I hate to disagree with you twice in one day, but, man, Anthony Lane should *never* be cited approvingly. He's a fraud, whose Englishness is the only thing tricking Americans into thinking otherwise. Reading his reviews, it seems completely obvious that: (1) he doesn't actually like movies, and (2) he thinks up his best lines ahead of time. Do you honestly think that *anything* about the movie could have dissuaded him from busting out his: "True, but only in the same way that dying from natural causes is preferable to crucifixion." line? Moreover, the joke itself is totally vacuous, communicating nothing about the film other than that he didn't like it. It's no different than a dime a dozen "Yeah, only in the sense that Kathy Bates is hotter than Phyllis Diller" joke, only he's classed up the references and the cadence. I haven't been this disappointed in one of my blog-heroes, since The Poorman described "Lone Star" as one of his favorite movies.
Here we just disagree. I love Anthony Lane. He can write. "Gay gold-plated Jeeves?" Props. Or this paragraph about "Kingdom of Heaven."
This is scarcely Bloom's fault; he just doesn't have the build, or the banter, of a leading hunk, and thus he joins the list of Hollywood stars, headed by Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire, who remain, whatever the squeals of their fan club, a bunch of kids. As with Tom Cruise, the überkid, there's something ungrounded about them, a reluctance to verse themselves in the ways of the world. As the age of the target audience drops, so Hollywood has taken to plucking its principal actors from that same bracket, scared that older or wiser men would set too high an example—that their aura of experience might be construed as an insult. It's unfair to plant Orlando Bloom in the center of Jerusalem and to assume that his exertions will inspire the rest of the cast; in the event, listlessness is rife, with even the dependable Brendan Gleeson resorting to ham. One imagined that a movie about the Crusades would be gallant and mad; one feared that it might stoke some antiquated prejudice. But who could have dreamed that it would produce this rambling, hollow show about a boy?
Or this, about "Hitchhiker's guide."
And from the opening, too, flows the wry, consoling tone that Adams made his own: the thought that, however many light-years you travel, and however repellent or majestic the creatures that cross your path, your reaction will be much the same blend of tetchiness, confusion, mild lust, and nervous laughter that prevailed in your everyday life.
PJS, I think you're making a category mistake. Who cares if Lane makes up his best lines ahead of time? They're good lines. I don't read him to find out about movies, really, I read him for snark.
anyway, his Sith review seemed dead on, as much as it can, since I haven't seen the movie. The new movies suck, not only because the dialogue sucks (it kind of sucked in the earlier movies too) but because Lucas presebts the characters as though they don't fart, or even know any naughty words. You can't get characters that seem even remotely human that way.
I don't understand, in that the early movies allowed for characters who fart and say crass things. Did people only start excreting after the republic fell?
But I'll pay my ten bucks and whine about it later.
But part of what makes a line good in that context is its *aptness*. A line conjured up prior to seeing a film cannot be apt as a response to that film.
Some films you don't have to see in order to conjure up an apt line... Voila. The only criticism I accept as relevant is Labs' "The lines aren't really that funny."
The sad thing is, after spotting presebt, I felt the need to read the rest of your comment to ensure that it wasn't some special critical theory term, the meaning of which I could derive from context. I'd initially classified it as potentially meaning that Lucas has predetermined archetypes/platonic forms for his characters that get in the way of them actually being good characters. Then I just fiugred it was a typo, but its weird that this comments section forces me into such thought processes.
I'd blame the fact that I'm running on caffeine, except that my comments tend to have a high typo yeild.
I really think the movies would go much better if every once in a while, one of the characters let one rip, then tried to play it off. Perhaps another phantom edit in the works?
At least you spotted it. Some of us are so degenerate we just read what we think ought to be there anyway. As to typo count!... well... I hope ogged never gives prizes for that.
Good lord. Unfogged commenters do so many things right, but apparently Star Wars comment thread is not one of them. Is no one else freaking itching with excitement (caveat emptor notwithstanding)? The question over whether General Grievous's four lightsabers is one too many goes untapped (obviously, more is more awesome), yet there are two threads on the merits of Anthony Lane? I miss Jacob T. Levy.
