comment #1

Sean says ...

A career shift from journalist to novelist isn't the same thing as putting yourself out to pasture. In terms of exercising his creative soul, I'm sure it will feel to Jack like he's busy being born.

comment #2

cjKennedy says ...

Writing reviews of movies like I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry week in and week out would be what I call "busy dying". Good luck to Mr. Matthews and his novel.

comment #3

corey3rd says ...

if you watch The Wire, you know that saying you're stepping away from journalism to work on your novel is code for "they took my thumbs, Charlie!!!!' He's out of the game. Who cares about another Zodiac killer book? Maybe he could also write a book about who killed JFK.

The world of print journalism is shrinking. Major papers are run like Circuit City - fire the older "expensive" employees and keep hiring kids who don't know better and work cheap.

far as writing Chuck and Larry being a soul killer - I disagree. At least that's a project that paid. Soul killing is writing a piece of crap that gets stuck in development hell and you don't even get scale for all the rewrites for the indie producer.

comment #4

K. Bowen says ...

I assume that he means the so-called Riverside murder. Interesting. Best of luck to him.

comment #5

T. Holly says ...

There's always Sundance Wells.

"If movies do become so trivial that critics don't matter, than we've got a lot bigger problem than whether critics don't matter. We've got a problem that movies don't matter anymore," Gleiberman said. "If that ever happens then we're in an extremely unhealthy situation. Because a culture needs art, and a mass culture needs popular art, because art keeps you sane, art is the mirror. . . . Film critics will always matter as long as the movies matter."

http://www.sltrib.com/entertainment/ci_8087597

comment #6

cjKennedy says ...

"Who cares about another Zodiac killer book?"

Compared to another review of Chuck and Larry, I do.

comment #7

fielding says ...

One less film "critic" makes the world that much better.

comment #8

T. Holly says ...

Fielding, is your I.Q. double or single digits?

comment #9

corey3rd says ...

"Feces critics will always matter as long as the fertilizer matters."

Movie critics are doing their hardest to prove that they matter to viewers and the industry. Somehow we're supposed to believe that your local film critic means more to the community than EMTs and firefighters. Last weekend while stuck in a bathroom stall with only the local paper's weekend section, I read the critic's reviews. The guy kept using "I" during the opening graphs to such a degree that it read like we cared about his life. he was complaining about suffering through a bad movie. Why should I care if this schnook gets fired?

I've gone to see more films based off pals who catch previews than these overblown Pauline Kael wannabes. There as annoying as those losers who claim that you can't fully understand a book until you read the "critics" describe and analysis the work. Blah. Just give me the f'n DVD from netflix.

comment #10

T. Holly says ...

Sorry you're stuck in your awful life in nameless locale, USA, sucka.

comment #11

corey3rd says ...

Guess I could be stuck in NYC having the joy of Rex Reed telling me about movies of quality. Or Armond White calling Lumet a hack.

The only film critic I appreciate is Leonard Maltin since he actually does work to get films (especially Disney shorts) released on DVD.

comment #12

T. Holly says ...

Selfish prick. They're not there to get your Disney shorts released or tell you what to think (your friends can do that), they're there to do see a lot, think a little and write it down.

comment #13

T. Holly says ...

I screwed it up.

"they're there to see a lot, think a little and write it down."

comment #14

lipranzer says ...

Ah, yes, you're right, corey3rd, it's not the studios who are responsible for how bad the movies are, it's the big bad critics, who praise all the wrong movies. And yes, we all consider ourselves the most important people in the universe, the masters of our domain and yours!

comment #15

p.Vice says ...

That Gleiberman quote is apt, Holly, but it fails to acknowledge the fact that most film critics are, more often than not, actually writing about commerce and/or consumer products, not art, either by virtue of their subject or the limitations imposed upon them by editorial mandates or space considerations.

And obviously Owen is delusional by the tacit assumption in his statement that art still matters in and of itself. Art exists today almost exclusively as a financial commodity; the time of cultural importance (or the 'mirror') is long gone, because you actually need a culture outside of mass thought and consumerism for the art to work in that regard. Were that not the case the merits of films would not be regularly eclipsed by discussions of box office receipts.

comment #16

corey3rd says ...

Why shouldn't the critics take the blame for certain stinkers since many times they elevate certain directors to the point where they think their shit doesn't stink. Therefore they make that big turd and the sad part is that certain critics don't want to admit they were wrong about the director so they somehow find praise by relating crap in that film to their older movies. Ang Lee's Hulk was a piece of crap that the critics just had to praise as some sort of "thinking man's comic book movie."

