Re: ‘King Arthur’ Movie Falls on Its Sword in Opening Weekend - WSJ

Wed May 24 11:18:42 CDT 2017

Mark - this got buried and I just saw it. Thanks for your reply.
I think I see the point about Kael. Adler might’ve been faulting her for being too accessible( too enjoyable, which is obviously a bad thing when discussing movies). As if it needed to go above most people's heads to be taken seriously. Writing reviews without “theory,” isn’t “serious” criticism? Perhaps, to Adler, it felt like she wasn’t taking things very seriously, but just trying to get people to read her column/book because they knew there would be entendres that everyone would get. I love reading about movies, and I should read some more of Kael’s stuff and try not to see it in the context of Kael/Adler. I have a tendency to criticize people for intellectual snobbery, and then take the side of the snobs when I read their stuff because they put so much more into sounding like, as you said about Renata, scholars delivering lessons. Probably because I’m not that smart and am easily impressed by smart people. There is definitely a weakness there since there can often be more focus on sourcing scholarly than on actually discussing the topic. 

> On May 17, 2017, at 5:53 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I know you are younger than I am because almost everyone is. Thanks for asking and it did  bring up another memory that I may post on the whole Plist. 
> 
> Thanks for this. I did not read it at the time, or browsed and stopped if I encountered it. 
> 
> Did you know Ms. Adler was also a lawyer? This surely is " the case against" in linear argumentative detail. I wish I had time to argue back in detail but
> 
> Did you also know she " competed" with Ms. Kael during Pauline's most popular, influential years
> At the New Yorker? Just sayin', who,knows what she felt and what it means but she was never even close to as influentially popular as Ms Kael. Luck of the venue and more, maybe. 
> 
> That more is that Pauline wrote suggestive prose that was not boring. Renata here finds " no meaning" to many of those remarks, like a tough judge? Well, read some again and see if you don't like and identify with the thrust--to engage, identify, to think with, the movie. It is the way most of us talk about movies, I suggest, even if not like Pauline. 
> 
> Pauline also, always, wrote about us--we, mostly American moviegoers. I can NEVER fault her for 
> Pointing out bourgeois repressions, buried attitudes, still with us today and, if you reread don't you think a little of the Pynchon of GR at least?  Pynchon or any artist who wrote: know thyself? 
> 
> When I read Ms. Adler's so-smart reviews I felt I was being given a lesson by a scholar, a scholar of logic or linear thinking. Despite what she says about Kael, don't all critics, judgements, judge? 
> 
> Cheap hits: using Kael's titles against here...petty and stupid. First, especially before she was famous her publishers probably controlled her titling. I say that I LOST IT AT THE MOVIES is a great title. Everyone smiles knowingly. Just a "single entendre"--as if THAT made it bad, not a double?  I say I always found it double, carrying it around and rereading reviews, even within Adler's own words about Pauline: "IT"--my mind too, my feelings too--her passion --as well as my virginity, which is a nice metaphor for gaining experience with a critic's eyes. 
> 
> Here is the worst judgment in Ms. Adler's piece maybe: that Ms. Kael had no " theory" of film criticism. Best cases against her argue she had too much sometimes, overkilled or occasionally missed because of preconceptions. But, she had a deep set of theoretical perspectives, a pragmatism of mind and eyes, some of which can be lifted right out of Adler's observations. No single " theory" of course, which would ruin the experience of many movies. ( I say this as one when young who was always searching and revolving to different " theories" until I learned ' better, I suggest. ) 
> 
> Perhaps, since I'm not smart enough off the top if at all, I will say she brought to movies the many-mansioned houses of fiction notion of Henry James......she wanted a coherent wholeness on the movie's terms; she wanted a smoothness and naturalness  in the film (and the acting) that was like the best writing---on it's terms. ( if jagged jump-cutting tells the story, then follow and see if it works) 
> 
> And much more than all that. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad
> 
> On May 16, 2017, at 9:32 PM, jesse gooch <jlguuch at gmail.com <mailto:jlguuch at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>> Would like to hear that. I guess I mostly read Renata’s accounts of things.
>> 
>>> On May 16, 2017, at 10:38 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com <mailto:mark.kohut at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Well, I learned from them both and I must tell you I'm a Paulette. 
>>> 
>>> Got a story about that,,,,maybe. 
>>> 
>>> On Tue, May 16, 2017 at 10:13 AM, jesse gooch <jlguuch at gmail.com <mailto:jlguuch at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>> Sounds about right. You might’ve read this one already, but I always like hearing Adler bash Kael.
>>> 
>>> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1980/08/14/the-perils-of-pauline/ <http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1980/08/14/the-perils-of-pauline/>
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> On May 16, 2017, at 7:47 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com <mailto:mark.kohut at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Is it sad or just trivially fascinating in my "private mythology"---oxymoron intended; book allusion---that some Plist posts,
>>>> esp one not about Pynchon but the movies and critical judgmental cowardice brought this story back to me. Half-forgotten because it is like mental wallpaper I never take note of anymore:
>>>> 
>>>> A median kind of Movie Industry guy one told this story: He was at an advance screening of some movie, I probably falsely remember that it was a new movie by Lawrence Kasdan, which was "different' from his last success--a critical and box office success, I think--and he saw Pauline Kael already seated. Not too close but certainly closer than halfway to the screen and just
>>>> a seat or three off dead center---someone had decided publicly this was the best place to sit (but that may be another story I heard and NOT part of this one but take it or leave it). The 'different' movie ended. Some stood, no one said anything....Pauline kept sitting....until she said, "Well, overall I liked it".....and suddenly many borrowing minds--mimic persons-- decided to like it too now that it had been anointed...
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Mon, May 15, 2017 at 5:22 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com <mailto:mark.kohut at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>> Cowardice and borrowing other's opinions gets my vote. I saw it in publishing and book reviewing all the time; was not without sin myself; pretty surely think I saw it in movie reviewing just about always but now more than ever. ( but that's a shakey judgment since I don't follow as I once did. )
>>>> 
>>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>> 
>>>> On May 14, 2017, at 9:34 PM, Robert Mahnke <rpmahnke at gmail.com <mailto:rpmahnke at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> Easier to borrow someone else's opinions than to think for oneself?
>>>>> 
>>>>> It wasn't a great movie but I kinda liked it, and wouldn't have gone but for this thread. Maybe I don't get out enough. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Sent from an iPhone; pls xcse typos. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On May 14, 2017, at 16:55, Laura <laurakelber at gmail.com <mailto:laurakelber at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> Just saw King Arthur today, and while I liked the London gangster elements Ritchie imported from his other movies, they weren't enough to prevent this from being a standard-issue crappy action flick with obvious plot points, ludicrous characters and boring CGI.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> That being said, I don't see any particular reason why the critics should pile on this one and rave about similarly-schlocky action pix du jour. It sure seems like they're getting paid to rave, at times. Is there some secretive Scarsdale Vibe pulling the strings? Or just collective cowardice?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Laura
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE DROID
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Allan Balliett <allan.balliett at gmail.com <mailto:allan.balliett at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I saw a similar story on Friday, which caused me to believe the Hollywood system wants to kill it
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Think of Costner's Water World
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Sun, May 14, 2017 at 4:11 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com <mailto:mark.kohut at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>>> Hurry, it's bleeding to death.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> https://www.wsj.com/articles/king-arthur-movie-falls-on-its-sword-in-opening-weekend-1494786805?mod=e2tw <https://www.wsj.com/articles/king-arthur-movie-falls-on-its-sword-in-opening-weekend-1494786805?mod=e2tw>
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>> 

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