Showing posts with label movie and TV reviewing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movie and TV reviewing. Show all posts
Sunday, March 4, 2018
Thursday, March 1, 2018
A checklist for your Movie review - 3.1.18
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| English: Meryl Streep (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
• End your review with a rating and an indication of the audience at which your review is aimed.
• At the end of the review make clear where the movie can be seen – if it can.
• Do some plot summary but don’t bog down in a description of what happens without adding interpretation of what the action means. This is not a book report.
• Do that standard thing of putting the name of the actor in brackets after the name of the character: Billy Brown (Gary Green). Sometimes it’s interesting to note what other productions actors have appeared in, particularly when past casting suggests that they are “types.” Awards may be worth mentioning.
• Be entertaining. Write snappy and/or provocative leads. Write with the assumption your have to quickly win your reader’s attention.
• Write at least 600 words. For the moment, I continue to set no top limit.
• If, while doing research for some basic information such as other roles an actor has played, you stumble upon some provocative bit of specific information that you want to include in your review as a way of setting up a comment of your own, you would deftly work the source into your review. For instance, if you stumble upon a comment that “Meryl Streep is the most overrated actress of her generation,” you’d mention the source. It might be an obscure blog. It might be a top movie critic. The source would matter. Recently it was President Trump. Wow.
In addition: I love to talk about journalism’s “dirty secrets,” and one of the dirty secrets of reviewing is that more often than not you can use a movie, TV show, a book, a play, a musical performance to talk about whatever it is you want to talk about. Gender relations, parent-child relations, life in the city, male bonding, table manners, fashion choices, dating rituals, sexual etiquette, world peace, good dental hygiene – why not? Okay, sometimes you can go too far, and your review will just seem weird. Also, we are not blind to clues about how a movie’s creator may want us to take it, and we are smart enough to have some idea about how the “average viewer” may take a movie. But how you feel about a movie – what facet of it matters to you at a particular moment in time - is how you feel about it. We read certain critics not for guidance but because we are fascinated by how their mind works, the unique and surprising ways in which they react to something.
Wednesday, February 28, 2018
Some Points I Wanted to Make...
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| Eddie Izzard (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
1) I did want you to tell me the names of the actors who played the various parts and possibly to tell me other shows they appeared in. The point of that in this case would be to make clear the key participants in this project were all vets of film and TV, suggesting (among other things) that money was probably invested in this project upfront. These people had records of previous success. As flops go, this was a big one.
2) Also, talking about the careers of the actors provides a natural transition either out of or into a discussion of the acting.
3) But how would you know what these actors did earlier in their careers? I did NOT intend to use Turnitin as a bludgeon to discourage you from doing *any* research. A quick Google to discover who is this Eddie Izzard is acceptable - and won't ruin your T score anymore than using Google to find out the hours of the restaurants you reviewed. What I *don't* want you to do is use the internet to read reviews by others and turn your own review into a compilation rather than a fresh take.
4) Take a look at this review from the Chronicle that I linked to on the class blog several years ago. It's not great, but you see how David Wiegand has a catchy little lead that makes clear his focus. This review has a good old-fashioned thesis!! And then he lets us know who in the cast does what and what there backgrounds are. I actually think he puts all this info too high in the review. But notice how about 2/3rds in, he gives rich detail about the excellence of the detail in the background animation. Most reviews are a mixture of supported and unsupported generalizations. If you richly and persuasively support *some* of your generalizations, readers are more likely to take your unsupported ones on faith.
https://www.sfgate.com/default/article/BoJack-Horseman-review-Saddled-with-mediocre-5698929.php
Friday, February 23, 2018
A Thoughtful Quote from a Review of a New Movie
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| The Best Science Fiction Stories: 1952 (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
That the expedition is populated by five women, played by five stellar actresses — it’s hard to pick a standout — adds a startling depth to the film. Instead of seeing an exploration of desire through the more typically male filter that often drives thrillers, action, science fiction, and horror, we see it through female eyes. And that makes each piece feel fresh and unexpected.
In fact, though its parallels to Stalker are undeniable and Garland has an established track record in the science-fiction genre, Annihilation feels wholly unexpected and raw. It is a disturbing film for reasons that are almost metaphysical. It rarely moves quickly, the camera lingering over images that are hard to forget because they’re so eerie, the story leaving just enough unexplained to evoke mystery and wonder.
