The Screengrab : matt zoller seitz

In Other Blogs: Critical Condition

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:00:00 GMT

As regular readers of this column know, we like to single out blog posts that bring a fresh perspective to these pictures we call motion; finely crafted, passionate posts that allow us all to see cinema through new eyes. But more than that, we love a good pissing contest.

This latest one began with another lamentation over the position of the modern film critic – otherwise known as the unemployment line. A piece called “Where Have All the Film Critics Gone?” from The Brooklyn Rail quoted several notable film bloggists, like Matt Zoller Seitz who said, “I think we’re fast approaching the point where criticism will become, for the most part, a devotion rather than a job.” And then there was Michael Atkinson, who wrote on his Zero For Conduct blog: ““[T]he existence of full-time staff film reviewers is a nutty aberration in the history of periodical publishing…I’d love to see every magazine employ an army of full-time culture reviewers, and pay them millions, but it doesn’t make very much sense, for the simple reason that it’s not truly a full-time job.”

That didn’t sit well with Glenn Kenny, who recently lost his own full-time job with Premiere. At his “own bought-and-paid-for-blog, thank you very g-ddamn much,” Some Came Running, Kenny responds, “Gee, thanks, Michael. Whether you know it or not—and I rather suspect you do—you've just given a long belt of ammunition to the Sam Zells of the world. The gutters, the "cost-cutters," the content-haters, the obscenely rich resenters who think this whole "journalism" thing is a racket enacted by a bunch of smarty-pants elitist slackers. Way to be, pal. And while we're at it, define ‘full time.’ ‘I've done the job. I know how much time it takes,’ you puff to Rossmeir. (And um, just when did you turn into John fucking Milius, anyway?) What was it Red Smith said? ‘Writing is easy. You just sit down at the typewriter and open a vein.’ I know, Michael, I know—Red Smith was probably some kind of pussy…You told Rossmeir that you didn't think critics who only work 10 to 12 hours a week should be paid like other professionals who work 40. Well, you know, that's why there's freelance journalism, which pays by the word, or by the piece. Generally speaking, if you're a staff member at a magazine, the amount of time you spend at your job is compounded merely by the fact that you're a staff member. NYT critics A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis aren't woolgathering when they're not writing reviews. Frequently, they're writing other pieces, for Arts and Leisure or for the magazine. Scott does video reviews. Both do on-line stuff. And both partake in the culture of being a staff member, that is, they go to meetings and such.” I’ve been a freelance movie reviewer for years, and used to yearn for a staff job, but – they go to meetings? Forget it!

At Scanners, Jim Emerson weighs in on the kerfuffle. (Yes, I’m officially dubbing it a kerfuffle.) “I've never had to support myself by working at a weekly or a monthly, and I don't know what Atkinson's situation was at the Voice, but if all he had to do as a staff critic was see ‘three or four movies a week’ and then knock out ‘1,000 or 1,500 words’ (apiece? altogether?) -- and he could live on the money he made from doing that -- then, wow, that's a really sweet gig and I don't blame him for feeling that he was running a scam. Somebody was. Because, in my experience, those numbers don't come close to adding up. Three or four movies a week wouldn't even cover major-studio wide releases. Who covers the rest (four? eight? a dozen?) for the week, the ‘art house,’ revival house, museum and nonprofit venue pictures that rely on reviews to find an audience? And since when do writers of any kind get paid by the hour? You're cashing checks just for the time you spend actually sitting at a keyboard, but for all the things you have to do in order to enable you to write. So a salary for a writer, reporter and/or film critic (and all three job descriptions fit the ‘critic’ designation) isn't exactly an hourly job, nor is it the equivalent of tenure. It's more like a retainer, for your work and what goes into producing it, but also for your availability. What's actually published is just the tail end of a much larger and longer process.”

David Poland at The Hot Button gets in on the action. “Yes, writers are valued in a different way than the people who print the papers, sell the papers, and even, to some degree, edit the papers. The work of a daily Metro writer or a daily political writer is something else. A daily byline is a special kind of grind that is more like a traditional job. But that’s not the part I have a problem with. What Atkinson misunderstands – and by dint of his own exit from the print work, understandably as an ego protection – is that ‘writers' availability and flow of copy’ is every bit as valued today as it ever was. What is quite different is that publishers expect to see some cause and effect from those they keep on board. If you are a film critic or highly paid entertainment journalist at a print outlet, you better have a following that cares about what you say – which doesn’t necessarily translate to ticket sales – or you are dead.”

Okay, enough about that. Let’s wrap it up with List-o-Mania, circling back to Glenn Kenny’s former place of employment, Premiere, for a special Father’s Day feature: The 10 Maddest, Baddest Daddies in Film. We’d never quibble with the inclusion of Jack Torrance from The Shining or Terry O’Quinn’s Stepfather, but whither Christopher Walken from At Close Range?

