The industry-changing blockbuster Pauline Kael hated
Pauline Kael never pulled her punches with movie reviews, but there was one movie that she despised because of its impact, not its merits as a film.
(Credits: Far Out / Rollins Maxwell)
Film » Cutting Room Floor
Thu 16 January 2025 2:30, UK
No critic had the influence that Pauline Kael did in the early 1970s. Bosley Crowther at The New York Times was a fading and increasingly outdated voice. Roger Ebert was only just starting out. At The New Yorker, Kael wielded the sharpest pen. Her reviews were so convincingly argued that they could have been used in court, and filmmakers trembled at the mere suggestion of her disapproval. More than four decades after she gave a dismissive review of Blade Runner, Ridley Scott is still so upset about it that he brings it up in almost every interview.
Kael was often very, very wrong about movies, dismissing everything from John Cassavetes’ A Woman Under the Influence to Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. Then, there was her review of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, which is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential films of all time. In a spectacularly unequivocal takedown, Kael called it “a monumentally unimaginative movie.” You could get away with calling it unnecessarily opaque or languorous, but unimaginative is about as preposterous a claim as calling it visually inept (which she did not, thank goodness).
One of the films that Kael despised was Steven Spielberg’s groundbreaking 1975 blockbuster, Jaws. Rather than disliking it on its own merits, however, she disliked what it did to the industry. Speaking to The Guardian shortly before her death in 2001, Kael said, “A good movie brought in terrible consequences. Jaws is really a terrific movie.”
But, she explained, the film upended the industry by overshadowing the experimental efforts of directors like Francis Ford Coppola and Jean-Luc Godard and replacing them with big tentpole action movies.
“With Star Wars coming on top of it,” she continued, “That awful Star Wars and its successors, movies have just never been the same. There are hardly any small movies that people go to.”
More than two decades later, these comments are only more accurate. Jaws and Star Wars showed studios that they could be making a lot more money than they had been, even if films like The Godfather and Breathless wowed critics. Over time, there were even fewer mid-budget movies that made it through development, and the blockbuster movies became less and less imaginative.
While it’s always dangerous to look back and declare the past to be superior to the present, it is hard to deny that the early part of the 1970s was a highlight for cinema. As the studio system of Old Hollywood collapsed and a new generation of directors started pushing the boundaries of what movies could be, there was a brief moment when artistry and money were aligned.
It would be reductive to say that movies like Jaws and Star Wars were responsible for the seismic shift that followed, though. As brash auteurs like Coppola and William Friedkin earned a longer leash from the studios after their initial successes, they squandered the opportunity by throwing themselves into increasingly chaotic, lengthy, and financially disastrous projects. The combination of these factors conspired to bring us to a moment where repetitive franchises rule the industry.
In other words, we’ve reached the peak of “monumentally unimaginative” movies. Kael didn’t realise how good she had it.
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JAWSPauline KaelSteven Spielberg
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MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Maybe attending sports events in person is too been-there, done-that in the modern age. So, apparently, is watching the actual action on a TV, laptop or phone. The Australian Open is getting in on the newest trend in the sports world by re-creating tennis matches in video-game form.
The year's first Grand Slam tournament, which runs through Jan. 26, is streaming real-time animated feeds on its YouTube channel that mimic what's happening in the three main stadiums.
Players are represented by characters that look like something out of a Wii game — not exactly perfect portrayals of Coco Gauff or Novak Djokovic, perhaps, but the graphics do try to show the correct outfit colors or hats and bandanas the athletes are wearing and reflect what is happening in the matches, with about a one-point delay.
“Sometimes I think it’s a very accurate (depiction) of the actual player that’s playing. So it’s weird. It’s funny and weird,” said 2021 U.S. Open finalist Leylah Fernandez, who will face Gauff in the third round Friday. “I did not see myself just yet. Maybe I will. Now I’m curious, because I’ve seen different players ... and I think I want to watch myself, too.”
Tennis Australia created its own “skins” to represent players, chair umpires and ball persons.
“The wonderful part of it is it’s the players’ actual movement. It’s the actual trajectory of the ball,” Machar Reid, Tennis Australia’s director of innovation, told The Associated Press. “We’re taking the real into the unreal. That’s part of the magic.”
Carlos Alcaraz, a four-time Grand Slam champion at age 21, called it “a good alternative.”
Like many players preparing for future opponents, Fernandez often scours YouTube to try to find footage of past matches to aid with scouting. That, Fernandez said with a chuckle, is how she accidentally discovered the cartoonish replays from Melbourne Park that have been creating a buzz among the competitors.
She was having trouble finding a certain match when she noticed a thumbnail photo of two players, Fernandez said.
“So I click on it and think, ’This is it! Finally! I have one,'” Fernandez said. Nope. It’s a Wii character, which is hilarious.”
Jiri Lehecka, a Czech player seeded 24th in Australia, was checking social media the other day when he came across a “replay” of 2021 U.S. Open champion Daniil Medvedev's avatar destroying a net camera by smacking it repeatedly with his racket during a first-round victory.
