'Rediculous' Customer & Critic Reviews

[cdnchris]

I know. I liked it better when I didn't realize how many idiots were out there. But at the same time I wouldn't learn new things, like the fact there is a language called Foreign. I also wouldn't learn new words like gayity.

[puxzkkx]

I think my favourite is the assumption that Philip Glass was alive and working in 1929.

[warren oates]

The worst thing about these one-star reviews is how generically similar they sound, mostly boiling down to a stance Matt was just describing in another thread, where the viewer's not responsible for his/her own engagement with the work: "I'm bored watching this movie! It's the movie's fault! This movie sucks!"

[feihong]

Very much in the spirit of this thread, one-star IMDB reviews of Sight and Sound's new top 10 films.

There's something very beautiful in this, from the review of Vertigo:

"This movie goes on forever and never stops ever until it ends."

When I think of my favorite films, I want to experience them exactly this way.

[MichaelB]

im tired of really old movies getting the best ratings.. same thing on Rotten tomatoes, 60% of the top 100 are before 1960s. Boring plots, stiff, over-acted dialogue, and of course zero effects (i dont care that they didnt have the tech.. why is that my problem?).

The comparative absence of "the tech" is why I'm usually more impressed by the likes of Sherlock Jr. and King Kong (and indeed Black Narcissus, an effects-heavy movie that doesn't remotely feel like one) than I am by CGI-fests.

[Le Samouraï]

Very much in the spirit of this thread, one-star IMDB reviews of Sight and Sound's new top 10 films.

I love it!

Someone needed to tell the truth about this movie

There always seem to be this air of conspiracy, like everyone is in on it and the posters of one star reviews are the only one bold enough to finally speak out what everybody knows to be true but are too conformist to admit.

[knives]

It effects the narrative ans experience of the film. Watching a film is a cumulative experience and the way viewing the film affects the viewer should be of a concern. In fact many great film makers toy with that as the point of the film (i.e. Rear Window). In a film like the Bat films immersion is part of the point. We are not intended to distantly go this is a film. It is a romantic story of heroes so the film coming to a complete halt and losing its momentum the audience becomes distanced and the film no longer has intimacy. Yes it does not affect the themes and visual aesthetic, but if you are going to be telling a story that story being well constructed should be a concern. This isn't too dissimilar to what was discussed over in the Bill Morrison thread over how his shorts are more successful than his features.

[zedz]

Someone needed to tell the truth about this movie

There always seem to be this air of conspiracy, like everyone is in on it and the posters of one star reviews are the only one bold enough to finally speak out what everybody knows to be true but are too conformist to admit.

Sometimes the conspiracy is that everybody else is smarter than you.

[dwk]

guess who had a little meltdown at the HTF

"While I don't think it is perfect Criterion quality, it is a great presentation of this interesting film that is a must buy for fans."
--
What perfect Criterion quality? Have you seen their release of THE 39 STEPS? Why does everyone kiss their asses so much. I own 5 or 6 Criterion releases that were subpar and didn't come close to some of the stuff released from the major studios.

"You also have to keep in mind they can't always work miracles with the materials they have to work with. No one could make Stagecoach look any better than they did, but it's still greatly damaged and marked."
--
That's bull crap. If Olive or another Indy had released the same version, you would've said "why don't you give this classic to Criterion, so we can finally see a pristine version of the film". A couple of the John Wayne serials that Olive has released looks better than the Criterion Stagecoach. Let's think about which one is more obscure, a legendary western directed by John Ford or 60 minute serials from 1938 and 1939. All I'm saying is let's be fair and stop drinking the Criterion punch.

I'm sorry, but I don't own hundreds of Criterion titles, I own about twenty or so and about 20% of them are subpar. And I don't think Olive has a worst track record.

....Also, they've began to scrape the bottom of the barrel a bit. They used to have a secondary label (Home Vision) which released the lesser titles. But now LAST DAYS OF DISCO is getting a criterion treatment, what's next? Deuce Bigalow: Male gigolo.

[matrixschmatrix]

I give up. Who is it?

[dwk]

misterlime, who lasted all of 8 posts here before storming off like a spoiled child taking his ball home. Frankly, after his act here, I'm surprised it took him this long to melt down at the HTF.

[matrixschmatrix]

Oh, geez. I hope for Olive's sake that guy isn't actually Tarzi, though the combination of defensiveness and peevishness sounds familiar.

[MichaelB]

I really hope it isn't Tarzi, or indeed anyone actually employed by Olive - sockpuppeting in order to badmouth a rival label is a terrible idea for all sorts of reasons. Not least because it taints your own label by association.

[dwk]

Although he says he doesn't work for them, he clearly has some connection to Olive. Even if he doesn't actually draw a paycheck from them, he seems to be acting as a sort of "Jon Mulvaney" for the company and they'd be wise to tell him to tone it down and not speak about other labels.

