Funny, all this effort to trash a film a month from release, while true garbage like FLYBOYS and OPEN SEASON are here and now, and not a single mention...

Yes Jeff, you've convinced me. This movie will suck. Can you let it go now?
Although calling it "despicable" is just going over the top. It's a movie. It's not going to hurt anyone or anything...aside from your delicate sensibilities, apparently.

Don't listen to Jeff - as always his alpha-male sensibilities have afforded him a perspective powered more by testosterone than insight, creativity, and, to be frank, intelligent thought. He writes with his gut, and that's wonderful, but this is the time of year when film's start to require a bit of mental energy as well. Marie Antoinette, a film that, Jeff fails to understand, is only very ostensibly about Marie Antoinette, is among the best American films thus far this year (right up there with the Departed and Little Children, the latter of which is an out-and-out masterpiece).

"She has always been drawn to beautiful, trapped girls, who belong to a generation too cynical to unite in rebellion and too cool to unite in conformity"

To unite in rebellion against what exactly? To unite in conformity to what exactly? Perhaps I should read some Star magazines or US Weekly's to find out what exactly.

If the movie attempts to draw parallels between Antoinette's French society and today's party scene with Paris and Nicole, then I think it is doomed. If it sticks to telling the fascinating tale of a teen girl raised to be handed over for a country's political advancement, then perhaps it has a chance.

"Don't listen to Jeff - as always his alpha-male sensibilities have afforded him a perspective powered more by testosterone than insight, creativity, and, to be frank, intelligent thought." "He writes with his gut, and that's wonderful, but this is the time of year when film's start to require a bit of mental energy as well.."

this is the only part of the statement I agree with.
Jeff reminds of an Edward R. Murrow type who doesn't know when to stop...

"If the movie attempts to draw parallels between Antoinette's French society and today's party scene with Paris and Nicole, then I think it is doomed. If it sticks to telling the fascinating tale of a teen girl raised to be handed over for a country's political advancement, then perhaps it has a chance."

It sticks to the latter. The Paris Hilton bit is all extrapolated by the press, mostly derived from one brief scene. Parallels could be drawn, but to do so would to miss the point of the film entirely.

The more Jeff writes about this movie, the more I'm convinced he's a half wit. I've read negative reviews of this movie that make persuasive points, but Jeffrey Wells didn't write them. He doesn't grasp the fundamental purpose of the movie and continues to write about it as if Coppola intended to make a literal-minded TV movie for middle-aged film critics with a shaky understanding of art history, film history, and aesthetics in general. Take some university classes, read a few books, then try digesting Marie-Antoinette when you're equipped to grasp this film like the rest of the grown ups.

Amen, JD

I love all you people who are defending the movie without having seen it. I saw it on a trip to Paris in June and it is the dumbest piece of shit movie. The fucking movie opens with Marie Antoinette trying on shoes, eating frosting and then winking at the camera. The rest of the movie is two hours of THAT.

Saw it at the NYFF press screening last Tuesday morning. And there's a lot more TO it and IN it than that, noah.

Nathan Lee has an excellent essay about "Marie Antoinette" in this month's Film Comment titled "Pretty Vacant." He doesn't like the movie, but he brilliantly places the film within Coppola's body of work.

Glenn Kenny of Premiere likes "Marie Antoinette," and in his review sarcastically but appropriately remarks on how humane his fellow critics are for out of the blue taking such a deep, strongly stanced interest in 18th Century French peasantry while watching this film, even though he's never once heard any of them utter a word about their convictions before. Good for him.

Wells to JD: A half-wit, eh? Here's my original Cannes film Festival review -- sincere regrets if it's not persuasive enough for you, but I think it says it pretty well.

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/archives/2006/05/blood_of_a_lady.php

I don't think you've read it. I think you want to love "Marie-Antoinette" somehow or some way. I know what it is, and I know it's a sickening film because of its general emptiness and spiritual aridity.

Saw it a few months ago in france. It`s by far one of the richest films this year.

To critizing it about what it`s not insteat about what it`s about let u look like one of this critic-hacks who always dreamed about shooting something yourselfs but never have the guts to do so and now feeling to old to do it. One of this frustraded 50-somethings especialy allergic to everthing that looks kind of hip, because that makes them feels out of touch even more.

How exactly is this film despicable?

Wow, both despicable and sickening. I'm sorry Jeff, but if you hate it so much why do you keep bringing it up? You're just making a lot of people who read this page want to see it more, so they can "prove" you "wrong".

I treat movies like this the same way I treat Paris Hilton - ignore the bitch. She's not even worth worrying about.

I know a lot of critics who saw the recent New York Film Festival screening who enjoyed the movie and I'll probably see the second one next week. It has a few weak moments, but I found it to be mostly enjoyable and one of Kirsten Dunst's better movies. I didn't once think of Paris or Nicole while watching the movie, so maybe it's the critics who read too much into things seeing these parallels.

I should add that Variety gave it a positive review, as did The Hollywood Reporter AND Joblo... not to mention Ed and Nick from Slate, who generally hate everything. Every critic/writer has their own personal 'reverse cause celebre' a movie that everyone else raves about and they trash (I had a few last year)... obviously, Jeffrey's is Marie Antoinette.

I actually thought your original review of MA was fine, Jeff (and I read it when you wrote it). But in the months since, you've done exactly what you did with Lost in Translation: incessantly bashed it every chance you get (and if you recall, your original review of LIT was actually quite positive). You clearly have it in for Sofia Coppola and there's something very ugly about journalists with vendettas. This is where they get that reputation for being subhuman. You're not warranting the posting of all these item by adding fresh insight, you're just venting hatred.

If Marie Antoinette's purpose and intent is to deal with superficiality and shallowness as subjects, shouldn't that be addressed when you condemn its shallowness. It reminds me of the critics who condemned Velvet Goldmine because of its superficiality, not realizing that the movie is ABOUT surfaces and superficiality as a pop cultural subject. That's no reason you have to like the movie, but don't simply dismiss it for its superficiality. Anyway, dozens of other criticis have weighed in with enthusiastic and negative reviews that explain Coppola's aesthetic strategies. If you don't like the movie, fine. Nothing wrong with that. But why take such glee in repeatedly trashing it if you don't grasp its intent.

You wonder why nobody wants to let you into their screenings, but as soon as you see a movie, it opens the floodgates for months of belittling condemnation. Sure, write a negative review when you hate something. But why continue bashing a movie for 4 months?

not seen it, but curious from those who have: is the film deliberately painting a shallow world to make a point or is it the smart-ass equivalent of nike ads in KNIGHT'S TALE?

Marie Antoinette is the BEST MOVIE I HAVE SEEN THIS YEAR.

I'm seeing it on Weds. so I'll find out then.

Sofia Coppola's first two movies I thought were a solid single and stand up double, but neither cleard the fences in a Mickey Mantle sort of way. I did like them. But this one is bigger in scope and story and budget and cast size and just about everything else. I'm curious how it is, but it's clear Jeff hates S. Coppola. Which is fine. There are certain directors who have to win me over, but what annoys is the amount of space he dedicates to hating these offenders. We all know who they are: Spielberg, Hanks, Sofia Coppola, Peter Jackson, actors who've gained weight as they got older.... am i missing anyone?

To me, this sounds like a Ken Russell "bio-pic" from the 1970s-80s. I got tired of them very fast ("Lizstomania"???), and don't want to see another one in what I consider a depleted subgenre...The Historical Celebrity as Rock Star Icon for Teenyboppers.

I saw it at the NYFF, and "despicable" is taking it way too far. But it's not a very good movie by any stretch of the imagination.

muckster, your mind has gone south.