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HI DR. KERMODE,

I HAVE BEEN A BIG FAN OF YOURS EVER SINCE YOUR BRILLIANT INTRO'S TO THE OLD FILM 4 EXTREME MOVIES.

AND I WAS JUST WONDERING WHAT YOU THOUGHT OF TWO MOVIES.

1. THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (THE MUSICAL)

2. HAWKS

THE FIRST ONE I THOUGHT WAS AWFUL, WITH NONE OF THE POWER OF THE ORIGINAL SHOW, AND I THOUGHT THAT GERARD BUTLER WAS A WORSE SINGER THAN PIERCE BROSNAN.

THE SECOND IS ONE OF MY ALL TIME FAV MOVIES.

WHEN I SAW THE UTTERLY TERRIBLE THE BUCKET LIST, IT REMINDED ME SO MUCH OF HAWKS.

I THOUGHT TIMOTHY DALTON AND ANTHONY EDWARDS WERE A LOT BETTER THAN NICHOLSON AND FREEMAN.

WHAT'S YOUR THOUGHTS?

hey - great to hear a shout out to The Yachts. Perhaps you and Dr S could say 'hello' to them and Deaf School.

Funny as always Doctor, but keeping with the topic of horror that you raised, I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts on one of my heroes - the truly magnificent Vincent Price. I particularly love his Edgar Allen Poe adaps with Corman.

And since you mentioned Kim Newman, what is it with horror fans film critics and their... individual approach to hair?

I remember about a month ago, you did a Culture Show special on Local Hero.
This was a film I had never heard of before, or my parents. So I made a note to watch it if it came up on telly and not long after it’s now on Film 4
I watched Local Hero on Film 4 and I was amazed to why it has such a cult following. I found the film very empty and with characters that I couldn’t connect with and couldn’t care less about. I found the humour and story very predictable, constantly waiting for Burt Lancaster’s character to appear.
I thought technically it was impressive with the photography at night and the film connects well with America and Scotland.
I feel that maybe viewers full in love with the village rather than the film itself.
If people are looking for a film to get lost in, that has an interesting setting that might be alien to some people and actually has characters, watch Lost In Translation or Sideways.

Two things:

1. Waffle away! I cannot stand one sentence reviews. It's the fact you take so long to review films (and are so enthusiastic) which is why you're so fun to listen to.
2. Since when was Jonathan Woss a film critic? He doesn't know a thing about movies. Interestingly there's group over at Facebook asking you Mr. Kermode to replace Mr. Woss on Film 200x. Good idea I say.

p.s - Pumps2009 why are you shouting?

I'll see your Wreckles Eric and raise you a Len Bright Experience.

"Someone Must Have Nailed Us Together" is a nailed-on Eric classic.

Although, obviously, that should be Wreckless (with two s's) and The Len Bright Combo(not Experience).

It's late.

Mark,you are in fact a genius filmcritic. I would agree with many people here. BUT you have beeen spectacularly wrong on many issues. One of your worst offences is your love for the saccarine and horrendous "Mary Poppins". Ok, I will calm down and get it out. The feminist undertone ia the ONLY thing good about this movie. I'm from Denmark, but I read the Mary Poppins books as a child and they were magical. Mary poppins was not a perky, intolerably cheerful twit , she was generally unlikeable, but magical in an eerie way. When I saw the movie I was "ever so disappointed" It was awful. Julie Andrews was awful, the children were awful, and Dick van Dyke was worse than Nick Nolte in "Lorenzo's oil". Basically they took a lovely and magical story and violated it to its very core If you want a perfect children's movie see "My neighbor Totoro". Mary Poppins is utter bilge.

So I saw Watchmen last night, and I feel your pain wishing Paul Greengrass (or indeed, Darren Aronofsky or Terry Gilliam) would have done a much better job. Snyder was clearly too scared to change anything, which made the things he did change (the ending) a lot more noticable, and it's pretty clear that his ideas aren't as good as Alan Moore's.

That said, I enjoyed the performances, and I felt that the quality of the novel did shine through the clumsy and timid direction, and I particularly enjoyed Jackie Earle Haley's performance. The real insult was the use of Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen's version, which is a rarity) during the tacky Carry On Superheroes sex scene.

V for Vendetta was definately better though.

re. James King:


Anyone who liked Elizabethtown - THE WORST FILM I HAVE EVER SEEN (tm) - deserves all he gets.

"re. James King:


Anyone who liked Elizabethtown - THE WORST FILM I HAVE EVER SEEN (tm) - deserves all he gets."

LOL how can James King call himself a film critic.
Some of his ratings and views on films are rather worrying tbh.

i generally think people should stick films out, but i didn't make it all the way through elizabethtown.

Very good of you to take the time to reply to comments.

I'm surprised though that there hasn't been a video today, seeing as it is the 10th anniversary of the death of the greatest director of all time.

oh, in addition to the elizabethtown/james king thing, i do think it's pretty childish when people tell mark how rubbish they think james king is. i mean, if i was mark kermode and loads of internet people came onto my site and started slagging off my friend/apprentice/collegue, it would make me feel really uncomfortable.

