PART OF THE CONVERSATION: CRITICISM V. REVIEW, TIFF, JAZZ, PG-13

I’ve always struggled with community. Not just with the internet but with life as well, and I want to change that. I’ve had weekly link posts and they’ve fizzled. I do spend a lot of time stretching across the vast land of the internet and film criticism and discussion, but I never truly engage. Here’s hoping this will be that engagement I’ve been missing.

This post is going live on a Sunday, but it’ll really be a Saturday feature starting next week. I plan to post excerpts and links back to some of my most beloved pieces that I found time to read the week gone by as a way to give some love to some of the writers out there who inspire/affect me on a daily basis in my thoughts of how I perceive film and constantly find themselves as Part of the Conversations I end up having with myself as well as others.

This week’s offering includes

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AGAINST EVALUATIVE CRITICISM: A PERSONAL MANIFESTO
by Jandy

“I’ve been contrasting weekly reviewing to in-depth criticism for years now, though I never really considered the evaluative angle before. My shorthand has always been that reviewing is for people who haven’t seen the film (“is this worth my money”), while criticism is for people who HAVE seen the film (“what does this mean”). I still hold that view, and I prefer reading criticism. I’d rather find out more about a film I’ve seen than hear opinions about one I haven’t. If I read about a film I haven’t seen, I want to hear about something I haven’t heard of and why I should watch it.” 

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#TIFF14 Blog: Stop The Madness!! – Tokyo
by Matt Brown

“There’s a slim, nimble ninja named Erika, who high-kicks her way through the rest of the film with ever-more-awe-inspiring precision and enough white cotton panty flashes to reboot the whole fetish. She is also, perhaps uncoincidentally, possessed of this film’s Magic Vagina – the one that several of the more thuggish male characters become dangerously obsessed with over the course of the movie and spend the rest of the picture following around, because of its presumptive awesomeness.”

 

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Self-Portrait of the Artist as a Manic Depressive: ALL THAT JAZZ
by Kyle Turner

“I’d like to run the whole thing again!” says an anguished Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider) in a haze, as he wanders around a hospital replaying scenes from the film he recently finished editing in his head. Here, not only in this scene but in this entire film, legendary director and choreographer Bob Fosse presents himself in all of his broken down, egotistical, manic glory. In All That Jazz, Bob Fosse uses the meta-musical as critical self-examination, comic to the conclusion that being a visionary might kill you in the process.”

WTF Happened to PG-13
by GoodBadFlicks

Andrew Robinson

This is my blog. There are many others like it, but this one is mine. My blog is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. Without me, my blog is useless. Without my blog, I am useless. I must fire my blog true. I will. Before God I swear this creed: my blog and myself are defenders of my mind, we are the masters of our enemy, we are the saviors of my life. So be it, until there is no enemy, but peace. Amen.