Neither Michael Phillips nor A.O. Scott picked any Lord of the Rings movie in the top 10 of the last decade. The movie that I, and their viewers, picked as number one. What did they pick as number one?
A.O. Scott picked WALL-E. A very good movie. But even my wife, who loves cute animated films, dropped her jaw at this pick. We will have to rent it again to see.
Michael Phillips picked There Will Be Blood. This is the kind of movie that critics love, because they can fire their full rhetorical blasts of praise and compare it to another good but completely overblown movie, Citizen Kane. Check some of the comments, easily available via a cursory Google search:
"a film of Darwinian ferocity, a stark and pitiless parable of American capitalism"
"(director) Anderson is an artful renegade who restores your faith in the harsh power of movies. This is his bloody and brilliant Citizen Kane."
"about Day-Lewis. "Gargantuan" is a puny word to describe his landmark performance."
"epic American nightmare, arrives belching fire and brimstone and damnation to Hell"
But Roger Ebert has it right:
"its imperfections (its unbending characters, its lack of women or any reflection of ordinary society, its ending, its relentlessness) we may see its reach exceeding its grasp"
I've seen There Will Be Blood. In my opinion, it was a movie written and directed with the express purpose of appearing to be "great". Designed to appeal to critics, arriving with hoopla and Oscar buzz. But not a great movie.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment