The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.
Tabloid movies
: NY Times movie critic gets all haughty/populist about the success of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 and Mel Gibson’s Passion.
But I have a different theory about it. I say this is the tabloidization of movies.
…we are willing to pay good money to be provoked, enraged, exalted and challenged.
I’m aware that, in saying “we,” I’m being somewhat disingenuous
Rich and Scott seemed to be arguing opposite to each other. It was odd.
Jeff, I’d love to know what you think of the Times mag piece on that Fox News expose documentary. Any thoughts?
You’re a former critic? What was that stuff on CNN then last week all about? Where you were brought on because of a review you wrote about 9/11?
So to mention that the press corps didn’t challenge the administrations push to war is in and of itself a gratuitious bow to the anti-war left?.Automatically?
So to mention that the press corps didn’t challenge the administrations push to war is in and of itself a gratuitious bow to the anti-war left?.Automatically?
There’s nothing triumphalist about Spider-Man … his very creed is antithetical to the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war.
Yeah, like how he didn’t try to stop Doc Ock’s giant explodey machine that was going to blow up the city since, you know, the Doc might have built the machine right this time and the inspectors needed more time and besides, the Daily Bugle raises some very serious questions about the threat Spider-Man poses to the community.
I guess we also have to ignore the point that Spidey’s driving motivation is guilt over failing to pre-emptively stop the man that killed his uncle, too.
Oh, and I bet the reason Spider-Man was so dead set on pre-emptively destroying Doc Ock’s attempt to create a clean and renewable energy source can be tracked back to oil companies, too. The Bugle totally gives him a pass on that. Questions must be asked! Was Peter Parker a member of the Carlyle Group?
Roberto Rodriguez has demonstrated that using contemporary video technology major motion picture quality productions can be produced on a shoestring. You’ve already blogged about the coming explosion in Internet-based video. The only remaining hurdle is distribution. Internet II will crack that and do to the movies and TV what Internet I has done to the music biz.
The only thing interesting in the Moore propaganda trash is whether he will accomplish his goal of defeating Bush at the polls. The movie is a paranoid ramble of hate and deceit. It is of no interest in itself at all.
Anne, I think Jeff is a recovering critic who had a relapse.
I actually lked the TV Guide reviews well enough that I remembered Jeff’s name from them, though.
Frank Rich’s problem is that they’ve got him inexplicably in Arts and Leisure after kicking him off of op-ed. Now he’s tenously and tangentially relating every dumb pop culture fad to the failures of the Bush Administration. It’s the most embarassing part of the NYT every sunday.
> Is that the same press corps that isn’t acknowledging the newfound daily freedom of most Iraqis?
That press corps doesn’t think that their fellow citizens should have freedom of political speech, so is it really surprising that they don’t care much about Iraqi freedoms either?
Oh, you might expect some “professional courtesy” towards fellow journalists, but not until those fellows had proved their reliability.
Spiderman 2 was based more on facts than Farenheit 9-11 was.
ROTFL. Anne.elke, you’ve just done the same thing Creationists when they tell people to read the Bible for proof God created the world 6500 years ago.
“Creationists do” — must stop commenting at 5:30am.
Jeff,
I thought the most revealing part of your post was this:
Oh, ferchrissake. Such self-important drivel. I see the trend in far simpler terms:
Movies were boring.
I would note that a similar thing happened in the 1970’s. Movies tended to be downers. Even the great movies were downers. And there’s nothing more boring that a bad movie that’s also a downer. Then along comes Star Wars, and all that changes. It seemed different only in comparison to what had come immediately come before, and it wasn’t boring. And it made money. So Hollywood moved away from boring downers. Now, it appears, we’re moving into the era of the exciting downer.
For a REAL documentary, that is definately not a downer, try “Riding Giants”….
