Over the years, I’ve found that I generally agree with overall critic consensus. I stress “generally” because there are undoubtedly exceptions, of course, but usually a quick glance over at a movie’s score over at Rotten Tomatoes can give me an idea if its worth catching in theatres or not if I can’t decide.
One of those major exceptions was 2006′s The Good Shepherd, a movie that was blasted by critics, but one that I went and saw opening day anyway. The film mesmerized me, a movie that I felt was teetering on the tot of being brilliant. I guess I could understand why the general public didn’t eat it up – it was almost three hours and slowly paced and Matt Damon’s Edward Wilson was a brutally uncharming and maybe even unlikable character – but it seemed like a movie that critics would rave about (only 56% of mainstream critics gave it the thumbs up). If nothing else, the movie was risky and ambitious and felt like it was a film straight out of the 1970s.
Robert De Niro doesn’t seem to care what the critics thought though. According to Variety, he said he wants to make two sequels that further explore the life of CIA covert head Edward Wilson, one bringing the story to 1961 through 1989 and the other right up to the present day. He hasn’t begun research yet, but while being in central Europe recently, he’s been thinking quite a bit about the material.
Interestingly enough, unrelated to these sequels, De Niro went on the say he is hoping to collaborate with Martin Scorsese at least two more times, because they have always had so much fun. In fact, he’s already working on his next project with Scorsese and it should be ready by next year – but he won’t say anymore.
So – is anybody else on board for some sequels to The Good Shepherd? Is it possible that he could win critics and viewers over with further movies now that the character is established? What about his comments about already working on a film with Scorsese? Is this Silence, about the Jesuit priests in Japan, or perhaps the Teddy Roosevelt biopic? Hmm…
Funny, as I mentioned the other day over at TMB and as Kurt and I have said many times on the Cinecast, RT scores at or around 50% are often times the best ones since they divide audiences and critics because they are different and take chances.
And yes, I’d be on board for more of this series. It ain’t Bourne and I didn’t exactly love it, but it had a lot of style and close to really breaking through to something great. I think with an already established character, it might be able to make that breakthrough.
BTW, have you seen the made for TV movie, “The Company” starring Chris O’Donnel, Michael Keaton (in a fantastic performance), Alfred Molina and Rory Cochrane? Very good look at the spy world post WWII. It also has the evil brother guy from “Face/Off” and “Laurel Canyon”.
/novel
@ “RT scores at or around 50% are often times the best ones since they divide audiences and critics because they are different and take chances.”
what would an example of that be?
I hate the RT trend. Who cares about consensus or averages when it comes to art?
I enjoyed The Good Shepherd mostly because of the story and performances. As much as I enjoyed it, I didn’t really think De Niro brought too much to the table, and from the bits I remember, it was awfully long – it could have used a bit tightening up. Still, we did find it mildly entertaining and I think I could convince the husband to get on board for a second, if it’s a little shorter.
The good Shepard would have been even better had the cut the Angelina Jolie role out of the film. Boy was she bad in that film.
@Henrik – Rotten Tomatoes is a tool, it doesn’t always have to be used, but it is interesting for quick consensus, it is easy to determine if something is going to have broad appeal, or if it is a trendy kinda thing that people have jumped on. It;s not a judge, and you miss the forest for the trees, RT’s greatest strength is it quick compiling to all the reviews that make up the score. You know, like individual opinions.
Right. I don’t use RT as the be-all/end-all of what movie is good or what movie is better than another (I know people – including bloggers – that do that and I hate it). Still, if a movie in the 90% range, chances are high that it’s a pretty darn good movie and I’m going to like it.
@ Russ (#2) examples of 50%? First off, maybe I should rephrase. Films at 50% aren’t necessarily “the best ones,” what I meant to say is that they are often some of the most interesting and have the most in which to “chew on” so to speak. Not always, but here are a few examples I can think of: Bug, The Happening, Doomsday, Speed Racer, Be Kind Rewind, Funny Games, The Strangers, The Brave One, The Mist, Cassandra’s Dream, Black Snake Moan…
“RT’s greatest strength is it quick compiling to all the reviews that make up the score.”
So howcome nobody ever writes ‘when I went to RT and clicked on to read all of the reviews, these are some of the pivotal quotes that I suspect will define the film’, and always read ’67%, prolly worth checking out’.
It’s a tool Henrik, not the be all and end all, and we are in conversation here, it is something people mention along side of “Hey, Joe, the bollywood aficionado said this one was unusual”. I think you are caught up in the Semantics. Because people use aggregator website it does not mean that they don’t dig deep too.
“Because people use aggregator website it does not mean that they don’t dig deep too.”
