A magazine that should be thrown with great force

[yendi]

I hadn't really looked at The New Yorker since the Tina Brown days, but after hitting the Rotten Tomatoes page for Superman Returns, I wandered over there, only to find that sometime in the last ten years, they'd secretly replaced their movie critic with Folger's Crystals a complete and total asshole.

Seriously, not liking Superman Returns isn't a crime (other than against good taste). Ebert may get it wrong with his complaints about the bleakness of some of the characters, but at least he's coming from a place that makes sense (and doesn't walk into the review with a sense that a comic-book movie is beneath him). Ditto David Edelstein's complaints about the length of the movie itself. But Tony Lane walked into that movie knowing damned well that he hated it, and walked out two hours later to add about ten words his already-written slam against genre flicks. That's not a review, nor is it film criticism. It's a half-assed polemic, and it (like all half-assed polemics) belongs in the blogosphere, not in a magazine associated with historical greatness.

Comments

[robyn-ma.livejournal.com]

Lane has his moments, but like all critics he has a blind spot, and that's comic books. 'The fact is that the only first-rate work to have fed off comic books was done by Roy Lichtenstein forty years ago'? Uh, ever heard of Ghost World? American Splendor?

I have some qualms about the movie, but overall it's a fine emotional tribute to the character and to the Reeve films. If you don't really care about the character, the movie isn't going to do much for you.

[yendi]

The line you quote shows that he simply wasn't qualified to do the review. To be fair, that makes David Remnick as responsible as Lane for this piece of shit article running.

[alladinsane.livejournal.com]

Too true..

Makes me recall a Dragoncon review from a Nashville alternative paper a couple of years back...the author took pains to note she was a normal person since she went to Starbucks regularly and was an avid watcer of Friends like the rest of America and was drug there unwillingly by her boyfriend...you can surmise where it went from there...you could tell she had written 90% of her con review before she even left Nashville...

[onceupon.livejournal.com]

You know, I love reading Ebert's reviews even when I don't agree. Because he says things like this:

How can a middle-aged bald man stab the Man of Steel with kryptonite?

And also like this:

like one of those self-sufficient little brats you can't get to talk.

Who can't love a film critic like that?

[alladinsane.livejournal.com]

why he's got the TV show and the megabucks and the following...

[onceupon.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. I've been a fan for years.

[alladinsane.livejournal.com]

me too...I STILL miss Gene Siskel...

[onceupon.livejournal.com]

*nodnodnod*

[kradical.livejournal.com]

Erm, Anthony Lane has been reviewing for a lot longer than ten years. He started during Pauline Kael's waning days.

[yendi]

Hence the Folger's Crystals comment. He used to be decent.

Although I'd swear I recall him joining during the Brown era (after Kael was gone from the magazine).

[jerel.livejournal.com]

I was just like "whatever" until he started quoting Nietzsche. I understand the audience of the New Yorker is a little more highbrow, but was it really necessary to drag German philosophy into a review of "Superman"? I think not. Unless you want to say "look at me, I'm totally sophisticated!" Truly sophisticated people don't have to point that out to others.

[coffeeinhell.livejournal.com]

My problem with Anthony Lane is that I'm in love with the way he writes. I often disagree with almost everyhting he says, though.

I just wish that I could write about movies with that much style.

[popfiend.livejournal.com]

So I have a question.

Someone else on my flist commented on how their theatre wasn't full (now it was 6:15 in the afternoon on a Thursday), but was it full when you went.

Just curious.

[yendi]

Um? It was?

We saw an earlier show, and although it was about a third full, that was about what I'd expected for a lunchtime show.

[yendi]

The problem I have is that putting that much style to work with no substance behind it is a complete waste. Sure, he's a great writer, but he just doesn't have anything to say.