Thursday, February 8, 2018
TV Critics Tend to Avoid Popular Shows
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| English: Logo for the United States television series ' Deutsch: Logo für die US-fernsehserie Navy CIS: L.A. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
In music, the most popular songs are inescapable, and their artists become national celebrities. In movies, the most popular films are feted in the Monday papers and widely acknowledged, even if they only compete for the special-effects awards in March. But on television, the world of criticism and the world of viewership aren't merely askew; they're mostly on different planets. No self-respecting TV critic writes about NCIS: Los Angeles, ever—ever—even though the all-time most-popular episode of Game of Thrones (which is, itself, the all-time most-popular HBO show) got fewer viewers than an NCIS: LA rerun. As I wrote a few months ago, the most essayed-about show (Girls), most tweeted-about show (Pretty Little Liars), and most buzzed-about show (at the time: House of Cards) sum to half the average audience of NCIS (which is hardly essayed, tweeted, or buzzed about at all).
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Broadcast TV sells audiences. Premium TV sells a "brand." That's how HBO's Richard Plepler, speaking yesterday at The Atlantic's New York Ideas conference, summed up the difference between what he does and what broadcast television—e.g.: NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX—tries to do. HBO makes all of its money from selling subscriptions (to the HBO channel) and selling shows (e.g. to Amazon and anybody else). Broadcast television, however, has an entirely different business model based overwhelmingly on advertising. Among the broadcasters, ad money follows audience.
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The writer decides he "bit off more than he can chew" and returned to the piece online to refine his conclusion:
Second, I am not saying that all popular TV is ignored by all TV criticism, a absurd position that would require (for starters) that I read literally all TV journalism on the Internet. My thesis is less dramatic: The economic structure of cable channels, which receive most of their money from fees rather than ads, greatly relieves them of the burden of maximizing audience–and as a result they produce television that is less formulaic, more attractive to the writing-and-reading-about-TV crowd, but often less watched.
Here's a list of the most-popular shows on broadcast TV from the end of last year. Clearly shows like The Good Wife, Scandal, Parenthood, Community, and Parks and Recreation receive a certain amount of media attention these days. But they are far from the most popular shows on broadcast. They rank 27th, 44th, 57th, 123rd, and 111st among primetime series in the 2012-2013 season by viewers. The shows ranked immediately behind them were Survivor: Caramoan, The Middle, Private Practice, Guys With Kids, and 1600 Penn. (How I Met Your Mother, which ended this year to lots of fanfare, finished behind 40 shows among 2013 viewers.) Although they might command high ad rates because of the quality or relative youth of their audience, they are not driving much audience, relative to their competition. So even when we restrict our analysis to just broadcast TV, the most-watched shows aren't the most-written about.
Quick Takes on Oscar Nominees for Best Picture
from Vox
In a year with so much variety, it’s hard to know which film will ultimately come out on top — and that’s part of the fun. Here’s what to expect from each of the Best Picture nominees, and how you can watch them.
In a year with so much variety, it’s hard to know which film will ultimately come out on top — and that’s part of the fun. Here’s what to expect from each of the Best Picture nominees, and how you can watch them.
Friday, February 19, 2016
A Two-Paragraph Film Review with Comments
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| Cover to the Harvey Award-nominated Deadpool #11. Art by Pete Woods, in homage to cover of Amazing Fantasy #15 featuring Spider-Man. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
from Anthony Lane of the New Yorker, my favorite film critic
The new Marvel picture, “Deadpool,” stars Ryan Reynolds as
Wade Wilson, a Special Forces veteran who, to the (first hint of his attitude toward the film? word choice seems to trivialize her attitude??) dismay of his fiancée,
Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), develops terminal cancer. He is approached by
someone who promises not merely to cure him but to arm him with extravagant
powers. Both promises are kept, but at a cost, for Wade is disfigured by the
treatment. Ashamed, he stays away from Vanessa, stitches a suit of red leather
and a matching mask, and assumes the name Deadpool. He also embarks on a plan
to destroy the man who altered his looks. (Hahahahaha. Stupid superficial Hollywood people) If that were common practice, Beverly
Hills would have the highest murder rate in the land.
Comments: Crisp tight summary that - until the last sentence of the graf - seems nonjudgmental or very close to it. But then comes the joke, the tone of which suggests the reviewer does not like the movie. Also, the joke made me laugh out loud.
Rumor has insisted, for years, on the game-changing audacity
of “Deadpool.” (Lane knows his movieland gossip.) Here was the film that would drag the superhero genre into risky
realms (Alliteration, a tone trick that characterizes informal unpretentious writing), shearing (strong verb) away the moral fretfulness (noun that connotes triviality) that has turned Spider-Man, for
instance, into a flying (informal, even juvenile - Lane likes to mix tones) wuss. The ambition is laudable, but Tim Miller’s movie,
far from seeming reckless and loose-limbed, comes across as (judgmental word - this is never a good thing to be) pathologically
calculated, measuring out its nastiness to the last drop. That is equally true
of the visual excess—(supporting detail - you can't back up every generalization with specifics but you need to do it some of the time) three heads bursting bloodily open, in slow motion, one
after the next, as a bullet travels through them—and of the dialogue, (whoa! a forced anthropomorphizing consistent with the semi-comic, informal tone) which
rubs its hands with glee and tries so very, very hard to sound barbaric.
