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April 07, 2008
Patrick, Know Thy Profession
Patrick Goldstein is turning into the Ed Zwick of movie columnists... he has a lot of ideas that make sense... and by the third act, he has lost smart audiences utterly. His latest...
The firing of film critics - like film columnists who haven't done well in research studies for their papers - has NOTHING to do with the relevance of film critics or the quality of film critics. It has to do with cutting budget in the quite-ill business of newspapering.
The only film critics in the country who have been regularly promoted on the front pages of their newspapers are/were Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel... not now... for the last 20 years plus.
This logic, offered with experiential examples, is the same kind of ass-backwards thinking that had "The Slump" suggesting that the theatrical movie experience was dying - which Patrick (and many others) offered a couple of years ago with much the same language as he uses here - before we had another record year at the box office in 2007... which was 3 whole years after the prior best box office year ever. (This has led to the oft repeated lie that admissions matter on any level close to gross box office and even more importantly, rentals returned to the studios.)
Patrick also buys in the illusion that critics were EVER a key to box office success.
Nope.
The "influence" of Pauline Kael was not with the masses. On the most basic level, you have to realize... she was NEVER read by as many as a million people in The New Yorker. She did what critics who seem to have some influence still do... they affect the people in the industry who make and market movies.
The only critic with national exposure who has ever really been seen as a box office driver were Siskel and Ebert together... and to a lesser degree, Ebert on his own. But it is easy to overstate the box office effect that even they - the biggest ever - had. If you choose to chart critics faves and the box office, you will be sorely disappointed.
What you will see is a lot more influence in the key arthouse cities of NY, LA, and Chicago. A rave from the NYT does change the box office profile for a limited release in NYC. Not so much in LA... in part, as Patrick doesn't bite the hand that feeds him, because the LA Times FIRED their art house guy and because Ken Turan and Carina Chocano don't insist on doing some art reviews as Manohla did during her brief tenure at the paper.
But the greatest influence that Tony and Manohla can offer is that a rave at Sundance or Cannes can get a small film film domestic distribution on about 3 screens that wouldn't otherwise get it. Conversely, a small film that they have panned - or would be expected to pan - can be left at the alter. In the end, they still can't generate big box office for a film that audiences just won't care about. But instead of being 1% of the game, as in most cities, they are 20% in the NY indie game... enough to tip the scales. As to studio films... as irrelevant as anyone.
We, in this business, are hyperaware of one another... but we are a niche... always were.
Yes, it is true. More people had a strong relationship with their local critic before the web and before $50 million marketing budgets than they do now. And it is fair for Patrick to point to the abuse of critical quotes in devaluing critics. But in reality, it just hasn't changed much.
Let's go 20 years back... before the web... here are your Top 20 movies...
Rain Man, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Coming to America, Big, Twins, Crocodile Dundee II, Die Hard, The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!, Cocktail, Beetlejuice, Working Girl, A Fish Called Wanda, Scrooged, Willow, Beaches, Rambo III, Oliver & Company, Bull Durham, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, The Land Before Time
So which one was a critic-driven hit?
We had two of MCN's Critics' Chart's Top 20 in the box office Top 20 this year... Juno and The Bourne Ultimatum So spot me A Fish Called Wanda and Bull Durham... both of which were about as critically driven to box office as this year's hits... and tell me... any of them?
And how many of those pre-internet hits were SLAUGHTERED by film critics?
Of course, the biggest change for criticism is not how kids use the internet, but how studios sell movies. By selling wide releases across the whole country in one bite, live or die that first weekend, the ad buys have gotten so huge that EVERYONE sees the ads... and decides for themselves. And that, like trusted word-of-mouth (which includes trusted critics), is the key to everything.
But the most ludicrous comment - again, repeated in Goldstein's arguments time after time - is that critics should look to their readers to figure out how to sell themselves. This is exactly what the quote whores do week after week... led by Peter Travers at Rolling Stone, who goes unmentioned, but is the highest status critic in America who quotes ahead of release or a fest screening.
If Leah Rozen wants to write in greater depth and thus, be taken more seriously, she probably shouldn't work for People Magazine. But she is well paid there, gets TV spots, etc. She'd be insane to give it up.
If the LA Times wants to be taken seriously as a critical institution again - like the NY Times is - they should put Turan into a blog, send Carina back to TV, and hire a critic who can make a connection with the readership.
