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  • irishtimes.com - Posted: January 17, 2010 @ 11:13 pm

    Movie hack hand-wringing in duplicate

    Donald Clarke

    Did anybody visit the Guardian’s film page over the weekend? On the left-hand column (and somewhere in the real paper, I guess) there was a piece by Kidman-fancier-in-chief David Thomson entitled Ozu vs Avatar — this really is what cinema has come down to. On the right hand column, reliable LA-based film journo John Patterson was happy to bellow: No more Ninja Assasin, I’m going back to Ozu.

    big-mommas-house-1.jpg

    I’ve had enough of Ozu. I’m going back to Big Momma’s House 2.

    I guess Yasujiro Ozu, director of Tokyo Story and a dozen other masterpieces, would be delighted to hear that film hacks were still using him as a stick — or perhaps a Kendo Shinai –  with which to hammer contemporary cinema. But two hand-wringing pieces in the same vein really is at least one too many.

    Anyway, if you want to compare for yourself the Ozu season continues at the IFI.

    • 9 Comments »

    1.
    January 18, 2010
    12:19 pm

    Mr. Clarke, their co-existence on the website is a tad misleading, in that the articles were printed in different editions of ‘The Guardian’, so I’m not sure I find it that excessive. Also, while the source of the writers’ disgruntlement may be similar, the articles are quite different in focus. In any case, I reckon most of those posting comments here would be more interested in, (and more inclined to respond to), your own reactions to the relevant pieces, rather than your comment on the unnecessary repetition of similar views. Any chance of a few words in reply to Messrs. Thomson and Patterson?

    Comment by Nam Citsale
    2.
    January 18, 2010
    2:24 pm

    That is all true, Elastic Man. I just thought it looked really hilarious on the site though — two angry blokes gesturing towards Ozu.

    Comment by Donald Clarke
    3.
    January 18, 2010
    2:36 pm

    Thanks Donald – looks like I lost a bet today. I was certain you’d be posting on the GG’s and the triumph of a fairy tale more lucrative that Bertie’s tax exemption for a ghost written non-fiction novel.

    Comment by robespierre
    4.
    January 18, 2010
    2:40 pm

    Too busy hammering out stuff for the paper itself on that topic, Robes. But I’ll try and bash out something brief later.

    Comment by Donald Clarke
    5.
    January 18, 2010
    3:40 pm

    I’ll lower the tone some more, and ask if perhaps Trailerspotting could comment on the “hilarious” new Jennifer Aniston/Gerard Butler vehicle, The Bounty Hunter, the trailer for which I had to endure at Up in the Air yesterday. (Good film, but I do agree with your comment about the faux-indie wedding sequence).

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czXE0aALfek

    Comment by redframewhitelight
    6.
    January 18, 2010
    5:34 pm

    Apologies Mr. Clarke. My request looks terribly unreasonable now as this blog must be the last thing you want to attend to given all of your existing commitments. I will still keep clicking through the rosary beads though, in the hope that you will get the opportunity to post a few words on the alleged crisis.
    As for myself, the Thomson article is a particular disappointment as I enjoy his writing generally. A ragbag of woolly-minded conceptualisations and dubious assumptions stitched together with the fraying thread of a style verging occasionally on the sentimental and the religiose. Jesus, I have just realised that the preceding sentence describes a lot of the shite I have offered up as comments on this blog. Mea culpa to all

    Comment by Nam Citsale
    7.
    January 18, 2010
    10:19 pm

    As well as noting the different thrusts of the two articles, it’s hard to ignore just how back in vogue Ozu is (not that he ever went out for the true film connoisseurs, I imagine). The BFI programme at the moment makes the IFI’s Ozu Season look like a 20-minute best of on E! Entertainment TV.

    Personally I’ve only seen Tokyo Story, so am not well-versed in Ozu at all. Though seeing it a second time at the IFI (a good if pretentious start to 2010 at the cinema) I realised that it worked far better in my own family home than in a cinema with strangers. Funny that.

    While it’s nice to see Ozu being championed, I’m much more delighted to see the superb Hirokazu Kore-Eda mentioned in the first of those two Guardian pieces. Kore-Eda directed the divine After Life, without a doubt amongst the top 10 films I have ever seen.

    Comment by David Neary
    8.
    January 19, 2010
    10:32 am

    The main point of that Thompson artlce was snooze-inducingly familiar. Like the ‘youth of today’ whine that’s peddled out regularly, I’ve read more than my share of essays that essentially say “films aint what they used to be, ever since they made Jaws/Star Wars/Avatar/whatever”

    Comment by Joe Griffin
    9.
    January 19, 2010
    5:38 pm

    I’m off to see The End Of Summer this evening.

    It better be worth missing Spinal Tap for.

    Comment by SeanBrody

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