A timid entry, suitable for nursing mothers and patients recovering from surgery.

Great so far, guys.  I just wanted to throw my 2 cents in here since this is one I would have loved to be in on. 

My father had a regular column in the China Lantern, a small English language newsletter for American servicemen stationed in Taiwan.  Most of the movies he reviewed had been out for some time when they hit one of the four theaters that showed US movies in the region.  So my father's columns were less about reviewing new films, but more about advocating for movies that were worth someone's time, even if they had already seen it before.  He would advise his readers on what to look out for on repeat viewings and for those who had passed on a particular film before, why they should check it out now.  Later in his life and into my own, this was often the purpose of our film watching experience.  I mention all of this because this has greatly shaped my view of criticism, and specifically what we do at DiF, and what I consider before everytime I'm invited to participate. 

Film criticism certainly has a place.  Pauline Kael was very helpful to me when I was first interested in film.  But, as Steven Soderbergh is fond of saying, at the end of the day, film criticism is Air Guitar.  Saying that, the film critics I tend to respond to the most are not film critics by nature, as they are film curators, or even film advocates.

Ultimately, time is our most valuable resource.  The number of hours of all films ever made will eclipse your time on this planet, so choose wisely, I say.  What my father, what Drew McWeeny at HitFix, AO Scott for the Chicago Tribune, FX Feeny for Village Voice, and now Kurt Loder for Reason do, is build a giant playlist from their body of work.  What they recommend feels less like a checklist of personal taste, and more like an episode of antiques roadshow, where the film is held up against the light of the current landscape.  I find this approach appealing to me as both a fan of film, and someone who makes my living in it (well, tv, but you get the idea).  McWeeny is a good example.  The shortest reviews he writes are the ones where there's nothing obliquely wrong about the film, but nothing special either.  If everything is merely compatant and sorta fun...there's not much else to be said.  His review for V/H/S however, is more indicative of what a curator does.  It acknowledges the films flaws while absolutely noting that as a merging of found footage and horror anthology with a low fi aesthetic, it is doing something unique and fresh.  YMMV, but there certainly weren't too many examples of movies like it before.  At the time of the review, it had just played Sundance and had no distributor, so he was clearly advocating for something new to be thrust upon us.

In some small way, that's what I feel like we do at DiF.  We're not reviewing new movies here.  We pluck from the depths to discuss.  We pull out the gem loops, we go over cracks, we marvel at the subtle beauty, and then we put it back on the shelf and come to OUR collective opinion for you to humbly consider.  Maybe you dismissed a film and are giving it a second chance.  Maybe you never heard of it.  Either way, we are hopefully enjoyable museum guides.

Last edited by Eddie (2013-02-11 20:06:13)

Eddie is actually referencing bums, but it's still nicely phrased.

WARNING: This post may come across as extremely critical and bitchy. I promise that it isn't, in any way.

As someone who regularly writes film criticism, this was an interesting episode for me. This notion of a "spectrum" is interesting, but I'm not sure I entirely agree with it. And even if I did, I don't necessarily believe that DiF belongs on that spectrum.

Down in Front, as it exists now, is a podcast about deconstructing films based on story theory. That's great. But that's basically the only angle that you guys attack a film from. That's not in any way a bad thing; you're great at what you do, but I'm not sure that DiF is "film criticism" in the same way that Armond White and Roger Ebert are. You don't go to DiF to hear about how a certain camera movement evokes an emotion, or how an actor's performance is influenced by Toshiro Mifune in High and Low. DiF is in a whole different ballpark, in my opinion. And you're not going to find a better podcast to talk about storytelling theory in cinema. And again, I feel I have to stress this, this doesn't mean that I think that DiF is inherently less worthwhile than a "real" film critic, not at ALL. I just think that it exists in a different conversation than this one.

As for Confused Matthew, his brand of analysis is inherently less worthwhile than either of those two camps, because he's more interested in causing riots in his comment sections than actually contributing to a dialogue about film. He's basically the Armond White of the internet. "Hey, if I make a video saying that 2001 sucks, I'll get lots of page views!" And don't get me started on the waves of obnoxious assholes, him included, who watched the Nostalgia Critic and thought, "Hey, I can yell bullshit into a webcam for 15 minutes and I'll be a real critic!" Ugh.

Might end up as my sig-great, now I sound like I have a man-crush on Teague   

Part of the joy I get from listening is that even when I disagree with, say, Mike about, for the sake of argument, Pan's fucking Labyrinth, it feels like a disagreement with friends. Critique is only valuable when you respect the opinions of the people giving it, hence why I come back.

Hi, where's the 'Empire is crap' review that the guys referenced?

http://downinfront.net/forum/viewtopic. … 777#p30777

Oh great. So he's lurking here and knows I hate him? Now he'll show up at my house or something. He's not a well man.

EVERYONE TELL HIM I'M BRIAN.

Very cool of him. I don't know if we were particularly fair to him in the conversation (I mean, I have strong opinions about what I've seen, but I have seen damn near nothing, so my sample isn't exactly wide) and it's super cool that he was able to enjoy the episode anyway. I'm glad he liked the conversation, too.

We cool, Confused Matthew. We cool. 

Of course, now I'm worried about what Armond White is gonna do to us.

Hell, we were kinder to Armond White than to Matthew.   But then maybe White has a thinner skin.

/goes to the bunker and waits

My question is, what's his user name? *peers around*