I'd "at the mineshaft" that, but, I fear being a parody.
I'll be seeing Star Wars opening day, but only because someone else bought my ticket. I am a sucker for a good lightsaber battle, though. And, I've never thought of Star Wars as asking for a lot of though, you know? That's my problem with the Lane article. Like it or not, Lucas writes for kids and adolescents. It does seem to me that most things of that nature could be torn a good hole or two by a critical review (lord of the rings, harry potter, lemony snicket which I saw last night, and many others).
I also think his criticism of Yoda isn't thought through:
“Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose,” he says. Hold on, Kermit, run that past me one more time. If you ever got laid (admittedly a long shot, unless we can dig you up some undiscerning alien hottie with a name like Jar Jar Gabor), and spawned a brood of Yodettes, are you saying that you’d leave them behind at the first sniff of danger?
Yes, I do think Yoda would say that, if I understand his philosophy right. The Jedi should fight for life, but not be afraid of death, because, like it or not, its coming. It's a bushido thing, isn't it? Let go of even your own life. And WTF is this?
Deepest mind in the galaxy, apparently, and you still express yourself like a day-tripper with a dog-eared phrase book. “I hope right you are.” Break me a fucking give.
First, I don't think anyone's claimed Yoda is the first, have they? I haven't done any star wars nerdisty besides watch the movies, but, he's the greatest master with the force, not a modern-day Aristotle. Sure he gives advice, he's freaking old, and I see the standard "listen to the old, experience guy" in the film, but not more than that. And critcizing how a hypothetical alien might master the english language after an unknown time of familiarity with it seems really weak.
To Kriston's comment - Yes, I am a-quiver with excitement at seeing the new flick. I have friends who saw it last week (one works at LucasFilm and thus saw it early) - friends who aren't even Star Wars fans and they said it was so good they'd see it again. Sure, the dialogue was still clunky and the romantic bits lame, but overall, dark, good and delicious.
Like a giant, CGI-filled chocolate bar, oozing with geeky righteousness.
The section of the review that mentions Aliens and Blade Runner betrays a category error on Lane's part: if the three pages of the novelization of the movie I read over the shoulder of a fellow passenger on the CTA is anything to go by, and especially if said novelization reveals the distilled essence of the movies (and of course, it does), what we have here isn't sci-fi at all but the purest fantasy dreck, in which dragons (or at least something appropriately futuristic with "dragon" in the name) can never be said to have hovered into view, but only hove.
Fantasy is either sexless or highly sexful. Sexless: Tolkein, eg, or, say, Robert Jordan. Since in my youth I read many not-very-good fantasy novels I could list more authors, probably, but I don't want to strain my memory.
No kidding, sexful. There a few series of late that I've really enjoyed, but that have contained so much graphic sex that I've been slightly embarassed for them to be on my bookshelves. I think it's safe to say I'm nt a prude, but, oy.
(I'm thinking specifically of Laurell K. Hamilton and a fantasy series set in a medieval France-analogue, the name of which I can't rember, but the main character's powers revolve around brutal S&M.)
I'll defend "like a day-tripper with a dog-eared phrase book"--the point is that Yoda gets all the words but his English is seriously fractured. Nothing wrong with that simile.
My real beef with Yoda is that his syntactic quirk is entirely a sham. "Remember your failure at the cave" – oops. Yoda is Kevin Costner in Robin Hood only shorter and from Dagobah.
OK, I should have said this long ago, but "gay, gold-plated Jeeves"? Lane should know better. Jeeves is a badass. Jeeves is unflappable. C3P0 is ineffectual--Jeeves will effect you so nasty you won't know what hit you. A gay Jeeves would be more like Curé in Diva. A gay, gold-plated Jeeves would be more like, um, Curé in Diva dipped in gold. Don't fuck with Jeeves.
You had me at "gay, gold-plated Jeeves."
