HBO Documentary on Frazier-Ali Fight

[Sigaba]

Originally Posted by SF-TX

Damn! I was hoping that a man (David Forsmark) I was previously unaware ....

With respect, I understand that you're being sarcastic. My point simply is that I don't think Mr. Forsmark is a very good reviewer. I think his grasp of American mass popular culture needs strengthening. I think he uses his reviews as part of a broader plan of self-promotion common among new media journalists of all stripes. A few examples follow.

Earlier this year, Mr. Forsmark wrote:

The show is not only one of the greatest sitcoms ever — it made Time magazine’s 100 Greatest TV Shows list — but also the most meaningfully conservative television show of its generation.

The show in question? Fox's King of the Hill (link). (IIRC, there was a show called Seventh Heaven.)

While Mr. Forsmark is attempting to make a name for himself as a cultural critic and scourge of the American left, his list of favorite films includes.

Favorites: In no particular order:High Noon, Casablanca,The Searchers,The Seven Samurai, The Godfather I & II,Saving Private Ryan, The Lord of the Rings, Dirty Harry, Bringing Up Baby, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Big Sleep, Night of the Hunter, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Patton, Psycho, Rear Window, Strangers on a Train, North by Northwest, O Brother Where Art Thou, Fargo, The Manchurian Candidate, Double Indemnity, The Apartment, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, On the Waterfront, Heat, The Great Escape, The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Guns of Navarone, Rio Bravo, Red River, Lonestar, The Apostle, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Dr. Strangelove, The Music Man, Three Kings, Tin Men, Tootsie, Spartacus, The Silence of the Lambs, Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail, Rashomon, Yojimbo, The Right Stuff, Rob Roy, Searching for Bobby Fischer, Blackhawk Down, We Were Soldiers, Jaws, The Sixth Sense, Life is Beautiful, My Darling Clementine, Friendly Persuasion, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, The Matrix, October Sky, Hoosiers.

While I'm especially fond of Lone Star, Three Kings, and Spartacus, that trio of films and especially Spartacus--the script was ghost written by Dalton Trumbo--hardly have much good to say about the American right. The other two are outright hostile.

As a film reviewer, Mr. Forsmark frequently offers odd observations. In 2001, while reviewing Traffic, he compared Steven Soderbergh to Howard Hawks and Hitchcock while discounting the importance of artistry in story telling. (This dismissal of artistry, by the way, is in accord with contemporary cultural criticism that is broadly--and, arguably, inelegantly--described as Leftist.) For Mr. Forsmark to suggest that Soderbergh's treatment of America's war on drugs does not have an overtly hostile political message makes me wonder if he actually watched the movie or if he fell asleep (as many theater goers did the two times I saw it). <<LINK>>

Then there's Mr. Forsmark's review of Michael Mann's The Insider (1999) <<LINK>>. In this review, Forsmark falls over his grindstone to go after the MSM at the expense of developing a fuller understanding of the issues he's attempting to discuss. In this case, he over looks the fact that Lowell Bergman is the embodiment of the Leftist values that Forsmark believes undermine America. It was Mr. Bergman who, in an article for Rolling Stone, argued that Ronald Reagan was nothing more than a pawn for monied interests in his home state of California.

Finally, take his review of Bowfinger (1999) <<LINK>>. Arguably, his efforts to present himself as a person who knows how Hollywood works and someone who "gets" all the jokes would have worked better had he showed any awareness that the character of Daisy (Heather Graham) was Steve Martin's revenge on an ex-girlfriend (the lovely Anne Heche).

[SF-TX]

Sigaba,

You are obviously more familiar with Mr. Forsmark's work than I. Personally, I don't give much credence to any movie reviews and their critics. In fact, I have noticed an inverse relationship between the amount of praise a film receives and how much I like the film.

The last film I saw solely based on the rave reviews it received was About Schmidt, with Jack Nicholson. Horrible movie, though you would have never known it by the reviews. It was even nominated for two Oscars. The entire movie was spent denigrating middle-America. The underlying message of the movie is that if you work hard and plan on enjoying your retirement you are a sucker. I was the sucker for wasting 3 hours of my life and the price of admission.

[ZonieDiver]

The underlying message of the movie is that if you work hard and plan on enjoying your retirement you are a sucker.

Maybe "About Schmidt" was prescient, in that a lot of us are probably going to soon discover that the imminent retirement we worked hard to attain and planned to enjoy will actually result in us being a "sucker"!

[Sigaba]

SF-TX--

My About Schmidt moment occurred when I went to see Chaplin (1992). With all the critics buzzing about the film receiving mulitple Oscar nominations, no one took the time to point out that John Barry did the score. Worse, no one did the courtesy of pointing out that the film had a tell tale kiss of big time suckery: the writing credit had three different groups of names separated by both the word "and" as well as an ampersand.

To his credit, Anthony Lane hit it out of the park in 2005 with his review of Episode III, here.

FWIW, "review the reviewer" is a tool I stumbled upon at the University of Texas. In my experience, reading multiple reviews by the same person can help one quickly figure out what that reviewer is bringing to the table. (Unfortunately, "photocopy books / articles / and reviews starting from the last page" was a tool that had to be pointed out to me.)

[Roguish Lawyer]

I saw the documentary and thought it was incredibly good. I couldn't care less about the review.