The NY Times is the elephant in Patrick's writing room. Manohla and Tony Scott have turned out to be great assets. And in just a couple of years on the beat, David Carr has become easily the premiere film industry columnist in the print medium.
It's not about pandering or figuring out what people really want... any more in journalism than in the movie business. People who lead strongly end up with followers. People who ask 9 year olds why they don't trust critics in the LA Times are very, very confused.
Posted by poland at April 7, 2008 07:54 PM
Comments
Na, you're wrong this time, DP. Goldstein DOES say it:
"Critics are being downsized all over the place, whether it's in classical music, dance, theater or other areas in the arts. While economics are clearly at work here -- seeing their business model crumble, many newspapers simply have decided they can't afford a full range of critics anymore -- it seems clear that we're in an age with a very different approach to the role of criticism."
He's dead on with this piece and it's a good read, imo. It doesn't help that the "critics" readers are turning to these days are sell-out bloggers who can't be trusted. And those who haven't sold out aren't critics. People on your site and on Jeff Wells' site actually refer to you guys as critics. In fact, I've seen you quoted in articles and referred to as a film critic, ditto for Wells. Neither of you have ever been film critics. Writers of film? Columnists? Bloggers? Whatever? Yes, but critics? The line has been blurred and there's no pulling it back into focus.
Posted by: bipedalist ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/nav-commenters.gif)
at April 8, 2008 07:13 AM
"There was a time when critics were our arbiters of culture, the ultimate interpreters of intellectual discourse . . . As a flood of stories in recent weeks has shown, those days are going, going, gone."
I stopped reading at that point, since it became clear the rest would be an exercise in mindless, knee-jerk nostalgia. The reason those days are gone is because they never existed. The good old days never were. The only time critics played such a role is now in Goldstein's imagination. It never happened.
Posted by: Blackcloud at April 8, 2008 07:41 AM
Ditto what Bip said. Thank goodness PG gives you stories like this, to rile you, to write about the LAT critics and compare them to NYT's. But the NYT is just a free website that I don't pay a subscription to anymore. So until someone wants to take my money for a service, to a subscription, to a paper of the future that I want, that also rewards the source, monetarily, it's pretty moot. David Carr tried, but he couldn't wrap his head around my question. I'll share later.
Posted by: T. Holly at April 8, 2008 08:50 AM
Turan reviews like one movie a week, if that, now. Is it just that he flat-out "refuses" to see or write about some shit? I always get the sense that that old curmudgeon wants know part of anything that isn't entirely A-list and respectable.
Chocano seems better suited to recapping television shows on a snark web site.
For the movie capital of the world, seems like LAT goes Crust, farms out, or runs with syndicated for 3/4 of their reviews these days.
Posted by: LexG at April 8, 2008 11:56 AM
Just wanted to add, if the Daily News' Whipp and Strauss can manage to see and review practically every screened movie, why can't (or won't) Chocano and Turan?
Posted by: LexG at April 8, 2008 11:59 AM
Like it or not, BiP, I write more criticism in more depth than most people you would call "critics."
I can't speak to Jeff's bile-a-thons.
You are one of those who bows to the alter of Old Media as though they hold the standards up in 2008. A few do.
So tell me... what DOES a critic do... regardless of how you want to pigeonhole me?
Is being a "film critic" writing 800 words, 400 of which are regurgitating the story line? Or is it analyzing in some depth the work on the screen with an educated perspective on the detail of the work as well as the history of cinema... because I have been known to do a whole lot of that.
Posted by: David Poland at April 8, 2008 10:03 PM
P.S. Patrick says some things... then contradicts them... then jumps back again.
And please... address my core doubt. Do you REALLY think critics are becoming less influential because they don't pander?
Posted by: David Poland at April 8, 2008 10:05 PM
You're certainly not making a living as a critic. Bet that PR gig for Disney in NY paid a whole lot better.
Posted by: T. Holly at April 9, 2008 08:06 AM
Holy smokes, MCN hires a laid off film critic!
Posted by: T. Holly at April 10, 2008 08:41 AM
People who ask 9 year olds why they don't trust critics in the LA Times are very, very confused.
Why should anyone trust the L.A. Times? It has been forced to retract -- yes, retract -- a news story that was based on a fabricated FBI document.
Posted by: Chucky in Jersey at April 10, 2008 09:11 AM
Confusion happens. Make the baby better, don't throw it out with the bathwater.
Posted by: T. Holly at April 10, 2008 09:30 AM
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