4B - Thursday, March 29, 2007
MACDONALD
From page 1B
talking about," she petulantly
grumbles, and like most naysayers
hasn't the sense to realize that her
complaints join rather than refute
the critical chorus.
Everyone's a critic; even an
afternoon movie with friends will
devolve into table talk over the fine
points of its action sequence long
after those hard-rock accompanied
credits. But soon those post-movie
ruminations simply aren't suffi-
cient, and you have to call in some
back-up for additional insight.
This, of course, is the real answer
to that insistent critics-don't-get-
it public sentiment - you have to
comb through critic-dom for the
right aficionado to serve as guide.
Don't ever buy into the plastered-
smile, two-thumbs enthusiasm. Any
pre-June review declaring "best
film of the year!" is a bald-faced lie
and should be avoided like a Kate
Hudson comedy. Likewise "No. 1
Movie in America!" - when a dis-
tinction has quite recently gone to a
cinematic delight as unparalleled as
"Wild Hogs," it's no longer an excla-
mation-point-worthy distinction.
Rather, wander through criti-
cism-pooling sites like rottentoma-
toes.com and metacritic.com and
skim for the bread-and-butter of
commoner-friendly criticism: the
observational gem. Take a film like
"Titanic," one of the most famous
movies of our generation, world-
wide fan favorite and source of con-
siderable critical divide. Whether
or notyou happen to get misty-eyed
at the thought of Rose never letting

{the b-side}

The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

go, "Titanic" is textbook Hollywood
blockbuster to the nth degree: shiny,
grand and squeaky clean. But how
many moviegoers filed out of the
theater with Celine Dion swelling
behind them and thought to com-
mend director James Cameron on
his camerawork's "lack of logistical
confusion"?
I can tell you how many - none,
and not just because they were
numbed into momentary psychosis
by the glossy banality of that stupid
heart going on. It's simply the sort
of observation which you need a
trained eye (inthis case, that of New
York Times critic Janet Maslin)
to pick out, articulate and make
you appreciate. Ah, yes, you think
- true. When the Chicago Reader's
Jonathan Rosenbaum gamely rec-
ognizes that "there's something
faintly ridiculous about a $200-mil-
lion movie that argues on behalf of
true love over wealth," you can only
enjoy - ah, yes, true.
Then there are critics who seem
so soured on cinema that their
choice of occupation could only be
evidence of masochism. Stepha-
nie Zacharek's salon.com review of
"Titanic's" big, sloppy kiss of Holly-
wood overload is grotesquely cyni-
cal, sucking the movie dry of even
the slightest bombastic thrill. Zach-
arek's opening paragraph sniffs that
Cameron's underwater photogra-
phy lacks the lyrical beauty of a1994
A&E documentary. Puh-lease. The
stench of that snobbery is so palpa-
ble you can only turn up your own
nose.
Everyone's a critic; everyone
can find something to nitpick and
disparage. But an evaluation is just
cold, hard analytics without a little

loving to substantiate it. A good crit-
ic brings history to table, appreciat-
ing the movies as a business and a
process as much as a pastime. So for
every Zacharek decrying unapolo-
getically commercial entertain-
ment like "Titanic" as "ham-fisted,"
there's someone like New Yorker
critic Anthony Lane enjoying it pre-
cisely because it "heads straight for
the guts."
Lane wields a turn of phrase as
light and sharp as any rapier, and
his darting, dry-wit criticism takes
quick stabs rather than expressive
scythe-style swipes. Like Zacharek,
he doesn't let the ridiculous uber-
nobility of "Titanic's" steerage-rank
poor people run unchecked. But
when Lane refers to the film's nefar-
ious bad guy as a villain straight out
of a melodramatic stage play, he
considers the characterization to be
a device and not a stumbling block.
Yes, "Titanic" draws a very discern-
able line between the Good charac-
ters and the Bad, but that's all part
of the film's thoroughly respectable,
"old-fashioned" feeling.
It's critical breakdown on a big-
ger-picture level. Agree or dis-
agree, criticism is an opportunity
to reformulate the rules of artistic
engagement and consider a piece
of work from an alternate plane,
encouraging overlooked connec-
tions and maybe even some that are
only possibly there. "Titanic's" lov-
ers, as Lane observes, are doomed,
so it seems poetic to him that "the
ship, in a touching display of erotic
sympathy, rears up on end and goes
down." A stretch, yes, but ah - true.
Now there's an image even Celine
in her most unbridled of crescendos
couldn't hope to numb.

KIVEL
From page 1B
tions, most notably Rolling Stone,
sprang forth to criticize and docu-
ment rock music asa legitimate art
form. The creative fertility of the
1960s can now be looked at as an
anomaly, a then-renaissance for
pop music that has yet to see an
equal in the years that followed.
But its principles for criticism
still define the way in which our
modern publications operate and
approach aesthetics.
As a result of the Internet, mod-
ern criticism is at its most diffuse
- any kid with a favorite band
and a computer can publish his
opinions to the rest of the world.
I would argue that this isn't true
rock criticism at all, but the vague
opinions of a select number of vain
music fans. Blogs are filled with
overtly subjective analyses, draw-
ing from a shallow knowledge of
music, but written in a way that
implies authority. Blogs provide
the modern consumer with the
least amount of useful informa-
tion. Posts that attempt to tackle
the release of new music usually
read like fan letters, heaping
praise upon a band's achievements
without any true examination of
the cultural context or musical
significance of the record - far

