Wanted: Decent movie critic
I wonder how lame the movie reviews in Encore Magazine can get. Have you even made it through a piece by Anghus Houvouras? This week, for example, is supposedly devoted to Will Farrell’s new flick, Step Brothers. You’d never know it, though, because Fungus has keyboard diarrhea for seven paragraphs and a review of the movie for three. Worse, he seriously rates Anchorman as the best comedy OF ALL TIME.
But I guess that’s part of his schtick, to be controversial, and to make the column all about him instead of the films he’s reviewing. The online version tallies the number of people who have read the review. When I visited the count was 127. I bet 100 read the first paragraph and moved on. Too bad they can’t track that.
I like this local movie critic
http://carolinabeachtodaymoviereviews.blogspot.com/
Reply
Yeah, that guy is not a good writer. I’ve had similar adverse reactions, Ranald. It’s too bad. He’s going for a tone — pop, anti-arthouse, clever, slacker-narcissist — that he doesn’t have the chops for.
Ryan, I’ve been enoying Carolina Beach Today for movie reviews and other stuff. Thanks!
Reply
Umm yeah… tone and rhetoric aside, AH gave “Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” 3 1/2 stars…. 3 1/2 starts, man… A buddy and I walked out after 30 mins, and regardless of my movie knowledge (which is ample), I’ve NEVER seen anything that was worth me wasting $8.50.
Reply
….But then again, Ryan: “I love the first Mummy” (from the carolina beach today movie reviews). What? The Mummy movie?? The Brendan Fraser thing?
I don’t care what you say about “farcical elements” or “tropes” or “escapism” or what have you, that thing was completely bad, and just an insult to moviegoers.
Reply
I loved the first Mummy too — the one with Boris Karloff (1932). Also Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955) is good, and probably funnier than Anchorman.
Reply
Agreed Ranald, I’m pretty much a sucker for anything with Abbott and Costello. They made the perfect morning movie to go with coffee.
Ian, I’m not a big fan of B. Fraser. I’ve only seen the first Mummy from 1999 and I thought it was an OK movie. Of course when I do see one of his movies, my expectations are in check before I hit the play button.
Reply
A friend of ours was in some kind of celebrity volleyball charity with Brendan Fraser a million years ago and got into a chest-shoving match with him, said he was a complete dick.
I guess the guy suffers inside so much for his genius that he can’t help taking it out on little guys every now and again. :-/
Reply
i love your grove project idea . . . i grew up in wilmington, lived in ny for over 20 yrs, just moved back last year, and fantasized more than a few times about how awesome a community type blog would be. and your web design feels good too. glad you found me on twitter
also, i’m a hardcore movie addict. seriously. ridiculously so. i love movies. love them love them love them. i see one or two in the theaters each week (all hail the matinee), and then rent 5-10 dvds a week (yay for blockbusters store/mail package
. if you’re still looking for a movie critic, i’d be down for it. i watch all types of movies (except for horror. just can’t stomach it). to check out my writing style, take a look at my blog, though i’ve got a lot of grief issues going on lately, and the best place to get a feel for how i write is to look at the “pages” section and check out “Greatest Hits”.
Reply
Would love to have you contribute, Kate! But I think the post was more a lament about the general state of movie criticism in the area (though I like Ben Steelman’s plenty) than it was a request for reviews from Grove Project proper. Actually, it was specific — about Encore magazine’s movie reviewer. In any case, it was a a reader’s lament and not a publisher’s.
We try as much as possible to write about things happening here, in our area. What about our great local art-house film series, Cinematique? Are you a frequenter? Would love to have reviews and/or a piece about that, and perhaps enjoy vicariously what I haven’t in a long time enjoyed actually. Thanks -ed.
Reply
Encore movie reviews are getting as convoluted as a Sarah Palin interview. Here are a few funnies from the most recent issue:
In a review of Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, muddled critic Anghus states, “This is just a corpse of a film, dead on a arrival with few signs of life.” Um, which is it? Dead or alive?
In a review of Tell No One on the very next page, he writes, “Before her husband can figure out what is going on, he is beaten and wakes up unconscious …” This reminds me of a hilarious exchange in Scary Movie 3:
Mahalik: I heard Jamal from 90th street watched that tape last week and this mornin’ he woke up dead!
CJ: How the hell do you wake up dead?
Mahalik: Cause’ you’re alive when you go to sleep.
CJ: So you’re telling me you can go to bed dead and wake up alive?
Mahalik: You can’t go to bed dead! That shit would’ve been redundant.
CJ: No it would’nt cause’ you can go to bed and not be dead, and you can die and not be in the bed.
Mahalik: But you are in the bed. That’s how you wake up dead in the first place fool!
CJ: Damn! That’s some quantum shit right there man! You should be teaching classes!
Reply
What could be worse than an Anghus review? How about sitting through a slasher flick he actually produced? From the latest Encore:
“For me to even talk in detail about my personal taste on the horror film feels almost redundant. There is no genre of film with which I’m more familiar. I can vividly remember watching them on late-night television in the days before cable (yes, I’m that old). I am able to recall the spine-tingling sensations that washed over me the first time I watched Night of the Living Dead. They have been the steadiest staple of my cinematic diet. I’ve even written and produced a few of these films with mixed results.”
Forget the bungling first sentence (was it written by Sarah Palin?) I wonder what his definition of “mixed results” is. Once again, a self-centered review has failed to get this reader past the first paragraph.
Reply
Is there an RSS feed I can sign up to to get updates?
Reply
Joel – Append ‘RSS’ to the site or to any category to get the feeds:
http://groveproject.org/rss
http://groveproject.org/category/essays/rss
etc.
Reply
Hey nerds.
I love good constructive criticism, but what i loathe is a bunch of armchair writers grousing because they think they could be doing a better job.
Reply
I love “armchair” here, Anghus…For this nerd, that’s a musty “professional” distinction, and doesn’t jibe with your sometimes indignant, anti-cineaste pop gore enthusiasms.
I don’t have the CVs of the folks who write for the Grove Project or discuss things here, but at least a few are or have been professional writers, writing teachers.
Reply
Anghus is a good guy…really. Yeah, I’m not a big fan of his reviews…sometimes his forced cynicism is grating (well, lots of the time, actually!) and it certainly gets in the way of his better intentions, but beyond that he’s a genuinely funny guy who has worked very hard to achieve his own dreams. A bit self-important? Certainly. Occasionally muddled? Absolutely. Those are pretty minor quibbles, however. Anghus is someone that I’ve been privileged to call “friend” for most of my life. Yeah, he can piss me off to no end, but I’m damned proud of him. Keep trying, man.
Reply
Ranald Reply:
August 9th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Mrs. Houvouras, is that you?
Reply
Justice McGee Reply:
August 9th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Good one! No, man. Just somebody who’s been a friend of his for a long time. His reviews do annoy me to death, but he’s a good dude. He took a turn for the disillusioned sometime early-90s and I guess he’s happy there…oxymoronic, I guess!
Actually, Mrs. H is someone I’ve rarely seen unsmiling…odd how that seems to work.
By the way, your writing style is pretty funny. “Fungus” did crack me up.
JM
Reply
Ranald Reply:
August 10th, 2009 at 9:05 am
Justice: You’re a loyal friend and your name seems tres appropriate. Thanks for your honest contributions to our not-always-so-humble blog.
Well put, Justice McGree. Appreciate the personal here. -ed.
Reply