Deadpool’s appearance, according to a friend of his, looks as if (a single line of dialogue but an illustrative one) “Freddy
Krueger face-fucked a topographical map of Utah.” (Amusing emphatic simile - these filmmakers are loud-mouthed, foul-mouthed children) Watching the film is like
sitting at dinner with a teen-ager who believes that, if he swears long and
loudly enough, he will shock the grownups into accepting him as one of their
own. To be fair, however, the opening credits are a blast: “Produced by
Asshats,” “Directed by an Overpaid Tool.” (A final detail turned against the joker) You said it, guys, not me.
Saturday, February 6, 2016
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Gorgeous Gorgeous Garbage Fire
an aside in an essay in Vox about the 'whiteness' of the Oscars
I would beg to differ on the film's quality, but it's a reasonable hypothesis. After all, every person on Earth will have a different takeaway from watching the exact same film or performance. My masterpiece might be your garbage fire, and that's always fun to argue about.
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| Garbage (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
I would beg to differ on the film's quality, but it's a reasonable hypothesis. After all, every person on Earth will have a different takeaway from watching the exact same film or performance. My masterpiece might be your garbage fire, and that's always fun to argue about.
Friday, January 1, 2016
Rating Movies
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| Guardians of the Galaxy (2008 team) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
A cinematic narcoleptic, I routinely fall asleep at the movies. My personal rating system is based on how far I’m into the story before I start to doze off. I fell asleep during every installment of the “Iron Man,” “Hunger Games,” and the “Avengers” franchises. By contrast, I stayed awake all the way through both “Star Trek” reboots with Chris Pine as Kirk, unexpectedly loved “Guardians of the Galaxy,” and mostly stayed awake for the James Bond films with Daniel Craig in the lead. (The exception was “Quantum of Solace,” which put me soundly to sleep by the Opera scene.)
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Monday, October 6, 2014
A Doctor Reviews a TV Show about a Doctor: A Good Example of Point of View
A review of The Knick. The reviewer concentrates on one aspect of the show.
One technique used by most demagogues is to paint a picture of simpler times in the past with a folksy world where life was easier and generations of yore exhibited tradition and virtue. Instead of offering a vision of the future, or dealing with the realities of the present, they appeal to restore the past. The problem with this is there's usually a reason why times and things change. When someone can't provide a logical argument for why we need to keep doing things the same dumb ways we've always done them, they appeal to an imagined era and values of forefathers. Demagogues finish this off by wrapping themselves in the flag (or some other authority) and position themselves as defenders of all that is good and wholesome being threatened by modernity and change.
Of course, that's all bullshit, but it can be comforting to believe a lie. And the reality is that sometimes the past wasn't as good as we remember it, and a lot of times the present is not as bad as we think it is.
Just like how Mad Men, Masters of Sex and Downton Abbey allow viewers to think about the culture of a different time period beyond the fake nostalgia, Cinemax's The Knick dissects distinctions of class, race, and sex that surround a hospital in New York City of the year 1900. Created and written by Jack Amiel and Michael Begler, with each episode directed, shot and edited by Steven Soderbergh, the series depicts an era with some of the first steps of "progress" that is not quaint or idyllic, and in many ways seems horribly backwards.
One technique used by most demagogues is to paint a picture of simpler times in the past with a folksy world where life was easier and generations of yore exhibited tradition and virtue. Instead of offering a vision of the future, or dealing with the realities of the present, they appeal to restore the past. The problem with this is there's usually a reason why times and things change. When someone can't provide a logical argument for why we need to keep doing things the same dumb ways we've always done them, they appeal to an imagined era and values of forefathers. Demagogues finish this off by wrapping themselves in the flag (or some other authority) and position themselves as defenders of all that is good and wholesome being threatened by modernity and change.
Of course, that's all bullshit, but it can be comforting to believe a lie. And the reality is that sometimes the past wasn't as good as we remember it, and a lot of times the present is not as bad as we think it is.
Just like how Mad Men, Masters of Sex and Downton Abbey allow viewers to think about the culture of a different time period beyond the fake nostalgia, Cinemax's The Knick dissects distinctions of class, race, and sex that surround a hospital in New York City of the year 1900. Created and written by Jack Amiel and Michael Begler, with each episode directed, shot and edited by Steven Soderbergh, the series depicts an era with some of the first steps of "progress" that is not quaint or idyllic, and in many ways seems horribly backwards.
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