At the same time Critics have been pretty useless in promoting films with low marketing budgets to become medium sized hits. If you don't have the money to carpet bomb TV, your film is pretty much screwed. If you're lucky you'll get 2 weekends at the theater.

Think a little? Why bother with many of these blurb hacks? They live with the sad concept that if they masturbate upon the Mona Lisa, they are equals to Divinci. As it's been pointed out before, since the creation of Netflix and 10 channels of HBO plus an OnDemand function, we don't need them anymore. If we're interested in a film from the publicity - or Wells constant mentions, we merely put it on the queue.

I'm not going to take this to the level that film critics can't hack it as filmmakers BS. But if they can't save their jobs from the budget axe, what good are they?

T. Holly, you seem to view critics like Tom Cruise views himself as a Scientologist. Cause you know, when a critics drives past a movie theater, he has to stop and see that film cause he's the only person who truly knows what to do.

comment #17

T. Holly says ...

corey, corey, corey, I gave away my sold-out El Cid ticket to a starving film student so I could come home and fight with you. Anyway I get to watch my dog make the cutest faces -- if you know what a Kong is, you'll know what I mean. Criticism is like a tapas menu, a little of this, a little of that, and a complete meal emerges. We are so fortunate and privileged, maybe even spoiled, to have this nowadays. You do graze, don't you? Do I need to point?

http://www.metacritic.com/

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/

p.vice, don't say that on your interview at Pratt for Packaging Design.

comment #18

cjKennedy says ...

I don't read critics to help me decide whether I like a movie or not. I read them when they write well or entertainingly because I like different perspectives based on different lifetimes of seeing movies. Another part of enjoying movies is coming back afterward and reading the critics who agree or disagree with me.

comment #19

Thrudvangar says ...

Bravo corey3rd. Funny and insightful. I totally agree.

comment #20

corey3rd says ...

you should never give anything to a starving film student. They already have an amazing sense of entitlement that your welfare will only grow. Maybe if they want to quit starving, they should stop paying $25,000 a year for a bogus and overblown education. They should go to plumbing school or auto repair classes. You never hear about "starving auto mechanic students." Why? cause at the very least, they can give you a lube job for a favor.

If you skipped El-Cid for that post, you really should have typed more.

I don't care much for Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic since they assign scores to reviews that didn't have number values applied by the critics. They're run by Junior High School English teachers.

The simple fact is that Matthews has no passion for film if he can just walk away from his newspaper post and work on a fictional account of a crime.

I could care less about what critics share my cinema tastes. They're not going to be drinking with me anytime soon. And the few that I've hit the bars with were such utter pricks that after a while I yearned to be getting liquored up with people who are actually entertained by movies. I'll take the Psychotronic over every book written by Pauline Kael.

I'm not sure where this whole "art" and "cinema" BS started, but film has always been about entertaining and getting butts in the seats.

comment #21

T. Holly says ...

Don't read Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritc for the scores, read it for the writing. No longer is anyone limited by what's in their local paper or having to go to a bar to meet any of the pricks.

You've bested Milkman as angriest man here for having become a mechanic instead of an artist. I hope your que at Netflix is as long, deep and wide as you've become, and may you retire to become the man you were destined to be before reality took over.

comment #22

thorsen1nk says ...

"One is either busy being born or busy dying. I know where I stand. Die at your desk."

Jesus Jeff, that is actually actually pretty damn inspiring.

comment #23

cjKennedy says ...

"I'm not sure where this whole 'art' and 'cinema' BS started"

Clearly.

comment #24

corey3rd says ...

T. Holly, Who said I was a mechanic?

comment #25

EDouglas says ...

Wow, Jack Matthews is one of the few critics I respect and the only reason I buy the Daily News... a real loss. I wonder if the NY Film Critics Circle fiasco he mentioned on his blog contributed to his retirement.

comment #26

Jimmycrackcorn says ...

Maybe, in honor of his departure, we could at least get his name right. It's Mathews, with one T.

comment #27

T. Holly says ...

As a favor Ed.

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/movies/2007/12/i-dropped-out-of-the.html

Now, tell me who this guy George Simian is...

http://weblogs.variety.com/thompsononhollywood/2008/01/post-sundance-i.html