How can a movie from 1971 include a "nod" to a movie from 1979?a cretin wrote:as well as a nod to Conrad's Heart of Darkness (and, in turn, Apocalypse Now)
On top of a lot of other problems with the review, that's just bad prose.
But it would make much more grammatical sense to use the phrase "by extension" rather than "in turn." My point isn't that I don't know what he's talking about; it's that this reviewer just isn't a particularly good writer.MichaelB wrote:To be fair, the phrase "in turn" makes it clear that the nod is to the novel, not the film.tryavna wrote:How can a movie from 1971 include a "nod" to a movie from 1979?
Or a particularly conscientious reviewer - if I'd been sent a disc without a menu, I'd make a point of asking the distributor whether this was intentional. Especially if it's a high-quality label like MoC.tryavna wrote:But it would make much more grammatical sense to use the phrase "by extension" rather than "in turn." My point isn't that I don't know what he's talking about; it's that this reviewer just isn't a particularly good writer.
Would you care to give illustrated reasons for taking such an extreme position, bearing in mind that the worst reviewers on the internet barely know how to string a sentence together?Donald Brown wrote:He's one of the very worst reviewers on the internet.
What a strange thing to say... He strikes me as a perfectly decent reviewer, I agree with him most of the time and sometimes not (if I remember correctly he didn't like Cache). What I will say in his defence -not that his (re)views need any defending- is that he shows autonomous thought which is more than I can say for so many people on this forum.Titus wrote:he presents his reviews as authoritative when they're, usually, anything but...
...which is precisely why I read his reviews. And, more to the point, why I personally asked him to review the Quay Brothers and Svankmajer DVDs, even though I knew he wasn't an existing fan (if I remember rightly, he'd seen The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes and Little Otik, but none of the shorts). There were plenty of gushing reviews of both those sets, but Noel's pieces were rather more thorough and rigorous, which is why they rank among my favourites.Don Lope de Aguirre wrote:He strikes me as a perfectly decent reviewer, I agree with him most of the time and sometimes not (if I remember correctly he didn't like Cache). What I will say in his defence -not that his (re)views need any defending- is that he shows autonomous thought which is more than I can say for so many people on this forum.
Wow! I'm just impressed that so many people have actually read Finnegans Wake. I like Joyce's other stuff, but simply can't make it through more than a few pages of FW.Tommaso wrote:Well, honestly, I'd also not compare IE to FW, and would agree with Noel here if he writes that "Joyce's work is about much more than stream-of-consciousness and impenetrability, which is about the only level on which Inland Empire is comparable to it."Titus wrote: but he presents his reviews as authoritative when they're usually anything but (in response to another DVDTimes reviewer's suggestion that INLAND EMPIRE shared similarities with FINNEGANS WAKE, he declaratively stated otherwise, emphasizing the complexity of Joyce's work and the superficiality of Lynch's -- declarations made, again, without proper (or any) support.
Well, in my case it had to do with a professional affair at first, but actually: I simply love it, and reading through a few pages only isn't a bad approach, because every part of the book represents the whole. Don't try to understand it, and read it aloud. As Joyce said: "it is pure music." And "It is meant to make you laugh." And it's certainly his funniest book.tryavna wrote:Wow! I'm just impressed that so many people have actually read Finnegans Wake. I like Joyce's other stuff, but simply can't make it through more than a few pages of FW.
Perhaps I'll get to it eventually. I've just reached a point now where, due to time constraints, I have to decide within the matter of a few pages whether or not a book is "worth" finishing. My impression of it has always been about the same as, say, Beckett's trilogy of short novels: that it's more interesting as an idea than as an actual reading experience.Tommaso wrote:Well, in my case it had to do with a professional affair at first, but actually: I simply love it, and reading through a few pages only isn't a bad approach, because every part of the book represents the whole. Don't try to understand it, and read it aloud. As Joyce said: "it is pure music." And "It is meant to make you laugh." And it's certainly his funniest book.tryavna wrote:Wow! I'm just impressed that so many people have actually read Finnegans Wake. I like Joyce's other stuff, but simply can't make it through more than a few pages of FW.
FWIW, I was referencing a direct quote by Shinoda or Miyagawa (I can't remember which, but I can check my notes if need be) in an interview they gave Donlad Richie for the Japan Times on the set of the film. Obviously, on set intentions and final prints do not always synchronize, but much of the film is rendered in desaturated blue-grey-browns, with red used quite conspicuously and intentionally (the brothel, the priest's robe, etc), just as most of the film is composed of long shots with close-ups used for rare emphasis.Steven H wrote:Of course Doug's comments are in regard to the DVD, so its interesting that Neil is using that to compare.
Thanks for chiming in and clearing that up. That sounds like it would be a pretty interesting interview to read.Doug Cummings wrote:FWIW, I was referencing a direct quote by Shinoda or Miyagawa (I can't remember which, but I can check my notes if need be) in an interview they gave Donlad Richie for the Japan Times on the set of the film.