Posted by moira | Link to this comment | 05-16-05 1:27 PM
Wouldn't it be nice if Lucas finished the series with something that didn't suck? I don't think he's ever looked at his own work critically.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 05-16-05 1:36 PM
I hate to disagree with you twice in one day, but, man, Anthony Lane should *never* be cited approvingly. He's a fraud, whose Englishness is the only thing tricking Americans into thinking otherwise. Reading his reviews, it seems completely obvious that: (1) he doesn't actually like movies, and (2) he thinks up his best lines ahead of time. Do you honestly think that *anything* about the movie could have dissuaded him from busting out his: "True, but only in the same way that dying from natural causes is preferable to crucifixion." line? Moreover, the joke itself is totally vacuous, communicating nothing about the film other than that he didn't like it. It's no different than a dime a dozen "Yeah, only in the sense that Kathy Bates is hotter than Phyllis Diller" joke, only he's classed up the references and the cadence. I haven't been this disappointed in one of my blog-heroes, since The Poorman described "Lone Star" as one of his favorite movies.
Posted by pjs | Link to this comment | 05-16-05 1:41 PM
I also like Lone Star, but am not anyone's blog hero.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 05-16-05 1:46 PM
I only saw it once, but I liked Lone Star. What's your beef? Or is it just how much the Poor Man liked it?
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 05-16-05 1:46 PM
Here we just disagree. I love Anthony Lane. He can write. "Gay gold-plated Jeeves?" Props. Or this paragraph about "Kingdom of Heaven."
Or this, about "Hitchhiker's guide."
Come on, the man is good.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 05-16-05 1:53 PM
PJS, I think you're making a category mistake. Who cares if Lane makes up his best lines ahead of time? They're good lines. I don't read him to find out about movies, really, I read him for snark.
Mmmmm, good tasty snark, can't get enough of it.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-16-05 2:01 PM
anyway, his Sith review seemed dead on, as much as it can, since I haven't seen the movie. The new movies suck, not only because the dialogue sucks (it kind of sucked in the earlier movies too) but because Lucas presebts the characters as though they don't fart, or even know any naughty words. You can't get characters that seem even remotely human that way.
I don't understand, in that the early movies allowed for characters who fart and say crass things. Did people only start excreting after the republic fell?
But I'll pay my ten bucks and whine about it later.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 05-16-05 2:02 PM
if Lucas were only to present characters, instead of presebting them, I think that might help.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 05-16-05 2:03 PM
But part of what makes a line good in that context is its *aptness*. A line conjured up prior to seeing a film cannot be apt as a response to that film.
Posted by pjs | Link to this comment | 05-16-05 2:06 PM
Some films you don't have to see in order to conjure up an apt line... Voila. The only criticism I accept as relevant is Labs' "The lines aren't really that funny."
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-16-05 2:12 PM
The sad thing is, after spotting presebt, I felt the need to read the rest of your comment to ensure that it wasn't some special critical theory term, the meaning of which I could derive from context. I'd initially classified it as potentially meaning that Lucas has predetermined archetypes/platonic forms for his characters that get in the way of them actually being good characters. Then I just fiugred it was a typo, but its weird that this comments section forces me into such thought processes.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 05-16-05 2:15 PM
I like your interpretation better, Chops.
I'd blame the fact that I'm running on caffeine, except that my comments tend to have a high typo yeild.
I really think the movies would go much better if every once in a while, one of the characters let one rip, then tried to play it off. Perhaps another phantom edit in the works?
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 05-16-05 2:19 PM
Yeah, I just typed "its" meaning "it's" and "fiugred" meaning "figured," and people pay me every day to write and edit. Fuck to oboe.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 05-16-05 2:22 PM
He's a fraud, whose Englishness is the only thing tricking Americans into thinking otherwise
Now that is interesting. I have always felt that englishness was something the americans viewed with distrust anyway.
Posted by Austro | Link to this comment | 05-16-05 2:33 PM
The sad thing is, after spotting presebt,
At least you spotted it. Some of us are so degenerate we just read what we think ought to be there anyway. As to typo count!... well... I hope ogged never gives prizes for that.
