Anti-snark is apparently the new snark
May. 5th, 2006 01:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
itsallovernowIn which I am mildly snotty about L.A. Times movie reviewers, JJ Abrams and MI:III. I don't think it spoils anything for people who haven't seen the previews for the movie.
ETA: I haven't seen the movie yet!! This is entirely based on the review and may not even be relevant to the movie itself, but the reviewer thought enough of the visual technique to mention it.
Let me just start by saying that I read all of the movie reviews. I will happily read the reviews of movies I have no intention of ever seeing. It's like previews. I frequently enjoy the preview more than the movie. That being said, the LA Times movie review have not been the same since Manohla Dargis fled to greener (read NY) pastures. We vary between the, "I live in Hollywood and must fawn over the stars" to the "I live in Hollywood and you all suck" schools of film reviewing. Very rarely is there anything insightful, or funny, or at all biting. The industry is the town, and it's okay to say something's garbage as long as you're not more clever than the film itself.
However, upon reading the review for MI:III, I feel strongly that the reviewer missed a prime opportunity. For loweth and he says, "The movie opens with a preview of what will be the most nail-biting action sequence of the film." (paraphrased, but pretty much the text).
And I put down the paper and started to snorfle to myself, because fen and folks, he wrote this with a straight face. He wrote this while saying that hour long TV had been good to JJ Abrams. He wrote this after saying that Phillip Seymour Hoffman was a terrific villian. He wrote this after saying that the movie was like two one hours TV shows put together. He wrote this, in fact without any sense of irony. And he wrote it apparently without having seen anything JJ Abrams has done in the past five years.
Because really, it's another "72 hours earlier". Possibly in reverse, yeah. But dude, it's what Abrams does!! He gives you the "gonna happen somewhere in the next week" so you'll watch to see what actually does happen. It's his schtick. It's his gimmick. And the reviewer never even mentions it! 3/4 of Alias S4 starting with action, then 72 hours earlier and I find the prospect that this technique has now been moved to the big screen totally hysterical.
Sigh. If anti-snark is the new black, I'm gonna be wearing beige.
ETA: I haven't seen the movie yet!! This is entirely based on the review and may not even be relevant to the movie itself, but the reviewer thought enough of the visual technique to mention it.
Let me just start by saying that I read all of the movie reviews. I will happily read the reviews of movies I have no intention of ever seeing. It's like previews. I frequently enjoy the preview more than the movie. That being said, the LA Times movie review have not been the same since Manohla Dargis fled to greener (read NY) pastures. We vary between the, "I live in Hollywood and must fawn over the stars" to the "I live in Hollywood and you all suck" schools of film reviewing. Very rarely is there anything insightful, or funny, or at all biting. The industry is the town, and it's okay to say something's garbage as long as you're not more clever than the film itself.
However, upon reading the review for MI:III, I feel strongly that the reviewer missed a prime opportunity. For loweth and he says, "The movie opens with a preview of what will be the most nail-biting action sequence of the film." (paraphrased, but pretty much the text).
And I put down the paper and started to snorfle to myself, because fen and folks, he wrote this with a straight face. He wrote this while saying that hour long TV had been good to JJ Abrams. He wrote this after saying that Phillip Seymour Hoffman was a terrific villian. He wrote this after saying that the movie was like two one hours TV shows put together. He wrote this, in fact without any sense of irony. And he wrote it apparently without having seen anything JJ Abrams has done in the past five years.
Because really, it's another "72 hours earlier". Possibly in reverse, yeah. But dude, it's what Abrams does!! He gives you the "gonna happen somewhere in the next week" so you'll watch to see what actually does happen. It's his schtick. It's his gimmick. And the reviewer never even mentions it! 3/4 of Alias S4 starting with action, then 72 hours earlier and I find the prospect that this technique has now been moved to the big screen totally hysterical.
Sigh. If anti-snark is the new black, I'm gonna be wearing beige.
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Date: 2006-05-05 09:07 pm (UTC)i was at the Arclight last night catching The Lost City and there were several private screenings of MI:III running.
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Date: 2006-05-05 09:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-06 01:43 am (UTC)the trailer i saw in the theater did look quite fun, btw.
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Date: 2006-05-06 07:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-06 11:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-07 02:19 am (UTC)Or maybe, I wanted and expected a little bit more... fun from the review, more joy or more... something.
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Date: 2006-05-07 02:53 am (UTC)really? huh. i'd think just a straight up review of the film would be kinda refreshing given that the insanity's everywhereelseallthetime.
and given that he started in film, that could be why there was no mention of transition?
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Date: 2006-05-07 03:19 am (UTC)Honestly though, this was just a response to the film review based on my own feelings about Abrams work and a something that caught my eye and my fancy about the review in the face of having watched Alias pretty religiously until it stopped holding my interest.
And I feel like I've been totally inundated with M:i:III stuff - there's stuff everywhere around here, and it's hard to really take anything seriously after you've seen trailers, billboards, everything for so long that the movie itself has ceased to really have meaning for me.
I read the review. It mention that the beginning of the film, supposedly, telegraphs the films main action sequence. It felt like 3/4 of the last season of Alias did the exact same thing and LOST is based on that entire concept. I thought it was funny, and a little ironic that the reviewer didn't refer to that. That's it. Was just an observation.
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Date: 2006-05-07 03:32 am (UTC)right there with ya re the billboards. i'm not sure how anyone thinks that people driving throught WeHo regularly on Sunset haven't just tuned it all out.
I read the review. It mention that the beginning of the film, supposedly, telegraphs the films main action sequence. It felt like 3/4 of the last season of Alias did the exact same thing and LOST is based on that entire concept. I thought it was funny, and a little ironic that the reviewer didn't refer to that. That's it. Was just an observation.
and i wasn't criticizing, or didn't mean to be. just sort of reacting to your reactions and positing theory.
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Date: 2006-05-05 09:19 pm (UTC)I kind of liked the review in today's free daily, which opened with:
"The big question hovering over Mission: Impossible III is a very simple one: Can director J.J. Abrams make us forget, for two hours anyway, that Tom Cruise has spent the last year acting like a crazy person?"
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Date: 2006-05-05 09:27 pm (UTC)see, THEREIN lies PRECISELY the reason I prolly won't see it. And I don't mind summer action flicks....
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Date: 2006-05-05 09:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-05 09:38 pm (UTC)Though I must confess, Tommy-boy was starting to grate on me as an actor even before he went publically mad....
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Date: 2006-05-05 10:24 pm (UTC)What she said.
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Date: 2006-05-05 09:37 pm (UTC)