I also had meant to mention, about above reviews, that The Firm is a Hollywood blockbuster type film that I actually love. Cruise is definitely being Cruise, which is rarely something that appeals much too me (I think he's okay in this one, would have been happy if someone else had taken the part though). But the sense of menace in the film I think is wonderfully taut. And, as mentioned, the cast is to die for.

Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story

As an American, I was not exposed to Jimmy Savile.  It seems strange, given that there was some amount of cross-Atlantic exchange.  It wasn't unusual to see some British TV personalities on American television, like the Pythons, Cook & Moore, David Frost, Count Duckula.  Considering Savile's enormous appetite for public attention, it is a little surprising that he seemingly had no interest on even the occasional Carson visit or syndication deal on PBS (where most Americans experienced BBC programmes).

I can't say I'm disappointed.  I think I may have seen some images of the man at some point, perhaps mistaking him for some forgotten Graham Chapman sketch or a neglected Richard Harris role during his drinking years.  Obviously hindsight is inescapable but there's something about the man's mix of Klaus Kinski and Ronald McDonald that makes it difficult to not wonder why anyone wasn't more concerned about what he was doing in those children's hospitals in the middle of the night.  At least Bill Cosby looked like a normal middle-class father, rather than some wraith spawned from an aborted Pete Walker screening.  (I think Jon Pertwee is closer to what comes to mind, but whatever.)

For someone without a whole lot of background knowledge of the situation, it's hard to describe how disturbing it is to veer from looking at some eccentric goofball who may like his girls young into the evolving realization that you're actually watching a monster who likes them small enough to not be able to fight back.  400 accusations.  The preceding silence is deafening, and truly terrifying.






A rewatch, I needed something seemingly wholesome to wash that Savile out of my eyes, and I haven't seen this in several years now, maybe 15-20.  I still have a similar opinion about it.  It's fine entertainment.  And it completely stole the Oscar in 1973.  I'm still baffled by how it could have been considered the best of Hollywood's ability when it looks like it could have been made in 1967.  I mean, that's not because of its old-fashioned, depression-era style.  An interesting comparison would be with the same year's Paper Moon, also a depression-era comedy, but one which feels much more modern despite being in B&W to boot.  The Sting seems on par with 1965's Cincinatti Kid stylistically.  In 1973, it still seemed dated by any standard.  My theory is that the clearly superior technical achievement that year - The Exorcist - scared 1973 audiences as much as Jimmy Savile scared me into jumping into an embrace with the comfort-food entertainment that The Sting represents.  The Sting's Oscar win was more of an Anti-Exorcist victory.  The Sting was the shoulder to cry on.  But even that doesn't make convincing sense when you also have a warm, nostalgic film like American Graffiti on hand, which is also superior in just about every technical way to The Sting as Paper Moon is.  I could obviously go through the very impressive list of excellent films from this year that are entirely qualified for Oscar appreciation, nominated or not - Badlands, Mean Streets, Last Detail, Last Tango in Paris, Serpico, Long Goodbye - and those are just the obvious American titles.  The Sting is breezy and fun, but it's not a great movie.  (And Robert Redford is still no Paul Newman.)
 

Rock wrote:

I was looking at the 1973 Best Picture nominees, saw A Touch of Class, didn't think I'd ever heard of it and went to add it to my Letterboxd watchlist, only to find it was already on there.

That's the only Best Picture from that year that I haven't seen.  I also haven't seen Cinderella Liberty out of all of the major categories.

Street Smart
The Package
The Last Boy Scout
Shootout at Lokhandwala
Department
Aakri Adaalat
Infinity Pool

So this is what I wrote last night on movieforums, just as an immediate response to Skinamarink

So Skinamarink....

I'm going to have a lot to say about this eventually I think. But I just feel some need to say something in the immediate aftermath of watching it. This is one of the greatest horror movies I've ever seen.

Film for me in most ways is an extremely communal experience. Even though I make it clear that I prefer to watch them alone, they make me feel connected with a world that I usually don't feel terribly connected with. For a couple of hours they make me feel tethered to the same ground as everyone else.

Never has a film made me feel so alone. Never have I ever felt abandoned while watching a movie. But this is the effect of Skimamarink. Many will claim this is a movie where nothing happens. But they are wrong. It is simply that this is a movie that dares never look towards what is happening. I know I saw something absolutely terrible, but I don't yet have the language to describe what that was.

I talk a lot about my personal history with film. I've mentioned many times how one of my earliest memories is watching the Exorcist with my mother when I was about four, and begging her to turn it off, and her refusing and feeling like I had nowhere to run to in our tiny apartment. It was possibly a ruiner of my life.

I've also often mentioned how this was my greatest ever experience with a film. The high water mark. Proof that a movie can be powerful enough to tear down your entire world. How it can leave you completely vulnerable.

I'm 47 now. I'm no longer in a place where a movie will ever do to me what The Exorcist did forty odd years ago. But tonight was the first time since that night where I felt I was similarly in the presence of something evil. Something unknowable. Something that could do harm. Now, I don't know if the emotions I experienced during this film would necessarily be called fear, but can report back that whatever happened, I feel very weird now. I feel uneasy. I don't know what I just watched.

Or....maybe I should just admit that I think this movie just scared the shit out of me.

I feel lots more needs to be said. I feel this is the kind of movie so open to the experience of watching a movie, and allowing it to happen to you, that an enormous thesis could be written about it. I've watched so many movies in my life, and you get jaded something that you start believing you've seen everything there is to see. That every approach has been taken. And then Skinamarink comes along and is such a singular experience it gives you hope. I think it was perfect. I was rivetted by every second of it.

