Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/not-just-salman-khans-race-3-films-of-renoir-bergman-felini-have-also-been-thoroughly-trashed-4534351.html
The release of Race 3 has unleashed a series of savage reviews – and deservedly so. There’s always the criticism that filmmaking is such a complex effort, involving so much Hard Work, and it’s unfair to dismiss all this in a snarky summation. But when so many crores are spent without a basic script, it’s unforgivable. That being said, is it easier to dismiss a film like Race 3, which is so obviously bad, than a film more “serious”? I spent some time with my good friend, Google, this weekend, wondering whether Race 3-review levels of snark had been heaped on the films by acclaimed international filmmakers. Here’s someone being delightfully snippy about Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game. “When you start noticing things such as the fact that not only the women, but also the men have trimmed eyebrows, you know there’s something that doesn’t work for you.”
This pronouncement comes from Jessica Elgenstierna, who writes at The Velvet Cafe. It’s not an establishment voice, you say. Then how about this dismissal of Ingmar Bergman in The New York Times, titled Scenes From an Overrated Career! The great American critic Jonathan Rosenbaum writes, “[It was strange] the way he always resonated with New York audiences. The antiseptic, upscale look of Mr. Bergman’s interiors and his mainly blond, blue-eyed cast members became a brand to be adopted and emulated. (His artfully presented traumas became so respectable they could help to sell espresso in the lobby of the Fifth Avenue Cinema.)” Let’s not get into whether or not this appraisal is right. This is more about the tone of the criticism.
Continued at the link above.
Copyright ©2018 Firstpost.
Baradwaj Rangan 
sanjana
June 18, 2018
I think we enjoy mocking as long as it is not directed at us or at our preferences. Film reviewing is serious business and reviewers need some fun and so are the readers. The more the flaws, the more the fun. If the film is not bad and yet had flaws, the mocking tone should give way to pointing the flaws in less mocking way. If every second film is mocked at and made fun of, the reviewer will not be taken seriously but as a good timepass.
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Madan
June 18, 2018
Ha! Lott seems to be a delightful reviewer.
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Anu Warrier
June 18, 2018
Sometimes, I think it is the hype that gets to you. For instance, I’m told that Mother India is a great movie. Every actress worth her salt will mention it as one of the ‘roles I would love to do’. It’s iconic. And I feel like an iconoclast every time I wonder why I wanted to pull out every single hair on my head – one strand at a time – while watching it.
Sometimes, it is just being contrary. “Oh, so everyone liked it? Well, I’m not going to, so there!’
🙂
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Saruman
June 18, 2018
Who knows, maybe a few decades from now, another reviewer, while making a similar compilation, will quote your comments about Nolan and from your reviews of his films 😛
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Ravi K
June 19, 2018
I love Bergman, Fellini, Malick, etc., but even the masters have certain tendencies that are easily derided. It’s fun to see the piss taken out of vaunted classics sometimes. That “Solaris” quote is absolutely hilarious.
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Ravi K
June 19, 2018
And I will be the first to say that some of my favorite films are boring as hell 🙂
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sefora
June 19, 2018
But where’s your review of Race 3?
Waiting to know your thoughts on it 🙂
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brangan
June 19, 2018
My review of Race 3 was posted a few days ago. The link is in the sidebar.
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therag
June 20, 2018
All you have to do is read Armond White. A beloved classic that is universally praised? has a perfect RT rating? White to the rescue. He even got thrown out of a film critics circle for heckling Steve McQueen. I like to think he flips a coin and decides beforehand if he is going to praise/trash it. That said, his serious reviews are worth reading.
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dracarys
June 20, 2018
Brangan, why is that, we Indians justify our actions/decisions citing foreign sources, ALWAYS?! 🙂
here you are showing foreign films trashed in that period in time, for your own trashing of a idiotic Race3. guess we have to blame our upbringing? our education system? being forced on us by the foreigners then and by older generations, now?
Perfect example right now is Yoga. It has been in practice since time immemorial in India. Now it’s been ‘accepted’ outside, we give more prominence and ‘respect’ it rightly reserved so.
Am not blaming/pointing at you, just venting on our collective attitude towards everything Indian.
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brangan
June 20, 2018
dracarys: Oh dear, this was not about “justifying” the bashing Race 3 got. I used used the reviews as a peg to have a laugh about how even famous filmmakers got trashed.
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Madan
June 20, 2018
dracarys: Speak for yourself. My father has been a yoga Bhakt since his formative years. There was a tape with voiceover by Girish Karnad that we used to have. There were yoga classes in Kalyan which is 50km from the heart of Mumbai and lots of people turned up for the morning class. This yoga dying in India while foreigners are embracing it is a canard spread by some yoga instructors. I will not speculate on the reasons why they do this though I have an inkling as to what it is.
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