from the pantheon of great rock
journalism.
The middle ground in the hier-
archy of good music criticism can
be found in the various popular
print (Rolling Stone, Mojo) and
Web-based (Pitchfork, Stylus,
AMG) music magazines. Many
of the writers who contribute to
these various sources are students
of popular music, whose intimate
knowledge of the form and its his-
tory are evident in their thought-
ful approaches to the critique of
an album. Dominique Leone and
Amanda Petrusich both write for
the oft-maligned pitchforkmedia.
com and their work is among the
best of this new breed of online
publication. The reviews they
compose are precise in the musical
reference points they mention and
engaging in their vivid, emotional
prose. The problems that come
with being a popular publication
are the inherent biases which
creep into the reviewing process
stemming from the influence a
single reviewer may yield on an
album's sales figures. The grading
systems employed by many of the
popular media outlets do nothing
but marginalize the overall quali-
ty of the criticism, lending an easy
outlet for those who don't care to
read the actual written review.
The condescending assignment of
a number rating or letter grade to

a piece of art completely under-
mines the temporal qualities of
music. Some albums take months
or years of listening to fully reveal
their meanings and redeeming
qualities, especially when the
music is challenging (Song Cycle
by Van Dyke Parks) or unassum-
ing (Pink Moon by Nick Drake).
Niche publications like the
now-defunct Arthur magazine or
the U.K.-based Wire give read-
ers criticism that is distilled and
relatively pure in its analyses. The
small readership of such publica-
tions allows writers to operate in
an almost-vacuum in which public
expectation is less of an influence
and rating systems are nonexis-
tent.
In my opinion, Wire is the
most impressive music magazine
in today's market and every ele-
ment of its presentation reflects
an obsessive devotion to music. 4
The album reviews are short in
length and direct, giving each art-
ist a respectful critique without
hyperbole.
So it's ultimately the small-
market publications that provide
us with the best music criticism. 6
They're produced by special-
ists and don't bend to the whims
of popular society. These critics
understand the importance of the
album and approach each as a sin-
gular piece of art.


o '
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BLOOMER
From page 1B
The reviews, appropriately titled
"There will be blood," got linked
somewhere on the Web and sud-
denly got thousands of hits, and
sure enough, most readers were not
exactly appreciative of my take. To
be fair, most of the responses were
civil and reasoned. (My favorite:
"I know Sparta. And you sir are no
Spartan.") People loved this movie
and were unhappy I didn't.
Yet there was one point buried in
the debate that I totally resent. It's
an argument against criticism that
is always brought up when a critic
slams a popular work, and this time
it was even echoed in my colleague's
review: "300"wasnotmade for crit-
ics, my detractors reasoned. It was
made for the fans. Critics were
never going to like it, so why can't
they just let audiences have their
fun and stop trying to criticize a
movie for something it was never
going to be?
Thisresponse comesupconstant-
ly, and itspansmediums -we're not
just talking about film here but also
popular music and escapist televi-
sion. Last July, A.O. Scott, the chief
film critic for the New York Times,
wrote of the backlash to his negative
review of "Pirates of the Caribbean:
DeadMan'sChest"thatatthe end of
the day, professional film critics are

in this business for viewers like you.
I think he was right, but he didn'tgo
quite far enough.
Too often when I try to discuss
a movie, people tell me they "don't
look at movies that way." What
way, I ask. "You know, I don't look
for them to be deep." These days
it's a chore to get people to watch
anything other than "Office Space"
and "Fight Club" with me because
they're afraid I'm going to have an
opinion.
Guess what? I don't have superior
training to you. I just grew up on
movies and love to talk about them.
There is nothing better than going
to a movie Friday night, and I'm not
just talking about "The Queen" and
"The Lives of Others." I lined up for
"300" and "Night at the Museum"
like everyone else, and whatever
my opinion of the movies, I was just
happy to be part of the experience.
Why do I write reviews, then?
It's true that criticism of all enter-
tainments is inherently intended
to guide public perception of them;
a star rating, for example, exists
to give you a relative scale of how
much we think you should seek out
whatever is in review. But that's not
why I write them.
For me reviews are, or should
be, the beginning of a discussion.
They do exist to inform your expe-
rience, but they also serve to give
an alternate perspective. When I
write a negative review,I'm not try-

ing to keep you from forming your
own. I've noticed that people don't
respond when they agree, they
respond when they disagree, and
usually they don't take my opinion
to task so much as tell me to shut
up. I invite response and argument
- that's why I write. Working at
a newspaper gives some people a
more prominent soapbox to offer
opinions than alivingroomon aSat-
urday night, but that hardly means
you can't (shouldn't) respond. If no
one else listens, Iwill.
This is why critics like Roger
Ebert are so popular - he has a
column he devotes entirely to talk-
ing with his readers. A.O. Scott
has tried to curb his distance with
his readers by reviewing films that
weren't screened for critics on Sat-
urdays, a task normally reserved
for third-tier writers. His review of
"Epic Movie" earlier this year was
grateful and amused; he regarded
the movie as he imagined an aver-
age reader might, and it showed.
On the Internet there are countless
"critics," many self-appointed fans,
who approach entertainment from
all different angles. You can find at
least one who suits you.
My plea: The next time you open
the Daily and are about to flip past
another one-star review, stop end
give it a shot. There is a person (aid,
yes, a fan) behind it, and I bet you
can relate to him or her more than
you think.

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