Now, I wouldn't blame anyone for not being able to get through it. It is a movie that is absolutely singular in its vision and it doesn't deviate no matter how impatient it is clearly going to make a huge amount of the audience. The kind of film that would likely make Yarn shoot diarrhea from his ears if he ever had to sit through it, especially played at normal speed. So I get when people say "but...it's just a bunch of furniture and ceilings". Well, yeah, it frequently technically is just that. But that is only if all you are seeing is what is on screen and creating an inventory of household items and nothing else. These viewers are tipping their hat that they do not notice the films narrative structure (which is clearly there). Or how astonishing nearly every image is in this film (each shot is almost a miracle of minimalist composition, worthy of being hung in a gallery as examples of modern art that is actually fantastic). They aren't giving created to the kind of witch craft the films pace and structure and editing lull you into a world you've never been before. Even though that world is just a house.

This movie absolutely shook me. It jangled out all of those childhood anxieties that I guess I still have stored up in me even into adulthood. Last night I had nightmares about being in a house I didn't recognize and not knowing how to call out of it. I don't even know the last time a movie gave me nightmares. I didn't know they still could work like that.

I know its early in its effect on me, but I liken the films perfection to very few horror films. It is in the league of The Exorcist or Texas Chainsaw or The Shining, where nothing should be changed. There is an alchemy here that shouldn't be tampered with.

The guy who made this should be extremely proud of himself, and I hope the hate he's going to get from many corners of the internet doesn't dampen what a singular voice he has (not that I think this is the kind of thing that can ever be repeated, it's a one off, but maybe he has some other tricks up his sleeve)
 

Now I would like to clarify, that I hardly expect this is going to appeal to most people who go to the multiplexes. It likely won't even apply to honest to goodness horror fans. But film critics for established publications are another thing. Not that they need to like it either. But when some are talking about how the film 'fumbles its story' or 'doesn't seem very confident in its filmmaking methods' or 'is incomplete, barely even begun', you have to wonder why these people are in this line of business.

Oh, that's right. Because most established film critics aren't nearly as dissimilar from Yarn's anti-art dogma than you'd expect. They might appreciate the craft and technical skills slightly more than him, and they might nod to certain elements where the film worked....but they are still seemingly concerned about how a general audience will respond. How the asses in the seats will be treated. It's almost as if having a film be an all out assault on the form of how not only a genre piece, but movies in general, can operate, is an instinct that needs to be tamped down instead of encouraged.

It's the one thing Yarn was vaguely correct about. Why are we listening to critics? Do they know more than us. Well, they certainly know more than Yarn, but for those who are actually keeping an eye on how the process of making films evolves, and can sometimes wait many years for a film like Skinamarink to come around that pays absolutely no mind to the rules, its disheartening to see critics just point to the handful of jump scares and be 'why couldn't he do more of that?'


 

I actually have got to say I'm mildly impressed that the audience approval for this one is above 40% on Rotten Tomatoes. I would have been surprised to see it even crack 30. So maybe there is hope that audiences are more ready for something this daring than I ever would have suspected.

 

Jinnistan wrote:

crumbsroom wrote:

It's the one thing Yarn was vaguely correct about. Why are we listening to critics? Do they know more than us. Well, they certainly know more than Yarn...

Yarn and his ilk have a twisted populism in their "rage against the authority of experts".  But there's a difference between calling out bad critics, the increasingly lax standards of online critical thinking and trying to undermine the value of criticism itself, and Yarn, et al, frequently blur this line.  (Subjectivity slips into chaos.) 

Oh I know. And I also know there are still good critics out there. They just aren't anywhere near major publications, which says something about how little those catering to the public feel it is necessary to hire people who are actually knowledgeable and have a distinct perspective to talk about film.

Economics. Publications have been going belly–up for the past 15 years. Writers get paid shit, so they brainlessly speed–write for hours on end to get paid. Just as the television and movie industry discovered through reality TV and remakes how far they could get without any writers at all, what’s the point of online magazines paying qualified critics, when millions of film enthusiasts like us provide thoughtful, detailed reviews for free? And not just on cinephile sites; I’ve seen Amazon reviews that surpassed the level of high art. What’s left to attract readers to an online publication’s little critic’s corner? Seems they’ve got nothing left to sell but the critics themselves. They are selling personality. Flair. Gimmick. ‘Tude. 

Supply and demand.

That doesn’t have to stop us from calling them out for the useless whores that they are. “Aspiring cultural gatekeepers" (that's a link to a wonderful article btw). I’m dying to post a thread lambasting these parasites one by one. Starting with that little fucker Jordan Mintzer. That’s right, Jordy, your ass is grass. I’m whittlin’ up a nice fat rhetorical chopping block with your name on it, you little butt plug.

In the meantime, let us all marvel at this quote from IndieWire’s TV critic Ben Travers, on the question of subtitles vs overdubs:

“Maybe you’re doing dishes or baking a soufflé and you need something in the background to enjoy, but it’s only getting half your attention. As a professional TV critic, I often have to stay up to date on TV this way, and I imagine obsessive fans do, as well. Heck, maybe that’s just your favorite way to spend your alone time: guilty pleasure TV + another activity. Then you need to be able to listen, since you can’t always be watching the screen.”

Indeed. 

After watching Running Scared, that damn Michael McDonald song is stuck in my head.