Second Thoughts
Movieline‘s Stu VanAirsdale has satirized L.A. Times film critic Betsy Sharkey for writing glowing things about Atom Egoyan‘s Chloe (and particularly costar Amanda Seyfried) during last September’s Toronto Film Festival, and then going fairly negative in her 3.26 review.
Well, I sympathize because it happens. Any critic who doesn’t admit to having semi-liked or half-tolerated a film at first and then said “what was I thinking?” weeks or months later is not being truthful. Nobody knows everything about everything all the time. The train is always pulling into or leaving a station, and every so often it will lurch and somebody will yank the hand brake. Or tectonic plates will shift in the wee hours. Sometimes a lack of sleep has an effect.
Just as often critics will pan something and then realize down the road they were having a bad day or whatever. Like the critics who ripped 2001: A Space Odyssey or Bonnie and Clyde after their initial exposures, only to re-think things.
I was way too easy on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull when I saw it in Cannes, although I did say it “lacks the stuffings of a great adventure film” and that I wished Spielberg, et. al. “had attempted at least a superficial injection of a little heart and soul.” I have no explanation other than I should have been tougher and snarlier. (Was I feeling kindly because I spoke to Harrison Ford at a cocktail party a day before seeing it? Pathetic excuse.)
I went fairly positive for Eyes Wide Shut after my first looksee only to pull back after seeing it a second time. Since all Kubrick films always seem a bit fuller or deeper or more thoughtful after the second viewing I expected that EWS would follow suit — but it didn’t. It went down in estimation.
And I praised Tim Burton‘s Planet of the Apes when I first saw it, and I know I’ll never live that down. I also half-panned The Royal Tenenbaums at first only to modify that view after a second exposure a few days later.
With Betsy, one wonders if it’s more of a stay-with-the-herd survival instinct than an honest re-evaluation of a film?
It’s now clear that CHLOE isn’t getting much love from the critical community–either those who can put it in context with Egoyan’s earlier work or reviewers just regarding it as another erotic thriller.
So maybe Betsy didn’t want to appear out-of-touch with consensus.
Your review of Jackson’s King Kong comes to mind as an example. Also Superman Returns, I believe.
I went fairly positive for Eyes Wide Shut after my first looksee only to pull back after seeing it a second time.
Once was enough for me.
I think I was stunned by not hating a Peter Jackson film after the agonizing torture of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and I over-reacted when I saw Kong. Especially given my total delight at hearing what I thought was a Jackson-attached overture of Max Steiner‘s original 1933 score when I saw KK at the Academy, only to realize after-the-fact that the Academy had played the music on their own volition, as an embroidery.
I don’t remember folding my cards and saying I was wrong about Superman Returns, although I’ll admit it has faded in my memory somewhat.
I really hope Jeff doesn’t chime in and say he was wrong about Kong and Superman Returns. They both are really good works in my opinion. Kong still had an ambition about it that only Avatar has matched since.
Superman Returns was a beautiful love letter to Donner’s original film, no matter what direction one would wish Singer had gone with for a new film.
I love the original Superman film, and really dug Singer’s effort – maybe because it invoked those feelings I had about the original film, I’m not sure.
Superman Returns was all right but the retreading of the Luthor land scheme and Singer putting his own personal stuff into the Superman character was something I could have done without.
First time either one ever happened to me, coincidentally enough, was for films that came out in 1989. When I saw WAR OF THE ROSES in the theater, I thought it was flawed but good overall. Then I rented it when it came out on video, and I saw more of the flaws (didn’t help, admittedly, that I read the novel it was based on, and realized Kathleen Turner’s character got shortchanged in the movie). Conversely, I thought THE ABYSS was a fight between a realistic action drama and a CLOSE ENCOUNTERS-type alien movie, and the latter dragged the movie down. I still think the alien part is the weaker part of the movie, but the rest of the movie is so good for me, particularly the relationship between Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, that I’m willing to overlook the rest.
I think the big issue is that Chloe has a giant blurb from the woman, who’s gone on to re-evaluate her opinion.
I have a lot of reviews I changed my mind on, the worst, though, was Waiting, which I gave a glowing review to (I was under an influence) and then a few months later, catching the film on television I realized how bad it really is.
Wells, have you heard about the guy who re-cut the Jackson King Kong and made it like 90 minutes and black and white? I just heard about it, but have yet to see it for myself.
[Mistuh Tati, he dead.]
hey Jeff, this isn’t foreshadowing of future commentary on Hot Tub Time Machine, is it?
You’re nuts, Jacques Tati. LOTR was beautiful but ridiculous, which might be a forgivable sin if it wasn’t also twice as long as it should have been.
“Also Superman Returns, I believe.”
Actually, I think Wells enjoyed that pretty consistently, though he had some tweaks to suggest later.
[Tati bye-bye]
“Hi, welcome to Arclight. How can I help you?”
“Uh… (quiet voice, face blushing) One for CHLOE, please.”
“One for CHLOE!? Sure. Where would you like to sit?”
“Uh, preferrably in the non-masturbation section.”
