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He Lost It at the Movies

theideasletter.org

31–40 of 40 posts

Re: He Lost It at the Movies

#31

Interesting to see this on HN, I'd be curious to know OP's rationale, but I'm glad they posted it. Film criticism itself has suffered greatly in recent memory; at the end of the day, whatever trouble a critic might have gone to to watch, process, and articulate their thoughts on a given film is now reduced almost entirely to a number on Rotten Tomatoes.

Film Crit Hulk continues to put out good essays on film and much more besides, over on Patreon [1]. I agree that finding good critique is hard now that we're past the heyday of magazine critique.

[1] https://www.patreon.com/filmcrithulk

Re: He Lost It at the Movies

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen an a stunningly large amount of anti-intellectualism on HN recently, but suggesting that writing as whole has no more value than a random list of words has to be really quite up there

The post with the random hostnames was ranked higher than this post of "intelligently meaningful words", so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ also taking: "suggesting that writing as whole has no more value than a random list of words" from me just saying it'd be nice to know what I was reading before I spent the time reading it seems kind of melodramatic.

"Ranked higher on HN" has very little to do with something's worth.

Re: He Lost It at the Movies

#33
post #26

"...came to widespread attention in the late 2000s..." Weird. I thought we were all living in the year 2026, which seems like the early 2000s to me. Huh...

It's all relative. In 2110 I'm sure 2026 will be referred to as "the early 2000s". But in 2026, ~2000-2010 is "the early 2000s".

Re: He Lost It at the Movies

#34

[flagged]

> Do people really just go around reading large blocks of random text they find on the internet hoping they'll find it interesting? Yes. That's why I'm on substack. Good writing can be a pleasure to read even if it's about something I don't care all that much about. A summary can tell you about the subject matter, but fails to capture the quality of the writing itself. To put it another way: I'd rather read an idlewo…

This was an enjoyable read, thank you!

Re: He Lost It at the Movies

#35
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with "criticism" from the perspective of the average person is that "Is this film worth my time and money" isn't really a question criticism answers. The linked article touches on this when it bemoans "the consumer guide approach" but until we firmly separate criticism from reviewing we're bound to keep going around and around on this.

I think that's not true for me and a lot of other people. If I read a specific criticism/review of a movie or book I often make a decision not based on good/bad but based on what the criticism is about. If a movie has slow pacing for example, I might be ok with that depending on the mood I'm in. I'm not sure what you mean by separating review from criticism. Can you expand on that?

> I'm not sure what you mean by separating review from criticism. Can you expand on that?

Let's start with applying both to "Eraserhead":

A critical approach might have a thesis on how it links with Lynch's interest in Buddhism and how those concepts surface in the film, how different events and characters in the film can be read through that lens and how the resolution of the film makes sense in a Buddhist context. Absolutely none of this tells you whether the person who watched the film was enraptured by it from the first scene or whether they got through it out of academic obligation and immediately bitched about it on social media afterwards. Criticism has a thesis about a work and defends it, which doesn't usually involve how enjoyable the work is.

A review of "Eraserhead" would tell you about the experience of watching it, whether the person writing the review thought it was a well-constructed and engaging film, and maybe some thoughts on how much sense they made of it, but the analysis wouldn't be the focus. Thumbs up, thumbs down, that's the meat.

It's entirely possible to mix the two realms, but there's a difference in focus and intent. The better YouTube channels (Folding Ideas) mix the two quite deftly, in fact, but I'd put Folding Ideas in the realm of criticism more than reviewing because he does tend to have a thesis and defends it in addition to saying how much he enjoyed (or, more often, didn't) the films he talks about.

For example, in his video about The Nostalgia Critic's review of Pink Floyd's movie The Wall (that is, his video about another person's review of a band's movie made from their rock opera album) his thesis is that the person behind The Nostalgia Critic character is creatively stalled and fundamentally lazy. He defends this thesis while lambasting the video he's talking about, but the thesis is centered. That's criticism.

Re: He Lost It at the Movies

#36
post #25

Interesting to see this on HN, I'd be curious to know OP's rationale, but I'm glad they posted it. Film criticism itself has suffered greatly in recent memory; at the end of the day, whatever trouble a critic might have gone to to watch, process, and articulate their thoughts on a given film is now reduced almost entirely to a number on Rotten Tomatoes.

Does film criticism even matter anymore? There used to more cost and friction associated with watching a movie and so good critics provided a useful gatekeeping service. But now with most people using streaming services (or pirating) if you don't like something it's easy to turn it off and watch something else.

I think it will matter more and more as the barrier to entry for content creation is lowered.

Re: He Lost It at the Movies

#38
post #27
post #26

"...came to widespread attention in the late 2000s..." Weird. I thought we were all living in the year 2026, which seems like the early 2000s to me. Huh...

I watched this until I saw the first down vote, 5 minutes later. Would anyone refer to the year 1909 as "the late 1900s?" Nope.

In 1926 or now?

Re: He Lost It at the Movies

#39
post #4
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what OPs reasoning was but you have to wonder if this far-more-human type of film criticism will see a revival in the age of AI assisted writing. I always like to remind people that before talk heads were battling it out on cable news or ESPN we had Siskel and Ebert shaking things up. They made me realize that movies could carry subtext, nuance and meaning. They made reading ABOUT movies more interesting.

Siskel and Ebert the TV show was a good example of the dumbing down of criticism; that trend started already before the internet age. The twentieth-century American television medium simply didn't allow much informational depth and nuance. (Edit: after I posted this comment, I saw that the show's Wikipedia article notes that it attracted such criticsm, so it's not just my own opinion.) Ebert's newspaper criticism was…

TV/Film has a way of naturally dumbing things down, the making of video content can get complicated, so the way your favorite book gets butchered into a movie is a natural consequence (RIP Tom Bombadil) between the writing style tailored for the screen, meeting episode length (gotta fit those ads in the time slot) YouTube pushes towards trending content lengths - like how every 4 minute topic is stretched into a 20 minute journey of how the creator came at the 4 minutes of content... The military brigade approach that film and TV employ to get the footage they need with continuity to some acceptable level etc. Writing about complex things has fewer (yet still infinite) hurdles.

Re: He Lost It at the Movies

#40
post #4
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what OPs reasoning was but you have to wonder if this far-more-human type of film criticism will see a revival in the age of AI assisted writing. I always like to remind people that before talk heads were battling it out on cable news or ESPN we had Siskel and Ebert shaking things up. They made me realize that movies could carry subtext, nuance and meaning. They made reading ABOUT movies more interesting.

Siskel and Ebert the TV show was a good example of the dumbing down of criticism; that trend started already before the internet age. The twentieth-century American television medium simply didn't allow much informational depth and nuance. (Edit: after I posted this comment, I saw that the show's Wikipedia article notes that it attracted such criticsm, so it's not just my own opinion.) Ebert's newspaper criticism was…

Siskel and Ebert were limited by time/format, but they did actually talk about what was good/bad about the films they covered even if ultimately it got a thumbs up/down. That's better than a lot of people bother with now which is often just a number or a percentage.
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