That’s not what I mean to say. I mean to say that I hate the RT trend, I don’t hate it when people do something else. When was that not clear?
Just because Transformers was released didn’t mean that There Will Be Blood wasn’t, but I still hate that it was.
I still think Rotten Tomatoes is a very useful tool. I don’t see it as useless and offensive as Transformers
As much as I enjoyed it, I didn’t really think De Niro brought too much to the table, and from the bits I remember, it was awfully long – it could have used a bit tightening up.
You know what though, I think De Niro prefers it the way he did it. Look as some of his other films that are similar in tone and pacing: Once Upon a Time in America, 1900, The Deer Hunter, Heat…
And Henrik, I think you just like to complain about stuff.
Only stuff that annoys me. This is about expressing opinions isn’t it?
For RT to be really useful it would need to be customized… like say you had ten people whose opinions you trusted and you could take them and find a mean average. What do I give a shit about what a mass of faceless entities that I have never bothered to look into before think about a film… as for professional critics they are often the worst offenders of cinematic misunderstanding.
The only thing worse than a professional critic is an unprofessional critic. I don’t think I’d listen to my own reviews, if it wasn’t because the content was always spot on.
Funny, I tend to agree with my reviews as well.
Profession has nothing to do with appreciation, what you need to be is open, capable of thought, capable of being engaged in an experience, unquantifiably human. Thats the credentials… and I trust anybody who goes by those credentials over anyone who thinks to understand a film is to work it out like a rubick’s cube or classify it like a dead artefact.
@rot. I’m pretty sure you can actually do that at RT, if you have an account and select “My Critics”, I’m not sure if it calculates the score or not, but since it is merely a splatter/not splatter ratio, it’s pretty simple enough.
Really the main function for RT is for me to have click-thru links to critics I read regularly. The ‘scores’ are short hand in conversation, but the personal value I derive (and why I like) such a site, is because there is so much there at my grasp. Of course I have other folks I read that aren’t in RT, but RT is a ‘engligh language’ storehouse for me. It is often very handy.
By understanding how one film connects to other films, and how it turns over concepts and emotions and feelings, you can often say things about a thing by comparing it to other things.
That isn’t classifying it as per ‘dead artifacts’ but coming to grips with the vagaries of communication.
You have a really big chin in your gravatar.
Well, If Chins Could Kill….
Yea, we all want to be Bruce.
I think the film is a dead artefact. If you are reviewing the film, you owe it to yourself and your audience to concern yourself with the film on its own terms.
What you’re talking about is the experience of watching the film. The best critics (some would say human beings) are able to differentiate their emotions and personal investments from the objective truth presented. If you’re writing for an audience, you can’t expect them to care that your mother just died of cancer and that’s why you gave Philadelphia a perfect score.
That’s why it is absolutely pivotal to see a film twice. Once to see what they do, and twice to see how they do it. Of course with 99,7% of films, it’s such horrible shit that you can’t help but see how they do it on the first viewing. Those films, I would not waste my time on.
See I want to know that your response to Philadelphia is because your mother died… I do not want the manicured version of why you felt the way you did about the film. Its such bullshit to section off your ‘experience’ and talk about it impersonally as some kind of decoder mechanism at work. That is what I mean by dead artefact, you are doing anthropology instead of self-exploration.
Fuck the audience that doesn’t want to know why I feel the way I feel… this sort of ‘pandering’ dilutes everything that is of importance, it is why films are created not out of a genuine creative spark but because we want to appeal to this faceless mass of people with what we suppose they want.
Kurt: “understanding how one film connects to other films, and how it turns over concepts and emotions and feelings, you can often say things about a thing by comparing it to other things.”
agreed but always make it crystal clear in your head this is a means not an end. the review should not be just a classification and then “I liked it”. If I was trying to express what I found meaningful about an individual’s speech I hopefully would not just list the rhetorical techniques employed, I would hope something of substance also had meaning, that I could relate its meaning to myself… The reviewer needs to exist in the review, that is one half of the value if not more.
On the ‘your own experience note’ – check out my review on THE BABY’S ROOM: http://twitchfilm.net/site/view/fantasia-dispatch-2-la-habitacion-del-nino-review/
We are immersed in a culture of impersonal meaninglessness. Or the offshoot of that, being merely ironical, and masking our having nothing to say. The Victorian ethic is alive and well.
Such great potential for communication, such ability to achieve so much, but as George Carlin noted, mankind compromised so they could have shoes with lights in them.
@Rot
By evoking other films and the feelings on other films (hopefully with some claims on the specifics of those other films without going into crazy detail) can really help understand elements of this film. Connections between aspects of films can actually illuminate things. This is not a classification system, this is a means to find some meanings and context.