Damn, I am an unrepentent perv AND Seyfried Superfan, have been looking forward to CHLOE for months… set the alarm today to go to the aforementioned FIRST SHOWING before work, then couldn’t get around that scenario.
ie, a LONE MALE buying ONE TICKET to see CHLOE and asking to sit in THE FRONT ROW dead center… at, yes, 10:55 AM, for maximum Travis Bickle effect. Last week I sidestepped the lone female cashier (despite there not being a single paying customer in the lobby) to buy my ticket for THE RUNAWAYS at the automated kiosk, then when I had the entire first four rows to myself I couldn’t shake the slightly embarrassing feeling that to the handful of groups ten rows back, I looked like The Guy Who REALLY Needed To See The Runaways.
All this to say that, unfortunately, Americans are so juvenile and prudish about sexual content, if I’M vaguely self-conscious about going to see CHLOE, I can’t imagine 99.99999% of the country wouldn’t just wait for video. And not to be too graphic, a few years back, I saw that horrible EROS compilation in the theater, and some middle-aged Asian guy, no shit, blatantly started punching the clown to Gong Li in the Wong Kar-Wai segment.
I guess the lesson to that is, eh, better to go to the 10:55am show, since at least you know your seat wasn’t just occupied by THAT guy 20 minutes earlier.
Wells to Jacques tati: You’ve spewed your obnoxiousness for the last time here. I’ve told you tone it down and show a little respect, and you wouldn’t listen. See ya!
“Kong still had an ambition about it that only Avatar has matched since.”
Back-handed compliment of the day award?
“then when I had the entire first four rows to myself I couldn’t shake the slightly embarrassing feeling that to the handful of groups ten rows back, I looked like The Guy Who REALLY Needed To See The Runaways.”
You wanna know why you looked like that guy? You were that guy. You posted your obsessive musings on K-Stew and D-Fan every day leading up to the release of The Runaways, but when it came time to actually view the screening you got all meek and demure? Something’s not adding up there.
Jeff, I think your original appraisal of EWS was correct. Actually, I think you even underrated it a little bit the first time. That movie’s a masterpiece, pure and simple. Is it as brilliantly classic as 2001, Strangelove, Clockwork, Lyndon?? Probably not, but it’s as much of a quality latter-day Kubrick work as The Shining or Full Metal Jacket, IMHO.
LexG, good story. But I sit here baffled: what did you think of CHLOE?
Can we call this “Up in the Air” Syndrome?
Speaking of Wong Kar-Wai, My Blueberry NIghts is in this category. I would still say it has worthwhile things in it. But when I saw the re-release of Ashes of Time later in the year, I was ienthralled by how much more elegantly similar themes were expressed.
The worst is like Revolutionary Road, where your opinion is changing during the time that you’re writing the reivew. My grade was out of whack with the reivew itself. It just causes schizophrenia.
I hated, hated, hated Batman Begins. I left the theater thinking it was a bomb. I still don’t think it’s very good, but reading thoughtful opposite opinions made me give it some grudging respect that helped me get to the point that I love The Dark Knight.
There is something to be said for a critic’s ability to read and re-assess, as long as it is an honest process.
I inexplicably didn’t like Out of Sight when I first saw it,, but now love it. Sometimes I think it has a lot to do with the nature of the expectations you have going in. Not in terms of how good or bad the movie is going to be, but in terms of the type of movie it’s going to be. I think I might have been ignorantly expecting some kind of action movie going into Out of Sight.
Then there are those movies that you don’t like much on first viewing and then sort of beat you down upon repeated exposures on cable. I don’t even know if Rounders is a good movie or not anymore. I just know that I’ll watch it every time I stumble upon it.
I had the opposite reaction to CHLOE. Saw it once about a month ago and had mixed feelings about it and wrote a piece about its commercial trappings, some silly plot turns and how it was a depature, of several sorts, for the great Egoyan.
Then I saw it again two weeks later and loved it, perhaps because I knew what I was getting and was able to enjoy the performances, especially Moore’s, much more. While it might not match Egoyan’s best, it is still leagues beyond most movies in terms of the seriousness with which it treats a woman’s mid-life crisis.
I swear, the people marketing this have no fucking idea what they’re doing.
It’s basically an “comfortably-wealthy older women have problems, too!” piece, which is usually a good money bet, that can easily be cut to resemble an “evil younger woman” thiller – also a good bet – that just HAPPENS to have a seriously awe-inspiring girl-on-girl setpiece right in the damn middle so no one’s husband/boyfriend/whatever will be dissapointed.
There should be TWO trailers running for this in near-constant rotation: The “40-something lady has fantastic shoes, also intrigue” version on WE, Lifetime and network primetime, and the “see Needy’s rack” version on Spike, G4, whatever.
LexG, why not just buy your tickets online? That’s how I get around the shame.
Well, part of how I get rid of the shame.
Bowen: Nah, I dug Blueberry Nights more than Ashes. Though maybe my not having seen the original version of the latter film ha something to do with it. I view it more as a proto-CTHD than anything else. At least I’m not alone on being ok with it, as a guy I knew who’s a huge WKW nut[recorded a music video he shot] was ambivalent on Ashes.
As for me, I think I used to remember liking Cry-Baby more than the original Hairspray, when I was a kid, ‘cus Hairspray felt like something shot for tv, and I always thought Depp seemed like a cooler leading man at the time. But when I saw the two at the New Bev a while back, I noticed the former really didn’t age well, in terms of good performances. Hairspray still looks low-budget, but Hairspray has a better supporting cast. Also, Robocop 2 practically gave me nightmares when I was a kid, so I’m wondering if it would still have that kind of impact now.
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