Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Criticwatch - The rules of the game

Erik Childress on this week's episode of At the Movies, in which we get an early review of The Hangover:

This week’s column is reflective of everything that’s wrong with the established laws of film criticism. Actually, the word “guidelines” would be more apropos than “laws” since the enforcement of such things is a rather arbitrary exercise. But I’m getting ahead of myself. A greater examination of these “rules” will be published at the end of this summer once the required research has come to fruition, so stay tuned for a very special report in August. Call this week’s entry a little preview though into everything that’s wrong with the stipulations we’re asked to follow.

You see there’s one review that the Bens did on the show this week and to comment in full I would be forced to break the understanding I have with our local publicists not to publish my thoughts before the release date . . . I, like so many of my colleagues are handcuffed into revealing our thoughts. Lest you think this is a full-on disagreement with the Bens, consider the fact that I saw a film several weeks ago that I believe to be one of the best films of the year. Maybe even THE best film to date. My review is written. The studio reps have seen it. The film opens next week in NY & LA. But since it doesn’t open until a week later in Chicago, I’ve been asked to withhold my review from public consumption until then. And, again, this is a film I believe may be the best film of 2009 so far. Makes perfect sense, don't it?


Read the entire article here.

6 comments:

d said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
d said...

I hope you're talking about Moon.

Anonymous said...

Ben Lyons is not enough of a threat to film in anyway to deserve his own hate page.

Anonymous said...

Yes, he is.

Anonymous said...

All I have to say is that some people's gaydars are better than others, but ask anybody with a good gaydar, and Ben Lyons will beep. My gaydar has always been onpoint even when nobody else realized that that person is gay, and let me tell you, Ben Lyons is gay. (So is Justin Timberlake and Matthew Mccoughnahey, nobody will believe me, but they are). Lots of people in Hollywood are secretly gay, since the beginning of cinema, (Cary Grant was gay, shocking, but true). It's all a facade.

Anonymous said...

Are you trying to say that we should dislike him for being gay? I don't really think you are, but I can't tell how this line of postings got to this particular topic.
On a different note, I cannot wait to see Moon, i'll have to wait for the dvd though, no show-times in my neck of the woods.