In Other Blogs: Seitz and Sounds

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:30:00 GMT

If you felt the film blog world shift a little on its axis this week, it’s probably because The House Next Door founder and proprietor Matt Zoller Seitz has departed for greener pastures. Of all things, Seitz has decided to concentrate on making his own films. Can you imagine? Why, if we all did that, there’d be no one left to snark about our work.

Seitz says goodbye with a lengthy interview with new House Next Door honcho Keith Uhlich, in which he discusses his plans as well as his lifelong love of movies. “There was this thing called The Scholastic Book Club, which I guess they still have because my daughter brings home the sheets for me to fill out. They had a book on the making of King Kong and I believe it was available before the movie had even come out. And I ordered it, along with some other things, and when it came I just read it from front to back. That was the first instance I can think of of my wanting to find out how movies were made. I don’t think I really knew anything about how movies were made. I just thought they were these things that kind of magically appeared on the screen when you went to the theater.”

Tributes to Seitz have been proliferating ever since his announcement. At Scanners, Jim Emerson has assembled his own personal “best of Seitz” retrospective, and shows the good taste to include this snippet from “McCabe and Mr. Milch”: “To some degree, nearly all of Altman’s films are anatomies of community. Ditto Deadwood, which week to week showcases a panoramic concentration that recalls Altman at the top of his game. Like Altman, Milch is not content to fixate on the plight of one individual -- a fundamental creative choice that puts both men temperamentally at odds with much of American popular culture. Both Altman and Milch prefer to see the big picture, the pointillist mural that takes shape when an artist asks the audience to take a few steps back from the canvas. They study human constellations comprised of distinct human beings who embrace different religions, inhabit different social strata, imbibe different substances, muse on their own pet obsessions and pursue their own strange agendas, all the while remaining largely oblivious to their impact on everyone else. Both Altman and Milch are not just storytellers. They are dramatic anthropologists, devising a collective organism in order to scrutinize it.”

At Hollywood Elsewhere, Jeffrey Wells offers his own, uh, “tribute,” I guess. Maybe it’s tongue in cheek. Who knows. “Seitz seems to think that a film critic's life doesn't provide enough in the way of cleansing ‘happiness moments,’ like what some people get from walking in the woods or watching basketball or going bowling or murdering a deer in the forest with a high-powered rifle. Well, it's not supposed to do that...hello? If you've been lucky enough to be called to the profession of film criticism (or any profession that most people are unable to do for lack of talent or persistence or both), then you do that thing until you die at your desk -- simple. And no moaning.” Be sure to read the comments if you’re up for a good old fashioned flame war.

Of course, when one door opens, another window closes, or something like that. In other words, Jonathan Rosenbaum, late of the Chicago Reader, has now joined our little club with the self-explanatory JonathanRosenbaum.com. “Here’s the basic plan: Although I’m hoping that this site will grow and sprout more features in the weeks and months ahead, including links and other items, for the time being it will consist of two weekly features: (1) a reprint of an older text of mine (in alternate weeks, this will consist of a piece of mine that may not otherwise be readily available, and a piece of mine formerly published in the Chicago Reader between 1987 and 2007), and (2) a brief list of recent publications and upcoming events.”

And finally, it wouldn’t be the week in blogs without another installment of List-o-Mania. In honor of Iron Head or whatever his name is, here are Ten Superheroes Who Deserve Their Own Movie from Film School Rejects. I think we can all agree, now more than ever, the time for She-Hulk has come. “Okay, I’ll admit that I never really read the comic, but what red-blooded American male could say no to the buff green beauty? The sexy Maxim cover shoot alone should be reason to make this film (and if The Incredible Hulk does well this summer, it could be a go).”

In Other Blogs

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 16:00:00 GMT

As much as we at the Screengrab would like to believe we’re your one-size-fits-all destination for movie news, reviews and ephemera, it has come to our attention that there are other film-related blogs out there that occasionally offer worthwhile content. In the spirit of what the late, lamented Spy magazine called “logrolling in our time,” we hereby launch a new weekly feature dedicated to highlighting all the good stuff we didn’t think of writing ourselves.

It turns out we’re not the only ones getting into the spirit of Valentine’s Day. Over at The House Next Door, Matt Zoller Seitz presents Five Declarations of Love, and like our own favorite romantic moments, they aren’t necessarily the most conventional choices. We’re particularly fond of H.I. McDunnough’s timeless vow upon learning that his beloved Ed’s fiancé has left her: “You tell him I think he's a damn fool, Ed. You tell him I said so: H.I. McDunnough. And if he wants to discuss it,” he continues, pacing in front of the height chart and cupping his 'nads, “he knows where to find me: In the Maricopa County Maxiumum Security Correctional Facility for Men, State Farm Road Number 31, Tempe, Arizona!”

