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The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > SA's Front Page Discussion > I Read Current Releases And So Should You!
 
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Stultus Maximus
Dec 21, 2009

USPOL May

Keanu Grieves posted:

That would be me. I'm the one who has a great fondness for gimmick reviews and profanity.
So, yes, what Castoro wrote pissed me off. But I had a couple of days to process it before I sat down to write. It's not that he suggests movie criticism is irrelevant or that movie critics shouldn't get paid that pissed me off -- well, not just that, anyway. It's his conflation of an adaptation with its source material, his fondness for James Franco, his late disclaimer that Franco actually writes for VICE, his dumb story about how he lied to Franco and then sent the screener to his colleague because he couldn't just sit down and watch a 90-minute movie, his passive-aggressive nod to the memoirs of a movie-critic icon, etc. Child of God is somewhere between mediocre and good; his column was terrible. So I thought, "Well, how would he tackle Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?" That was the result. I had fun writing it; I'm sorry reading it was a lovely experience.
Well, yeah, it's supposed to be creepy. It's a line a goon used years ago that's stuck with me. And for whatever reason, I can imagine Franco saying it.
The satire was relevant to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It's relevant to any adaptation, as long as you believe that adaptations should be judged apart from their sources. Adaptation is the art of adjusting the story for the appropriate medium. Child of God uses handheld DV cinematography to tell a story set in the 1960s, which is about as appropriate as Michael Mann using DV cinematography to tell a story set in the 1930s ... or many of the artistic choices Jonathan Liebesman made when telling a story that has, over time, become a children's property. If Castoro is blind to Child of God's faults (outside of his sole half-criticism, that Franco fails to elicit sympathy for the film's protagonist), he would also be blind to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' creepy mix of The Dark Knight-esque darkness, leering camerawork and jokes that, for the most part, don't work. The total score was genuine. How I arrived at it wasn't.

I feel dumb explaining a joke. But, really, that's all it was: a joke. All apologies to those of you who didn't laugh.

I think the target audience (people who read Vice, read the Child of God review, didn't like it) was way too small for front page updates.

* # ¿ Aug 12, 2014 15:50
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# ¿ May 16, 2024 05:46
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Stultus Maximus
Dec 21, 2009

USPOL May
 So as someone who has not read or seen "Gone Girl" nor really paid much attention to the media hype and promotion, was that review supposed to convey any meaning to me? I'm not trying to dogpile here, just want to know if that review's audience was supposed to have already become familiar with the material.

* # ¿ Oct 6, 2014 19:15
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Stultus Maximus
Dec 21, 2009

USPOL May

Hat Thoughts posted:

I feel this thread has reached the point where everyone has aired their grievances and there's nothing left but a few people repeating the same complaints to each other ad nauseum.

Well, until Sunday

* # ¿ Oct 18, 2014 03:40
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The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > SA's Front Page Discussion > I Read Current Releases And So Should You!