Yeah film critics receiving valid bad reviews from others, is terribly unjustified. Its just not cricket

this is different. it's not like kermode going to cameron crowe, 'i've got to say i had a lot of problems with the film', it's more like if he went to cameron crowe's friend (that he idolised) and said 'CAMERON CROWE IS SUCH A JOKE, YOU'RE MUCH BETTER!'

On reasons to dislike a film (a la 'Reckless Eric' misuse), I think one can forgive pretty much anything (gross stupidity, bad editing, smut, lowest-common-denominator humour, pretentiousness, zombies, idiotic plots, subliminal racism, not-so-subliminal racism, cheesiness, unoriginality, poor special effects, Michael Bay 'the fireball IS the story' special effects, misogyny, sanctimony, 80s soundtracks, poor acting, ugly actors, sloppy direction, animals that do 'amusing' things, bad scripts, historical inaccuracies, mawkish sentiment, tormented geniuses, 'high concept' concepts, Oscar-bait subject matter, children with bowl-cuts, ghosts in mirrors, trite pop-culture references, unnecessary voice-overs, sex, violence, sexual violence, the lack of sex or violence or sexual violence, Paul Walker, worthiness, shocks that aren't shocking, the term 'meet-cute', bad accents, Englishmen as villains, 'right-on' politics, stock characters, dismal dialogue, American High Schools, fat suits, Nazis, and the noxiousness of the other people that like a film and therefore cheapen it by association) except the cardinal sin - BOREDOM. If a film's boring, nothing else really matters. I just saw 'Watchmen', and it was almost as boring as 'The Piano'.

Yes, well getting back to your comments about how abusing one piece of music
is enough to denounce a film (if it's the right piece of music), you must then understand why "Of Time and the City" is a terrible film. :-)

Terrence Davies desecrated the music of the Beatles by playing kitschy music by Mantavani's arranger over film of the fab four while talking over that pompously about how superior classical music seemed to him because the people that composed and performed it had exotic, foreign names (give me a break!)

I understand this was supposed to be a love poem to Liverpool but it was more like a polemic. In fact the literary and musical contributions that Davies chose to accompany the admittedly breathtaking archive footage were neither of the time or the city, when they so easily could have been. Instead of Merseybeat and the Liverpool poets we get mostly 19th century European music and literature. And when we do get some contemporary British music it is the Hollies, a Manchester group and then Ewan McColl's "Dirty Old Town" which is a song about Salford.

Is this the best that Davies could do for a time when Allen Ginsberg described Liverpool as the centre of the universe for human consciousness? What Davies does do quite well, is demonstrate his isolation from both the city and the time.

easy tiger

Hey Doctor K,

Knowing that you are a horror film buff, I wondered if you'd had a chance to watch Pascal Laugier's Martyrs yet?

I watched it over the weekend and it totally blew my mind. While I can't say that I enjoyed it or necessarily liked it - I thought it was brilliant, terrifying, sad, horrific and beautiful at the same time.

I just wondered what your thoughts were as it seems to me that the french are riding a very healthy wave of quality horror movies at the moment.

Hi Dr. K,

I watched Jacques Tati's Playtime today and whilst I thought it was OK I got the distinct impression that it was pretty worthless watching it on the small screen. Having also seen 2001: A Space Odyssey in 70mm on Friday I wonder whether there any films which you think should only be watched on the big screen. Of course 2001 is a richly rewarding film that I enjoy whenever I see it, watching it in 70mm was a totally different experience, especially in the company of a nice quiet audience where one can really experience the film as it should be seen, the darkness of the screen mingling with the darkness of the auditorium. I would appreciate your thoughts.

Regards,

Francecso

PS. Antimode, Of Time and the City was much more a film about Terence Davies than it was about Liverpool and I enjoyed much more in that respect than a documentary about Liverpool which it was so much more than.

Francesco: I agree that OT&TC was more about Davies than it was a documentary of Liverpool. Where it worked strongest for me was where there was a connection between the narrative and the images. Maybe this happened in a couple of places like the outing to the beach and the bonfire sequence but other than that I really didn't feel a strong connection between the images and Davies' words. It was more a poem to Liverpool than about it. What was missing to me was the voice of Liverpool itself. There was a very small amount of vox populi but I felt like the buildings and people in the footage were just silent ghosts staring out at us.
It would have been nice if Davies could have included more audio from the "Time and the City". God knows, he had enough to choose from.

hey mark

Couldn't help spot you in the audience at the Kubrick's Critical Odyssey at the BFI. Just wondered out of interest what your favourite and least favourite Kubrick movies were and why?

keep up the good work

-andy

Thanks for pointing me in the direction of Anne Billson. Shame "The Thing" is £45 from amazon - a little to steep for my NHS salary, and the library doesn't stock it. I was really keen as enjoyed your 'Exorcist' book and I'm looking to tone my film watchers muscles.

I may have to go against my natural leaning towards books and look out for her in the papers.

thanks again for the advice