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In Reply to: RE: Best or most popular? Corliss should know better. Just posted by jamesgarvin on December 11, 2007 at 07:14:22
what his gist is:
"In fact, we're essentially passing notes to one another, admiring our connoisseurship at the risk of ignoring the vast audience that sees movies and the smaller one that reads us."
He's criticizing critics for not paying attention to the marketability of a film and instead grading it upon it's worth.
Your point is quite different.
One hears ridiculous opinions such as Corliss's occasionally from critics who vainly attempt to separate themselves from their peers; a one-up-personship, of sorts.
How many bottles of Montrachet are consumed each year compared to premium wine coolers?
Now, one may say that Oscars should be awarded based on their simplicity, popularity, budget, and star-factor but that would invalidate what is the stated objective of the award: excellence.
In other words, entertainment may be art but not necessarily vice-versa.
Follow Ups:
Corliss writes: "By the time I'd got back to my office I had realized that we critics may give these awards to the winners, but we give them for ourselves. In fact, we're essentially passing notes to one another, admiring our connoisseurship at the risk of ignoring the vast audience that sees movies and the smaller one that reads us."
What does this mean? That critics give awards to films that the general public will not see, and has no interest in seeing, and has no interest in reading about. But still they write. Why? If critics are the main audience for art films, then they are likely the audience for critics who write about art films. Which is what he means when he writes that they passing notes to each other.
Corliss writes: "You will be forgiven if, like my friends at TIME, you are scratching your head and feigning interest, hoping I'll get quickly to the sexy stuff, like best non-fiction feature (the Iraq docs No End in Sight and Body of War and Michael Moore's Sicko) and distinguished achievement in production design (Jack Fisk, There Will Be Blood, L.A.) . Gee, you're wondering, did The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, the French story of a man totally immobilized by a stroke, beat out the German spy drama The Lives of Others? (Three out of five critics groups say yes.) If you're getting restless, movie lovers, too bad. You'll be hearing the same obscure names at the Golden Globes and on Oscar night.
This is called sarcasm. He is equating general mainstream interest in what art films will win awards with obscure awards for which nobody has any interest, other than those persons nominated. Those nominations, with nominations for art films, which the mainstream film goer has no interest in watching, will be their destiny come the award shows. Again, the point here is that the mainstream film goer has no interest in these art films.
He then goes on to write that other films which people actually paid to see were absent from the New York Critics list of nominations. So what? Does he write that the critics were wrong? Did he himself nominate the mainstream films? No, he did not.
I still maintain that Corliss' piece is a subtle, backhanded condemnation of the film going mainstream viewer than critics. To wit: We keep recommending these obscure, good films, which lead to nominations, but nobody appreciates them, or wants to see them, so, tongue firmly planted in cheek, maybe we should simply give them what they want.
This is the logical interpretation in light of the fact that Corliss himself does not do what you argue he is suggesting critics should do in the editorial. If Corliss was advocating what it is you suggest he is advocating, then he would nominate the Simpsons, Bee Movie, et al. in his various 'best of' catagories. He did not and does not because he does not advocate that. The title of the piece is a play on the phrase "What do I know," when talking to what seems like a brick wall.
He ends with: "And it all starts here, with critics fighting over which hardly seen movie they want to call the best of the year."
Notice he writes 'here.' Because he continues to argue for those hardly seen movies. Whose fault is that? Clue: The F**m Goi** P*blic. Now, if you would like to cull some specific quotes to support your argument, I'm all eyes.
the films critics do: that's why they have jobs.
I suppose you'd like Jack Black to be the food critic for the NYT so the fast food appreciating public would have direction?
Corliss is a poseur.
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