Posted by Austro | Link to this comment | 05-16-05 2:36 PM
I get the feeling that we both revere and distrust the english, as we revere and distrust ourselves.
The conception is that they are clever bastards.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 05-16-05 2:59 PM
Good lord. Unfogged commenters do so many things right, but apparently Star Wars comment thread is not one of them. Is no one else freaking itching with excitement (caveat emptor notwithstanding)? The question over whether General Grievous's four lightsabers is one too many goes untapped (obviously, more is more awesome), yet there are two threads on the merits of Anthony Lane? I miss Jacob T. Levy.
Posted by Kriston | Link to this comment | 05-16-05 5:27 PM
obviously, more is more awesome
I'd "at the mineshaft" that, but, I fear being a parody.
I'll be seeing Star Wars opening day, but only because someone else bought my ticket. I am a sucker for a good lightsaber battle, though. And, I've never thought of Star Wars as asking for a lot of though, you know? That's my problem with the Lane article. Like it or not, Lucas writes for kids and adolescents. It does seem to me that most things of that nature could be torn a good hole or two by a critical review (lord of the rings, harry potter, lemony snicket which I saw last night, and many others).
I also think his criticism of Yoda isn't thought through:
“Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose,” he says. Hold on, Kermit, run that past me one more time. If you ever got laid (admittedly a long shot, unless we can dig you up some undiscerning alien hottie with a name like Jar Jar Gabor), and spawned a brood of Yodettes, are you saying that you’d leave them behind at the first sniff of danger?
Yes, I do think Yoda would say that, if I understand his philosophy right. The Jedi should fight for life, but not be afraid of death, because, like it or not, its coming. It's a bushido thing, isn't it? Let go of even your own life. And WTF is this?
Deepest mind in the galaxy, apparently, and you still express yourself like a day-tripper with a dog-eared phrase book. “I hope right you are.” Break me a fucking give.
First, I don't think anyone's claimed Yoda is the first, have they? I haven't done any star wars nerdisty besides watch the movies, but, he's the greatest master with the force, not a modern-day Aristotle. Sure he gives advice, he's freaking old, and I see the standard "listen to the old, experience guy" in the film, but not more than that. And critcizing how a hypothetical alien might master the english language after an unknown time of familiarity with it seems really weak.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 05-16-05 6:12 PM
express yourself like a day-tripper with a dog-eared phrase book.
and, just for the record, that's a really forced simile. He's Dennis-Millering it there.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 05-16-05 6:14 PM
To Kriston's comment - Yes, I am a-quiver with excitement at seeing the new flick. I have friends who saw it last week (one works at LucasFilm and thus saw it early) - friends who aren't even Star Wars fans and they said it was so good they'd see it again. Sure, the dialogue was still clunky and the romantic bits lame, but overall, dark, good and delicious.
Like a giant, CGI-filled chocolate bar, oozing with geeky righteousness.
Posted by moira | Link to this comment | 05-16-05 6:18 PM
Moira, that is exactly how I think of myself on my better days.
Posted by benton | Link to this comment | 05-16-05 6:29 PM
I'm going to steal "break me a fucking give."
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 05-16-05 9:00 PM
Once I was so bored reading the same books to my young daughter I read one of them backwards, word for word, and damn, that was Yoda talking.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 05-17-05 8:29 AM
Once I was so bored reading the same books to my young daughter I read one of them backwards, word for word, and damn, that was Yoda talking.
This reminds me of something Georg Lichtenberg once wrote.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-17-05 8:44 AM
The section of the review that mentions Aliens and Blade Runner betrays a category error on Lane's part: if the three pages of the novelization of the movie I read over the shoulder of a fellow passenger on the CTA is anything to go by, and especially if said novelization reveals the distilled essence of the movies (and of course, it does), what we have here isn't sci-fi at all but the purest fantasy dreck, in which dragons (or at least something appropriately futuristic with "dragon" in the name) can never be said to have hovered into view, but only hove.
