that. And the playing field has changed.

What I tell all studios when they start getting precious about screenings and/or review dates is that they need to have every champion they can for a small film and as much discussion and that the negative only seems to become significant when the film can't find any traction amongst the wide berth of writers and critics.

"negative stuff should wait until after the film is released but that rule seems to have gone up in smoke - last year and now this year."

Huh?

So only positive reviews before release?

What has changed, again, is that Variety is, essentially, a well-funded blog, with many multiples of their print readership online... same as the rest of us. It is not meant to be just for industry anymore. And the only reason to take ANY Traditional Media outlet seriously is because of WHO is writing, not because it's from an old tradition. In fact, we should all be quite angry at TM for dumping some of the most experienced, most worthy critics around for the sake of a buck. But it's funny... people who are used to having a job for a long time forget what it is to scrape and fight and to work their asses off to honor the work and not just the buck... but that's a different conversation.

Amazingly, according to Anne T, Todd and I had much teh same reaction... we both chose to sit on it and think about it and consider it for almost a week. I actually requested a chance to see the film again before writing, but was told that there would be no more screenings until the 11th... so after much conversation with friends about the film, working through what I thought, I wrote and sat. Then Todd ran his review and I then posted.

Again, this is the price - for everyone - of being too precious. And look for it to happen again on Sweeney Todd and Charlie Wilson's War. Some of us take this all quite seriously. And we want to consider and chew and rethink and go deep before writing... but the notion that we should wait forever until YOU have had a chance to see the film... please.

You should not look to studios (or Variety) to set the standards for your journalism, Dave. Using their lead as an excuse for your own lack of ethics is just false.

It's obvious they're inviting you guys to the screening to drum up word of mouth on the film, not to seriously address its aesthetics. They're using the competitive egos of internet journalists to publicize their film. In that case, even a negative review that bolsters a great performance would still work in their favor.

They're whoring you out with early access (something you always slagged AICN on about). Wake up and smell the antibiotics.

And I'm calling out McCarthy and my beloved Thompson on this too -- being part of the publicity machine is not something ethical critics should do.

"It's obvious they're inviting you guys to the screening to drum up word of mouth on the film, not to seriously address its aesthetics."

The stupidity of this sentence is so pure, so pristine, it almost brings tears to my eye.

If you seriously want to grow, you'll have to read your criticism at that site you've said you won't go to anymore.

If we truly are in the era of "it's what Joe Leydon said," then I humbly suggest that the Apocalypse is nigh.

But seriously: "In fact, we should all be quite angry at TM for dumping some of the most experienced, most worthy critics around for the sake of a buck." David, that is so true, it's almost painful to read.

Let me throw this out for you and others to chew on: People who log onto to this site or AICN or even Variety to read reviews are what I would call the hard-core moviegoing, movieloving crowd. You know about everything that comes out long before it comes out, and you make up your minds weeks, maybe months in advance regarding what you will and won't see. Maybe a good review or a bad review might change your mind, and a blistering pan might lead you to delay seeing a movie until it hits DVD. But you are -- we are -- movie savvy. (Which is why, as David often warns us, it's lunacy to ever interpret reactions here as reflective of the general population.)

But there's a much bigger group out there -- people who go to only a few movies every year, and most of those movies are tentpoles, blockbusters or other popcorn flicks. Occasionally, however, they might be intrigued by reading about a film simply because they happen upon a review in a newspaper or magazine while looking for something else (the sports page, the TV listings, the horoscope, whatever). I call it the Happenstance Effect – a casual moviegoer happens upon a review of an Alan Rudolph movie, or even a Dusan Makavejev movie, and says, “Gee, that sounds interesting. Maybe I’ll go see that with my date next weekend.” I’m familiar with this effect mainly because back when I was at The Houston Post, I’d actually hear every so often from people – not hard-core movie fans, not media types, just average folks – who’d tell me that they’d never heard of, say, The Coca-Cola Kid (which, Makavejev once told me, had it longest run anywhere in the world in Houston) before they “just happened” to read about it in the paper.

Trouble is, as TM outlets decrease, and people tend to read on-line mostly (maybe only) about things that interest them, I think the potency of the Happenstance Effect diminishes. And as David points out: All too often, the TM outlets that remain are dumping the most experienced, most worthy critics around, and replacing them – if they’re replaced at all – with either inexperienced types or wire copy. And, I’m sorry, but I don’t think that will work nearly so well when it comes to capturing the attention of those occasional moviegoers.

Not reading Wells is one of my clearest acts of sanity, T Holly. If he had ever had anything of significance to add to the conversation, I would not find it so easy (or pleasurable) to stop reading. (See: Nikki)

I do miss engaging with all that crazy. It did provoke me, which was interesting. But with Jeff, it's always personal and rarely professional or intellectually honest. But I only know that because he was often honest with me while he lied to his readers.

I think we are all better served - especially me - by my current choice. I mourn the need to abandon any other human. I consider it a failure on my part. But...

I am sorry for critiquing your reviews and reading your blog anyway. You're too good to ignore, and I commend you for how well you do both creative and technical writing, at the internet, or any other level, but it's really silly to call Variety "essentially, a well-funded blog, with many multiples of their print readership online... same as the rest of us." The reviewers at Variety, or pretty much any TM on-line site, don't have an active comments section. And surely your friends and others in the industry, "including critics who haven't seen the film," who engaged you "in conversations about the film last night at the AFI opening," want to know what you think, but you can't have it both ways; while Todd has a silent audience, you have an active one (lucky for you. Really). You and Todd may have similar feelings about the movie, but, Todd writes to time and column space, you write to a blogisphere, complete with commenters and people who read the commenters as much as they do you (or not). You know what I'm saying, you want apples and apples, but you've got apples and oranges.

But you are wrong, T Holly. Todd writes in the same bubble I do. I just have a blog where you can comment... but the majority of the people he and I both deal with on a daily basis are the same people. Your view of Variety is not real anymore. Seven or so years ago, yes. Today, not at all.

This is an argument we are continuing from your Awards Watch Commentary, which has an E-Me at the bottom, like The Hot Button, for which your "Blood" review is written, but everything from your columns winds up getting cross promoted at your Hot Blog, where the comments fly, except no one has seen the movie. If I were your management... well, whatever.

So, about Jeff Wells, "he was often honest with (you) while he lied to his readers", really?, he's an ad man, a PR pro, a humorist and historian, who's made it big, like you, in the on-line film community. I truly think he believes most of what he reports, same as any journalist.

Believe as you wish, T Holly.

damn it to hell, i haven't even seen anything except trailers yet and already i'm wishing it was danny huston in the lead too! he's great, and would so nail it with a project like this. remember how he carried ivans xtc? what the hell happened? why isn't he getting the good s**t roles flung at him on a daily basis?
it seems this film is a cousin of sorts to the 'treasure of the sierra madre' too. that shouts to me that it positively requires a huston!
not that i'm writing it off, or anything even close. i'm damn well dying to see it. i just want the best for it and agree that danny huston is hugely under appreciated. i recall how worried i was that he'd been miscast in 'the proposition', yet as soon as he appeared onscreen i forgot all about it. seamless.
however, day lewis is incapable of failure, and anderson is anderson.

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