Cinematical, understanding that the love of film is often a solitary pursuit, presents Seven Movies for the Valentine’s Day Loner. Again, some of the choices are offbeat, but we have to agree with their selection of In a Lonely Place as the movie that makes you feel better about your unromantic life. “This is an excellent film and the leads are perfect, but boy can it be depressing. On the other hand, at least you'll feel better that it's not happening to you.”

The Onion AV Club weighs in with “14 romantic comedies with romance- and comedy-killing gimmicks.” Said gimmicks include such timeless troubles of the heart as “I gave up sex for Lent” and “my true love is a mannequin.”

And finally slashfilm alerts us to what will surely be the next great romantic comedy, the 20th Century Fox adaptation of Just Do It: How One Couple Screwed Their Life and Love Back Together, Denver Post writer Doug Brown’s memoir of having sex with his wife for 101 straight days. The tender cockring scene will no doubt make our list next year.

Close To The Edge

Leonard Pierce — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 15:30:00 GMT

In the Village Voice film section, Michelle Orange reviews the inelegantly titled Chuck Close: An Elegant Portrait of the Art World's Leading Portraitist. Set for limited release the year after Manufactured Landscapes signalled a great leap forward for documentaries about visual artists, its director (and friend of the subject) Marion Cajori won't be around to enjoy any success her film might encounter; having worked on the film for over fifteen years, died in 2006 after completing work on the film. Cajori's previous work as a documentarian also focused on the art world; her best-known films were Joan Mitchell: Portrait of an Abstract Painter and Louise Bourgeois: Art is Sanity, and a previous iteration of the Chuck Close documentary, in a shortened form broadcast on PBS and entitled Chuck Close: A Portrait in Progress, was nominated for an Emmy in 1998. The completed film focuses on Close, best known for his gargantuan, photorealistic self-portraits, as well as other artists and creators such as Robert Rauschenberg and Philip Glass who received the same treatment (Gerhard Richter is a curious omission). The focus of the film, however, is Close's artistic process, and not his often-irascable personality -- Close was partially paralyzed in the 1980s and since then, has used a self-designed system of leverl, pulleys, ladders and other Rube Goldberg devices to allow him to finish his massive paintings. Cajori's film, Orange says, alleviates the usual arts-doc talking head boredom as she "regularly slows the gorgeously crisp, high-def film down to the brush-stroke" and notes that "Close's piecemeal, coherent style is wonderfully, almost winkingly well suited to Cajori's". Matt Zoller-Seitz, reviewing the film for the Times, likewise calls the film "splendid" and notes that it "truly excels is in its depiction of the physical process of making art." Close is a major figure in the world of art, and has deep ties to the Pacific Northwest and Chicago as well as claims to international fame as a painter; we're hoping that Cajori's documentary gets wider release than just the New York arts scene of which she was a part.

Die Mumblecore Die

Peter Smith — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 19:00:00 GMT

Well, it had to happen sometime. What with two weeks' worth of crushing hype mid-summer, the mumblecore kids were due for a backlash, but who knew Amy Taubin would be the one to do it? Taubin, after all, went on record in 2005 with a "Distributor Wanted" for Mutual Appreciation, exceeding all the hype two years ahead of time by calling Andrew Bujalski's work "Rohmer without subtitles." The tide turns, viciously, in a Film Comment jeremiad that goes viciously ad hominem in record time, from an opening shot bidding goodbye to "the indie movement that never was more than a flurry of festival hype and blogosphere branding." Studiously ignoring her own early championing (Matt Zoller Seitz correctly points out that Taubin seems to be suffering from "buyer's remorse"), Taubin taunts the movement for not making enough money at the IFC Center, accuses all involved of racism for not inviting So Yong Kim's In Between Days to the party "because the filmmaker is a Korean-American woman and her heroine is a Korean immigrant," and calls Joe Swanberg a "lout." These aren't criticisms of film; seemingly the spirit of political campaigning in the air has infected Taubin, whose article is as ridiculously mean-spirited as any negative ad.

Gradually, it emerges that Taubin doesn't seem to hate mumblecore (a vast umbrella of filmmakers more disparate than they initially seemed), just Swanberg. Now, there's plenty of reasons to get annoyed by the queasiness-inducing auteur; I've only seen Hannah Takes The Stairs, and frequently wished that Swanberg would learn what a camera does besides recording images. (Some framing would be nice, in other words.) But I'm also struck by his knack for turning potentially ruinously indulgent improv bull-sessions into something like emotional truth, and the fact that he's the weakest out of the four filmmakers I've sampled (which includes Bujalski, Aaron Katz and the Duplass brothers) speaks strongly of everyone. And only in Taubin's insular, privileged world (one, frankly, I'd like to be a part of) could mumblecore count as some kind of overwhelming "film movement," one which she inexplicably feels compelled to note has nothing on "the French New Wave or the postwar American avant-garde." Follow the growingly uncivil controversy at Greencine's comments section, which has swelled to thirty-six indignant missives, including a rightfully pissy riposte from SXSW honcho Matt Dentler. — Vadim Rizov