(I only defend this so strongly, because I’ve noticed over the year is that is how I often write reviews and whatnot. When I’m watching something, the feelings evoked often remind me of similar feelings generated/experienced from other films.)
@ Rot. Time to watch Huckabees again. Seriously. Get past the hate. There is a film there.
I am planning on revisiting Huckabees because as I had mentioned before I do want to do a Naomi Watts marathon.
I know Cate Blanchett gets all the attention for being the It girl of modern day actresses, but Naomi Watts is up there too… if only for her performance in 21 Grams a movie I love to death.
And also Mulholland Dr. That performance is breathtaking.
Watched Huckabees last night… meh.
“We are immersed in a culture of impersonal meaninglessness.”
Meaninglessness is not a culture. It is a fact of life. As for being impersonal… I like to think I have a personality, even if I don’t schmaltzy shit up with emotional context. Unless you actually address the stuff that gutted you, all it is is wanking off your own tragic existence.
Speaking for me personally, there are increasingly few people in the world whose existence interests me even in the slightest.
But I guess it doesn’t really matter all that much, since I don’t really read reviews. The only reviews I read are usually of films that I myself have reviewed, for comparisons sake. Conversation is where its at. I think that you’re confusing the definitions rot. Like me, in the end, all you’re truly interested in is yourself.
Meaninglessness is a characteristic of the culture I am speaking of, a culture of pastiches, of desiring veneers, the first big post-modern expression. Disneyland Main Street is more than a locale it is an ethos.
and Henrik, you are the last person I would point a finger to as being impersonal… I think you are the confused one. I disagree with you on a lot but I at least admire your lived-in perspective, you are not hiding behind jargon, if anything you are too willing to let your emotions dictate what comes out of your mouth.
I admit to being an egoist and I think that is not a bad thing, we all should be more egoistic, the world would be a better place if we were not all feigning opinions. But I am hardly only interested in myself… that is utterly pointless. I am interested in how I relate to some external thing, or some person… I am part of the equation, not both ends of it.
That’s an interesting perspective. The part of it being an equation. I see the outside world, and artistic expression is the zenith of human accomplishment so far, more as a means to the end of understanding myself, the world, human beings. Art and nature have no purpose if not to active my brain, which is the zenith of the known universe (the human brain that is, not necessarily MY brain, that’s for other people to say).
The lack of meaning you speak of is total in nature.
I don’t think I would use the word egoism the way you do though, I agree with you that the world would be a much better place if people took time to know themselves, and be earnest in their expressions. Is it egoism? As long as you’re honest, undoubtedly people will label you an egoist when that is your honest emotion. I don’t think it’s egoistic to say that you find your own life more worthy of sustaining than lives of others for instance. In the end, the only road to satisfaction is earnesty with ones self. Let me quote a dear friend of mine:
“The great epochs of our life come when we gain the courage to rechristen our evil as what is best in us.” – Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
we share common friends
has he popped up on facebook recently?
It is insane to me how something like egoism can be construed so negatively in our society, that the mere mention of being an egoist brings with it connotations of being someone who doesn’t open doors for others or who lives Dali-esque lifestyles. We need to reclaim the ego… we need to grow up and stop being infants with one another, timid, talking in pretenses and niceties and going through an empty life not dissimilar from what was portrayed in House of Mirth. There is this disconnect with some, they look at Victorian era books and films and think how antiquated that lifestyle is, how bizarre people would go through that much ritual… and really the rituals are still there, they haven’t left, we are still told to ignore our own feelings, still told to think of society over self, scientific discovery over self-preservation (positivism unchanged despite what science uncovers!)… still in Nietzschean terms bound by a slave morality…
and even are good friend Nietzsche, you are instantly outted as a radical, or a poseur for even thinking about his ideas too deeply. Not that I agree with him in everything (he was a fanatic) but he was more right than he was wrong.
“scientific discovery over self-preservation”
Still on this? The race has no purpose, and no argument can be made for its preservation to have any value. Might as well try and use our consciousness to learn what we can. If we die, well, we’re all dead anyway. It’s the ultimate statistic.
‘The Good Shepard’ was a fantastic movie. In my mind it should have been a 2006 nominee for Best Picture and Best Actor. The fact that people couldn’t sit through it without getting bored is a completely separate issue than the quality of the movie in my eyes. Matt Damon’s character is beautifully played and when he hugs his son at the end, I swear you can see him signing his soul away.
I’d love to see one or two more movies following Wilson through various decades.
‘What is does a person profit if they gain the whole world and lose their soul.’