My Best of Best of 2017 Lists

Posted on December 19, 2017 at 6:50 pm

I often say, to use the words of Jan Struther on another subject, that rankings are “indefensible but irresistible.” (Struther is on my own list of favorite writers, or, I should say since she is very British, favourite.) I don’t spend much time on my own end of the year best/worst lists, but I really enjoy reading other people’s. As usual, this year’s top ten movies of 2017 lists have a lot of overlap (“3 Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri,” “Lady Bird,” “Mudbound,” “Call Me By Your Name,” “The Big Sick,” “Get Out,” and “The Florida Project” showed up on most lists) and a few titles that turned up on some best lists AND some worst lists, primarily “mother!,” “Killing of a Sacred Deer,” and “Phantom Thread.” (All were on my worst list.)

One I look forward to every year is the list from The Atlantic’s Chris Orr. He always had great descriptions of the films he loved, but what puts him at the top of my best list of bests list is his shrewd and very funny list of other bests and worsts, for example:

The Aaron Taylor-Johnson Award for Repeated Failure to Become an Actual Movie Star: Charlie Hunnam (The Lost City of Z; King Arthur: Legend of the Sword)

The Sienna Miller Award for Perpetual Widowhood: Sienna Miller (The Lost City of Z)

The “Tony Soprano in Holsten’s Ice Cream Parlor” Award for Most Ominous Door Chime: mother!

Funniest Stone-Man: Thor: Ragnarok
Sexiest Fish-Man: The Shape of Water

Trends of the year I noted: poison mushrooms (two movies), retreat framed as victory (at least five movies), different characters’ points of view (at least two movies)

Other top ten lists worth reviewing: David Edelstein, Dana Stevens, and the list of the year’s best performances from my friends at Rogerebert.com

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The Case of the Missing Movie Reviews: LA Times and Rotten Tomatoes

Posted on November 6, 2017 at 10:29 pm

What happened to the missing movie reviews? The LA Times did not have a review for one of the biggest movies of the year, “Thor: Ragnarock.” And in the same week, moviegoers saw something unusual on Rotten Tomatoes when they searched for a review of “Bad Moms Christmas.” For a day after tickets were available and the movie was being shown, no reviews were on the site. What gives?

There are two very different answers. The LA Times was barred from covering “Thor: Ragnarock” because Disney, which produced the film and owns Marvel, did not like a story the paper did on its Anaheim theme park. This is an awful precedent and likely to produce more bad publicity for Disney than if they just left it alone.

As for Rotten Tomatoes, early speculation that there was some plot afoot to avoid bad reviews turned out to be wrong. The only entity attempting to maintain some leverage was Rotten Tomatoes itself, and its premiere of a new movie review web series. According to a Forbes investigation by Scott Mendelson:

Rotten Tomatoes debuted a new Facebook movie review show on Thursday night. And as part of that show, which features Jacqueline Coley and Segun Oduolowu sparring over new movies and TV shows for around seven minutes, Rotten Tomatoes will select one new movie or TV show and reveal that film or show’s Tomatometer score on the webcast itself. In this case, since the embargo for A Bad Moms Christmas was essentially 15 hours before the broadcast, they chose that newbie as the exclusive “unveiling” title. Maybe next week it’ll be Paramount/Viacom Inc.’s Daddy’s Home 2, which I imagine will also have an embargo pretty close to the Nov. 10 release date. Or maybe they will pick something with a long-lead embargo that doesn’t open for a bit. We can expect much hand-wringing if they select the obvious pick for Nov. 17 as the “keep away” title.

I spoke with my Rotten Tomatoes contacts, who assured me that this is not any kind of under-the-table deal with studios and that Rotten Tomatoes will not be holding back reviews and scores until a film’s or TV show’s opening day as a matter of course.

A Plus on the Need for More Female Film Critics

Posted on October 13, 2017 at 11:24 am

Jill O’Rourke of A Plus has an excellent article about why it is important to have diversity in film criticism as well as in filmmaking.

“AWFJ amplifies the voices of women who write about film — a group still very underrepresented in all forms of media — and focuses film industry and audience attention on the work of women behind and in front of the lens,” Merin said her organization, which was founded in 2006. The AWFJ website highlights feminist Movies of the Week, with reviews written by women, as well as spotlighting a female creator once a month. “Raising awareness through these ongoing AWFJ projects opens opportunity for women in film and hopefully will lead to a gender-equal playing field.”…”AWFJ invites all to join our THE FEMALE GAZE FORUM group on Facebook, where they can post information and recommendations about ‘feminist’ films and projects, applaud special achievements by women in film, and engage in substantive discussions about how to equal the playing field for women in film,” Merin suggests, in addition to creating viewing clubs and supporting the films recommended on the organization’s website. “Women represent more than 50 percent of the movie-going population. We want to see films that tell our stories and reflect our interests.”

Diversity in entertainment goes beyond just the faces on our screens. All aspects of the industry should reflect the people who consume its media. Chaz Ebert, widow of film critic Roger Ebert and publisher of RogerEbert.com, put it simply in The Daily Beast in 2015: “It is critical that the people who write about film and television and the arts — and indeed the world — mirror the people in our society.”

I am very lucky to be a longtime member of AWFJ and a contributor to Chaz Ebert’s rogerebert.com.

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Don’t Blame the Critics: More Attacks on Rotten Tomatoes

Posted on August 5, 2017 at 8:00 am

Rotten Tomatoes is named after one of the earliest forms of criticism. Audiences who did not like what they were watching on stage would hurl rotten tomatoes at the actors. The most popular aggregator of movie reviews is successful because moviegoers enjoy the opportunity to look at the thoughts of a range of critics. Movie studios are delighted with Rotten Tomatoes when they can brag about a 90% “fresh” rating, but when the rating is not good and the movie does not do well, they accuse the site of being superficial or without nuance or trying to tell people what to think.

Of course, even a terrible rating won’t keep people from buying tickets if they do not care about a movie’s quality. So films based on video games (which often are not even shown to critics in time for reviews) will make a profit. And a film like “The Emoji Movie,” one of the worst-reviewed of the summer, did very well at the box office, at least in its first week of release. When that happens, we get the “Does Rotten Tomatoes matter” stories. We’re with longtime box office analyst, ComScore’s Paul Dergarabedian: “The best way for studios to combat the ‘Rotten Tomatoes Effect’ is to make better movies, plain and simple.”

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Angelica Jade Bastien on Michelle Pfeiffer

Posted on July 6, 2017 at 8:00 am

Angelica Jade Bastién is one of my favorite writers on film. Anything she writes reflects a deep understanding of film and culture. I especially love this tribute to Michelle Pfeiffer, an actress who does not get enough credit for her extraordinary range and technique.

Yes, she may lack the classic Hollywood pedigree of Anjelica Huston or the supreme training of Meryl Streep, but of her generation, she’s the actress with the most fascinating thematic through line. Pfeiffer won early acclaim when her career first hit its stride in the ’80s, followed by a string of hits in the ’90s and early ’00s. Though she hasn’t been much of a presence in recent years, that’s thankfully set to change with a trio of releases: Darren Aronofsky’s Mother!, a new adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express, and the HBO film Wizard of Lies, in which she plays Ruth Madoff opposite Robert De Niro.

I’m especially glad that she mentions Pfeiffer’s role in “Stardust.”

And I love her in “Frankie and Johnny,” in part because it is so much fun to see her with her “Scarface” co-star Al Pacino in completely different roles.

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