Good critics - and journalists who write on non-mainstream-newsy areas - are a pleasure to read if they create a narrative style of their own. Travel writers generally have it easier as their experiences are often novel and, maybe exotic, and even rather prosaic writing can sparkle on occassion. Wine critics seem to have a certain flair when they describes wines - and certain "tropes" almost immediately communicate to the reader a world of lush, rich colors and heavenly tastes, of sunshine and verdant vineyards somewhere in Italy or France. Even something almost mundane - and often technical - as weather reporting has taken a certain caring, informative tone in the hands of David Epstein of the Boston Globe, with his detailed weather reports, replete with maps as also the occassional picture of his backyard...but always honest and candid to a fault.
Film criticism and review is certainly an art, the ability to convey the gist of another artfom, a visual artform, often in prose. It involves the task of being able to dwell on multiple layerings in the narrative, the storylines, hint at the drama, appreciate camerawork, sense the said-and-the-unsaid and imbibe the creative endeavor in general. Khalid Mohammad of the Times of India (and many other publications) evolved a unique style wherein he gave extravagant nom-de-plumes to the cast of characters in a movie, all pertinent and connected in some way, and then went ahead with forging his review in that spirit.
Other than the truly versatile Roger Ebert, it is always a pleasure to read the reviews of film critics like Anthony Lane of the New Yorker - and AO Scott of NYT - who make a review more like a story with nuances, personal musings and read-between-the-lines references than something which is straight-up compilation of the pluses and the minuses. (I think Ty Burr of the Boston Globe also is a very competent reviewer).
So, despite knowing what Scott might write with regard to the latest Marvel movie, it was still with some disbelief, and even restrained-and-pleasant surprise that one read his review. Scott was quoted in the Boston Globe as having 'used the first half of his review to pen a mini-diatribe on how films like “Avengers: Infinity War” have changed the critical profession, but eventually got around to panning the film for boring action scenes and repetitive pacing.'
Scott is expansive and reflective as he launches into his review - it is evident the review is less about the movie really, more about what it represents - for all of us, and for the critic who is, in the end supposed to review it as honest-to-goodness entertainment, keeping public sentiment in mind, and even back-handedly, recommend it. However, you can feel the cringiness that Scott probably suffered in the theater seeping into his writing. He begins in the I-do-not-know-what-to-tell-you-but-regardless-I-must mode. Somehow the seemingly deadening mighty-hammer prowess of Marvel-and-Disney who keep churning out these movies brings forth a lot from his subconscious angst, as it were - even a reference to capitalism (as in, the "mindless" and mind-numbing output of movies has become an inevitability or a fact of life, like capitalism...).
I myself am getting increasingly confused about all these superhero movie-mashups now. Which is which league now and who is in which one? Everyone is in one big league..or...Captain America has his own gig and the Hulk his and Superwoman...Batman...wait...we are in the era of consolidation, I see...maybe that is what is going on...these movies are just another variant of Fantastic Beasts and (what they can do) and where to find them, aren't they?
Postscript - I came across this very intriguing article in the Salon - which takes the "capitalism" bit very seriously in relation to (the glut of) spuerhero movies...(this article is somehow hard to find on the salon.com site right now - what happened - someone hid it?) -
"Peak superhero? Not even close: How one movie genre became the guiding myth of neoliberalism"
[https://www.salon.com/2018/04/28/how-superhero-films-became-the-guiding-myth-of-neoliberalism/]
Beginning with an overview of neoliberalism - complete with charts etc - the author, Keith A. Spencer, presents his thesis on why superhero movies seem to be so wildly popular now, with the sharp political analysis continuing to hold the arguments together ("relationships of production," and "redistributive politics" no less!) -
Superheroes are, by definition, more powerful and more important than the state.
More importantly, the superheroes’ work may save lives, but it never inherently changes the relationships of production: If the people are poor, they’re likely to stay poor. They don’t participate in redistributive politics except to attack the sort of universally detested social relationships about which there is broad consensus — for instance, slavery. Superheroes can’t and won’t save the middle class; many of them are rich anyway and stand to benefit from the kinds of inherent economic injustices that, say, Bernie Sanders or Jeremy Corbyn fight against.
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