“I had no idea that something like that exists, so for me, it was quite funny to see that,” Lehecka said. “Maybe I will see myself as a game character one day. We will see.”
To get the chance, he'll need to play a match in Rod Laver Arena, Margaret Court Arena or John Cain Arena. Tennis Australia first experimented with this on one court during last year's tournament, hoping to attract gamers and a younger audience to the sport.
The NFL, NBA and NHL also have tried this type of approach, using animation for alternate game telecasts.
The 2024 debut in Melbourne “was kind of in stealth and didn’t necessarily capture the world’s imagination. But this year, we’ve seen that happening,” Reid said.
The streams in the first four days of the event this week drew more than 950,000 views, according to Tennis Australia; the figure for the same time period in 2024 was about 140,000.
“It’s part of our DNA to innovate and try to challenge the status quo or, in this instance, provide experiences to different groups of fans that are more personalized for them to consume,” Reid said. “We’re seeing younger kids or the gaming demographic gravitating to the sport maybe in this way. Clearly, it’s not for everyone.”
Might this eventually became the No. 1 way fans “watch” sports?
“Not in my lifetime and not in yours, I don’t think. But who knows? The world of sport and entertainment is moving so, so quickly,” Reid said. “But I think we’re always going to be drawn to the amazing athletes doing their thing in front of our very eyes.”
___
Howard Fendrich has been the AP’s tennis writer since 2002. Find his stories here: https://apnews.com/author/howard-fendrich
Read more >> : Cick here
|
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 — Maybe attending sports events in person is too been-there, done-that in the modern age. So, apparently, is watching the actual action on a TV, laptop or phone. The Australian Open is getting in on the newest trend in the sports world by re-creating tennis matches in video-game form.
The year's first Grand Slam tournament, which runs through Jan. 26, is streaming real-time animated feeds on its YouTube channel that mimic what's happening in the three main stadiums.
Players are represented by characters that look like something out of a Wii game — not exactly perfect portrayals of Coco Gauff or Novak Djokovic, perhaps, but the graphics do try to show the correct outfit colors or hats and bandanas the athletes are wearing and reflect what is happening in the matches, with about a one-point delay.
“Sometimes I think it’s a very accurate (depiction) of the actual player that’s playing. So it’s weird. It’s funny and weird,” said 2021 U.S. Open finalist Leylah Fernandez, who will face Gauff in the third round Friday. “I did not see myself just yet. Maybe I will. Now I’m curious, because I’ve seen different players ... and I think I want to watch myself, too.”
Tennis Australia created its own “skins” to represent players, chair umpires and ball persons.
“The wonderful part of it is it’s the players’ actual movement. It’s the actual trajectory of the ball,” Machar Reid, Tennis Australia’s director of innovation, told The Associated Press. “We’re taking the real into the unreal. That’s part of the magic.”
Carlos Alcaraz, a four-time Grand Slam champion at age 21, called it “a good alternative.”
Like many players preparing for future opponents, Fernandez often scours YouTube to try to find footage of past matches to aid with scouting. That, Fernandez said with a chuckle, is how she accidentally discovered the cartoonish replays from Melbourne Park that have been creating a buzz among the competitors.
She was having trouble finding a certain match when she noticed a thumbnail photo of two players, Fernandez said.
“So I click on it and think, ’This is it! Finally! I have one,'” Fernandez said. Nope. It’s a Wii character, which is hilarious.”
Jiri Lehecka, a Czech player seeded 24th in Australia, was checking social media the other day when he came across a “replay” of 2021 U.S. Open champion Daniil Medvedev's avatar destroying a net camera by smacking it repeatedly with his racket during a first-round victory.
“I had no idea that something like that exists, so for me, it was quite funny to see that,” Lehecka said. “Maybe I will see myself as a game character one day. We will see.”
To get the chance, he'll need to play a match in Rod Laver Arena, Margaret Court Arena or John Cain Arena. Tennis Australia first experimented with this on one court during last year's tournament, hoping to attract gamers and a younger audience to the sport.
The NFL, NBA and NHL also have tried this type of approach, using animation for alternate game telecasts.
The 2024 debut in Melbourne “was kind of in stealth and didn’t necessarily capture the world’s imagination. But this year, we’ve seen that happening,” Reid said.
The streams in the first four days of the event this week drew more than 950,000 views, according to Tennis Australia; the figure for the same time period in 2024 was about 140,000.
“It’s part of our DNA to innovate and try to challenge the status quo or, in this instance, provide experiences to different groups of fans that are more personalized for them to consume,” Reid said. “We’re seeing younger kids or the gaming demographic gravitating to the sport maybe in this way. Clearly, it’s not for everyone.”
Might this eventually became the No. 1 way fans “watch” sports?
“Not in my lifetime and not in yours, I don’t think. But who knows? The world of sport and entertainment is moving so, so quickly,” Reid said. “But I think we’re always going to be drawn to the amazing athletes doing their thing in front of our very eyes.”
___
Howard Fendrich has been the AP’s tennis writer since 2002. Find his stories here: https://apnews.com/author/howard-fendrich %23djokovic) |
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