Glóin the Dark

A fifteen year old one.

No question which comes first on my list. I haven't seen The Color Purple or Empire of the Sun for more than three decades and have lost any clear idea of what I felt about them, so I've left them off. Any others not on the list I haven't seen at all. Green and red indicate strong impressions, positive and negative respectively. Jaws Raiders of the Lost Ark Schindler's List Close Encounters of the Third Kind Duel Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial Lincoln Jurassic Park Saving Private Ryan Bridge of Spies War of the Worlds A.I. Artificial Intelligence Munich Catch Me if You Can The Fabelmans Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Minority Report Always Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Hook Ready Player One The Post War Horse

I agree, and, conversely, if there were half a dozen film portrayals of female conductors, all of them predominantly negative, that would surely reflect some sort of worrying underlying prejudice. But when there's only one, it can't be expected to be representative, and shouldn't be required to be. It would be absurd to insist that, for every group X, a negative portrayal of a character included in X is only permissible once a sufficient number of positive ones already exist. I know - I repeated it only by way of expressing what it is about Alsop's apparent attitude that I object to. There's a bit more of it here.

Yeah, but only because there's only one such film, so the word "every" isn't signifying much. Maybe - I'm happy enough to have my views called "extreme"! Moderation is overrated, and I wasn't criticising Alsop's comments for their extremeness... All the same, I think the comparison is a poor one. There's nothing in Tár to suggest that the makers intend us to extrapolate Tár's negative traits (to women in general, or to lesbians, or to conductors), and I haven't seen Alsop argue otherwise; it's just an individual who happens to belong to those groups. As such, Alsop's castigation of the film for failing to use the opportunity to portray such a character in a positive light amounts to a prescriptive attitude to the purpose and function of films (or some of them), and that is what I find reprehensible.

It's always understandable and perfectly legitimate for someone to hate a portrayal of themselves, or even one which is suggested to be partially based on or vaguely inspired by them (whether the suggestion is correct or not). But Alsop's complaint about the offensiveness of Tár (the implied unacceptability of depicting such a character in a negative light) is truly reprehensible, and absolutely shameful coming from someone working in the arts.

Pity it’s been shelved rather than put on ice.

I wanted to understand as much as I could about the procedure as possible...I think it's important for my job to understand the inner workings of the work that we do...well not that I do, but the work that is done by people...where I also work... The work of my colleagues.

I know I’m shallow but, still, I can’t believe he left out the motorway shot(s). And no mention of Incendies!

Alternatively: fire, air, earth and plastic...

I give it another two pages before someone posts a complete screenplay.

Memento Inception Oppenheimer The Prestige Batman Begins The Dark Knight Dunkirk Insomnia Tenet Interstellar The Dark Knight Rises Still haven’t rewatched Following since shortly after I bought it on video cassette, and can’t remember it well enough to place it in the list.

Then again, if he’d stayed quit first time around, nobody would have known that he wasn’t yet at his peak, and he wouldn’t have made Lincoln, Gangs of New York, Phantom Thread or There Will Be Blood. What exactly did she mean?

It wouldn't have to be staged. Instead of everyone sitting formally in rows of seats, you'd just have all the film-makers playing with their toys on the floor.

A cut to Christopher Nolan gleefully setting off a firecracker on the stage would have been way better than some boring speech. You should direct next year's ceremony. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean, but to me it reads as though you're suggesting that the second part of your sentence somehow undermines the first, whereas I would think that (if anything) it reinforces it. That's to say, if the director of the most financially successful film of the year, which is also one of the biggest critical hits, doesn't get a nomination, then people who have been alleging an anti-female bias could say that just proves their point, no?

If Al Pacino had any sense of fun he would have announced Maestro and then backtracked just as Bradley Cooper reached out for his trophy.