This also explains the sexlessness.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-17-05 8:50 AM
Fantasy is sexless?
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 05-17-05 9:15 AM
Fantasy is either sexless or highly sexful. Sexless: Tolkein, eg, or, say, Robert Jordan. Since in my youth I read many not-very-good fantasy novels I could list more authors, probably, but I don't want to strain my memory.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-17-05 9:22 AM
No kidding, sexful. There a few series of late that I've really enjoyed, but that have contained so much graphic sex that I've been slightly embarassed for them to be on my bookshelves. I think it's safe to say I'm nt a prude, but, oy.
(I'm thinking specifically of Laurell K. Hamilton and a fantasy series set in a medieval France-analogue, the name of which I can't rember, but the main character's powers revolve around brutal S&M.)
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 05-17-05 9:40 AM
Right. I see. I was thinking there was some nerd swinger element to it-- as in that essay by Megan Daum on Renaissance fair types and polyamory.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 05-17-05 9:40 AM
ac--nerds get it on. Often in really, really frightening ways.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 05-17-05 9:41 AM
I'll defend "like a day-tripper with a dog-eared phrase book"--the point is that Yoda gets all the words but his English is seriously fractured. Nothing wrong with that simile.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-17-05 10:09 AM
but if you have a phrase book, your grammar should be a'ight. Maybe if you only had a small dictionary.
Also, I just got what he meant by day-tripper. I thought it meant someone tripping, which didn't make a whole lot of sense.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 05-17-05 11:45 AM
but if you have a phrase book, your grammar should be a'ight. Maybe if you only had a small dictionary.
My nipples, etc.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-17-05 11:47 AM
your nipples?
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 05-17-05 11:50 AM
Have we really been reduced to Monty Python jokes?
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 05-17-05 11:56 AM
Oh, how the mighty have fallen, etc.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 05-17-05 11:57 AM
My real beef with Yoda is that his syntactic quirk is entirely a sham. "Remember your failure at the cave" – oops. Yoda is Kevin Costner in Robin Hood only shorter and from Dagobah.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 05-17-05 11:57 AM
It was an obligatory reference, strictly pro forma (hence the "etc").
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-17-05 11:58 AM
Oh no, I have perpetrated snark without a redeeming positive vision. I have brought dishonor to the comments.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 05-17-05 12:02 PM
Blogger you will become.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 05-17-05 12:03 PM
Is snark perpetratable?
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 05-17-05 12:04 PM
In my idiolect, yes.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 05-17-05 12:12 PM
I can't argue with that.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 05-17-05 12:14 PM
Blogger you will become.
No, my test came back and it said I didn't have enough chlorofluorocarbons.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 05-17-05 12:15 PM
I thought it was tetrahydocannabinols?
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 05-17-05 12:23 PM
If your mixolydian-meter is busted, you could always perform the dual test for noraephrons, the presence of which always signals a non-Jedi.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 05-17-05 12:29 PM
Where does hydrogen dioxide fit into this?
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 05-17-05 12:42 PM
Hydrogen dioxide is what Yoda drinks instead of dihydrogen oxide.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 05-17-05 12:45 PM
Fuck. You win.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 05-17-05 1:05 PM
When _Empire_ came out in Italy everyone thought that Yoda was from Sardinia.
Posted by andrew | Link to this comment | 05-18-05 7:49 AM
That's hilarious. What did Sardinians think about Yoda?
Posted by Kriston | Link to this comment | 05-18-05 8:50 AM
OK, I should have said this long ago, but "gay, gold-plated Jeeves"? Lane should know better. Jeeves is a badass. Jeeves is unflappable. C3P0 is ineffectual--Jeeves will effect you so nasty you won't know what hit you. A gay Jeeves would be more like Curé in Diva. A gay, gold-plated Jeeves would be more like, um, Curé in Diva dipped in gold. Don't fuck with Jeeves.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-18-05 12:09 PM
That's a good question. A couple of Sardinians started working in the office recently. I'll ask them.
Posted by andrew | Link to this comment | 05-19-05 2:20 AM