[zedz]

"You also have to keep in mind they can't always work miracles with the materials they have to work with. No one could make Stagecoach look any better than they did, but it's still greatly damaged and marked."
--
That's bull crap. If Olive or another Indy had released the same version, you would've said "why don't you give this classic to Criterion, so we can finally see a pristine version of the film". A couple of the John Wayne serials that Olive has released looks better than the Criterion Stagecoach. Let's think about which one is more obscure, a legendary western directed by John Ford or 60 minute serials from 1938 and 1939. All I'm saying is let's be fair and stop drinking the Criterion punch.

Well, duh. The very fact that Stagecoach was so popular, with multiple prints being made over decades, in one of the likely reasons that the elements are in poor condition. If they could find elements for an obscure serial from the same period, the chances are nobody's touched them for seventy years. Same thing if they're working from projection prints: a film that was shown only a few times decades ago is likely to be in much better condition than one which has been regularly revived over the the same period.

[cdnchris]

Although he says he doesn't work for them, he clearly has some connection to Olive. Even if he doesn't actually draw a paycheck from them, he seems to be acting as a sort of "Jon Mulvaney" for the company and they'd be wise to tell him to tone it down and not speak about other labels.

Maybe I overstepped some boundary but I e-mailed them a while ago asking about this user and his abusive attitude that was turning off potential customers on this forum and others, directing them to the posts. They replied saying they have no idea who this person is and that they don't work for Olive.

[dwk]

Then they should get someone over to the HTF to give an official voice to the company, because Mr. Lime certainly leads people to believe that he, at the very least, knows the people running Olive. (This kind of reminds me of what happened at the Blu-ray.com forums. For years, they had an "insider" that went by the name Penton-man that led people to believe that he worked at Sony until Grover Crisp pointed out he did not work at Sony. Of course, all this drama was lost when the Blu-ray forums went down.)

[David M.]

Maybe not the most professional way of putting it, but the guy does have a point. People often give releases unwarranted praise because of the name of the label. I've seen it happen plenty times.

I've not seen the release in question though.

Edit: just had a look at the screen caps of the Criterion BD and read about the process involved. Not a stunner, but way, way better than I thought it would look given what they had.

[matrixschmatrix]

The thing misterlime was flipping out about was that someone referred to Criterion as being essentially a gold standard for quality in home video, which I would have thought a fairly uncontroversial idea. Obviously Criterion puts out subpar releases, and sometimes they put out a solid release which someone else betters, but by and large their reputation is totally justified- and I don't remember people holding back on criticisms of L'Enfance Neu when Criterion actually did kind of drop the ball on it.

[dwk]

David, you are right that sometimes some labels get a pass, but I think we are all enjoying/baffled by that person's weird, overprotective attitude towards Olive films (Look at his 8 posts in the Olive films thread, where the slightest criticism set him off)

[MichaelB]

Well, duh. The very fact that Stagecoach was so popular, with multiple prints being made over decades, in one of the likely reasons that the elements are in poor condition. If they could find elements for an obscure serial from the same period, the chances are nobody's touched them for seventy years. Same thing if they're working from projection prints: a film that was shown only a few times decades ago is likely to be in much better condition than one which has been regularly revived over the the same period.

Indeed. Which is why Night Mail looks worse than many other contemporaneous GPO titles even after extensive restoration that the others often didn't get, why most BFI Flipside releases look astonishing when set against far better known titles from the same period, and so on for countless more examples.

Mind you, that claim does rather suggest that misterlime doesn't actually work for a DVD/BD distributor, as this is really elementary stuff.

[Gregory]

IMDb reviewer on The Human Condition part III:

...Don't bother watching if you are too scared to attempt the entire 10 hours in one sitting. It's worth it and then some. The actor playing Kaji was terrific and each part turns out better than the last (everything really, the acting/camera work... all the bells and whistles just sound better the further in you get). It definitely struck me as something Adolfas Mekas would totally dig, which says a lot. This is a must see. If you decide to bring the wife and kids (or husband and mother-in-law or what- have-you) just be warned: this movie involves a fair amount of human suffering, on and off the screen.

Second bolded portion explained by the first, I suppose.

[Michael Kerpan]

No earthly reason to watch Kobayashi's (actually) 6-film series (albeit conventionally bundled as 3 films) in one sitting. Where did this guy get such an idea? Might as well say no reason to read Tolkien's Lord of the Rings unless you can read it in one sitting.

[knives]

Poe would have argued that the case.

[The Narrator Returns]

This Amazon reviewer isn't going to see Rosemary's Baby for a very specific reason:

I would not spend a dime on anything that Roman Polanski the child molester is involved with. Does anyone remember that he drugged a teenager and raped her many years ago and then fled the country like the coward he is. If you have any children you should feel the same. These monsters masquerading as "artists" should never be forgiven. Of course he roams around freely in Europe with the other trash in the film industry. Strangely enough the victim has forgiven him but a message must be sent that hideous acts like the one Polanski bestowed upon his victim must never be forgiven. He is scum of the lowest nature, a devil in an intellectual abyss of misguided power that believes he is better than any woman could ever be.