Post by mysterydriver on Aug 5, 2013 20:50:30 GMT -5
To add on to the topic, the movie's editor (Yes, no matter how many jokes you heard, there was an editor on the two and a half hour film) posted on his Facebook last month:
www.facebook.com/jhaygood/posts/10151762427227640
So the "Critics Pile On" excuse has been circling among Lone Ranger workers for a while, apparently.
www.facebook.com/jhaygood/posts/10151762427227640
James Haygood
July 5 at 12:42pm ·
The first thing I'll say is I hope you go see Lone Ranger despite the critical pile-on - I can vouch for the fact that it is a big ol' slice of high-quality filmed entertainment. It simply is, I promise. So there's that.
But our movie got trashed by critics, when I know that audiences overwhelmingly enjoy it - I've sat through enough previews and screenings to know what I'm talking about. Laughing at all the jokes, cheering on the action. So what's up?
I sense that many critics come to a film with a point of view (Bloated blockbuster! Troubled production!) and then there seems to be some Mean Girls/Heathers/Schadenfreude deal where the critics sense that there's a pile-on coming and they don't want to be the dork that liked something when the cool kids are getting their hate on. Cause it's just too uniform, and not aligned to what audiences are saying. I think that the internet has created a monster when it comes to film criticism, and Rotten Tomatoes is part of the problem (Categorizing all reviews as Yes/No, then adding up the total, eliminating all nuance and ambivalence that might actually inform a reader.)
Part of the issue I have is when I read some of the negative reviews, the explanation deeper in the article doesn't add up to what the blaring opening salvo promises. It's long! Depp isn't funny! The plot is convoluted! Hammer is boring, and why isn't he the Lone Ranger all the way through the movie?! The relationship between the leads doesn't work! Comanche didn't wear crows! And then you read deeper and it just comes down to, "Well I just didn't like it!"
Which is all strange because the things we got from test audiences are that they LOVE Johnny. The plot is really NOT that complicated. Armie is a true charmer that BECOMES the Lone Ranger by the end of the movie. Audiences LOVE the relationship between the two of them. And the Comanche as a tribe are treated with real dignity, and Tonto and his wardrobe and ideas and memory are treated with suspicion by everyone in the film. It's part of the story...
Big Movies are Big Targets. I get that. But it just seems that our critical class of journalists are not helping anyone. Their venom seems more about controversy and page views than well considered opinion. There are exceptions - Matt Zoller Seitz wrote a very thoughtful piece for the Ebert site. He's not uncritical, he just brings something to the party - he offers real criticism to films and TV and actually provides value-added, not just the snarky, parasitic coat-tailing that has become so common out there.
And I found this piece in Forbes that really made me feel less crazy. I started to feel like I was nuts. I know our film is not perfect. I know I wish the script had allowed me to shave out more, but we went through, over and over and over, looking for things to lift, but there's a point you just break the film - it stops making internal sense, and THAT becomes the problem. We decided to make each scene as efficient as possible, and to make sure going from one scene to the next made sense. That was our mission. I know people lose patience and focus, but I think making cuts JUST for length are a bad idea. The critics act like the supreme sacrifice they endured sitting through an extra 10 minutes of very high level film craftsmanship was like we jabbed hot pokers into their eyes - an unendurable torture. Come on guys, it really wasn't that tough. But hey, I guess it made them sad, so there's hell to pay.
Anyway, this piece from Forbes made me feel less crazy. The writer gets it. He gets the high-school pile-on, he gets the schadenfreude, he gets the financial issues, he gets that audiences are seeing a different film than the critics, and he calls it out. As a filmmaker who was there in the trenches, giving this film a higher level of attention to every detail than I've ever experienced, I'm grateful for that. — with Matt Zoller Seitz and Clare Bundy Haygood.
www.forbes.com/sites/markhughes/2013/07/04/review-the-lone-ranger-is-a-fun-summer-ride/
July 5 at 12:42pm ·
The first thing I'll say is I hope you go see Lone Ranger despite the critical pile-on - I can vouch for the fact that it is a big ol' slice of high-quality filmed entertainment. It simply is, I promise. So there's that.
But our movie got trashed by critics, when I know that audiences overwhelmingly enjoy it - I've sat through enough previews and screenings to know what I'm talking about. Laughing at all the jokes, cheering on the action. So what's up?
I sense that many critics come to a film with a point of view (Bloated blockbuster! Troubled production!) and then there seems to be some Mean Girls/Heathers/Schadenfreude deal where the critics sense that there's a pile-on coming and they don't want to be the dork that liked something when the cool kids are getting their hate on. Cause it's just too uniform, and not aligned to what audiences are saying. I think that the internet has created a monster when it comes to film criticism, and Rotten Tomatoes is part of the problem (Categorizing all reviews as Yes/No, then adding up the total, eliminating all nuance and ambivalence that might actually inform a reader.)
Part of the issue I have is when I read some of the negative reviews, the explanation deeper in the article doesn't add up to what the blaring opening salvo promises. It's long! Depp isn't funny! The plot is convoluted! Hammer is boring, and why isn't he the Lone Ranger all the way through the movie?! The relationship between the leads doesn't work! Comanche didn't wear crows! And then you read deeper and it just comes down to, "Well I just didn't like it!"
Which is all strange because the things we got from test audiences are that they LOVE Johnny. The plot is really NOT that complicated. Armie is a true charmer that BECOMES the Lone Ranger by the end of the movie. Audiences LOVE the relationship between the two of them. And the Comanche as a tribe are treated with real dignity, and Tonto and his wardrobe and ideas and memory are treated with suspicion by everyone in the film. It's part of the story...
Big Movies are Big Targets. I get that. But it just seems that our critical class of journalists are not helping anyone. Their venom seems more about controversy and page views than well considered opinion. There are exceptions - Matt Zoller Seitz wrote a very thoughtful piece for the Ebert site. He's not uncritical, he just brings something to the party - he offers real criticism to films and TV and actually provides value-added, not just the snarky, parasitic coat-tailing that has become so common out there.
And I found this piece in Forbes that really made me feel less crazy. I started to feel like I was nuts. I know our film is not perfect. I know I wish the script had allowed me to shave out more, but we went through, over and over and over, looking for things to lift, but there's a point you just break the film - it stops making internal sense, and THAT becomes the problem. We decided to make each scene as efficient as possible, and to make sure going from one scene to the next made sense. That was our mission. I know people lose patience and focus, but I think making cuts JUST for length are a bad idea. The critics act like the supreme sacrifice they endured sitting through an extra 10 minutes of very high level film craftsmanship was like we jabbed hot pokers into their eyes - an unendurable torture. Come on guys, it really wasn't that tough. But hey, I guess it made them sad, so there's hell to pay.
Anyway, this piece from Forbes made me feel less crazy. The writer gets it. He gets the high-school pile-on, he gets the schadenfreude, he gets the financial issues, he gets that audiences are seeing a different film than the critics, and he calls it out. As a filmmaker who was there in the trenches, giving this film a higher level of attention to every detail than I've ever experienced, I'm grateful for that. — with Matt Zoller Seitz and Clare Bundy Haygood.
www.forbes.com/sites/markhughes/2013/07/04/review-the-lone-ranger-is-a-fun-summer-ride/
So the "Critics Pile On" excuse has been circling among Lone Ranger workers for a while, apparently.