Charlie Rose

MeanMisterMustard  03/02/2009 10:10 AM Report

Staggeringly middle-brow tripe from "The New Yorker" and "The New York Times" critics! But really, I shouldn't be surprised, those instutions are sclerotic and their recent financial declines show even the general public knows that. These guys talking up "Benjamin Button" (Forrest Gump redux) and talking down a highly original film about the tidal wave of change for billions of people ("Slumdog Millionaire").

Note to middle-brows: cancel your NYT and New Yorker subscriptions, stop eating bagels and lox and experience the real world.

shunpiker  02/03/2009 05:03 PM Report

Usually when Charlie talks about the Oscar nominations, there are three or more critcs at the table. With only two this time, it opened up the discussion -- even got Charlie more involved. Had there been more time, they might have discussed performances and films that the Academy ignored. Even might have talked about the Independent Spirit awards.

Dutch  01/28/2009 05:20 PM Report

Unfortunately their appearances and they way they carry themselves make them quit unlikable at the very first sight.The word self-righteous may come to mind... However they do make some good if maybe obvious points about Oscar-politics and all. But it maybe ended up like the pair of them wining a bit. AND they finally add to politics and gossip themselves by discussing, in an indulging gossipy-queen kind of way, Kate Winslet's 'fault' of making a comment on the sure bet of an Holocaust-movie. Had they understood British humor they would have known that Kate proved to take herself refreshingly not to seriously. But most of all it's simply a smart joke on a smart-joke show, it's funny, ha ha, laughing and all that?

ruz  01/27/2009 04:24 PM Report

"I don't see anyone making a film about the Mitchell Bros"

Actually Emilio Estevez did, for Showtime, in 2000. It was called 'Rated X.'

ASC  01/27/2009 02:45 PM Report

I watched the program (such a CR word) with the critics from the NY Times and the New Yorker. I found A.O Scott pompous, pretentious and completely unlikable. I am all for defending your opinion but who died and left his god (small g). In his critique of the Reader as a good literature and movie, he justified his opinion by saying “….as a person who writes and read”, I could have vomited, as though that makes him uniquely qualified! The gentleman from the New Yorker was a pleasure. Even though I didn’t agree with him on everything, I listened and understood his thought process.

ollygomer  01/27/2009 10:34 AM Report

I have not seen the Reader yet, though I have read the book several times. I think the critics are missing the issue which Schlink is addressing in this story. He is not trying to excuse the involvement of Hanna in the holocaust because of her illiteracy, he is rather dealing with the issue of the generation born since the war who grew up after the fact and have to live with that legacy. The holocaust in movies is invariably treated in black and white terms of good and evil, but of course its not that simple, ordinary people got caught up in perpetrating the most inimaginable barbarity. Only if we try to understand how this is possible will we be able to try and prevent it recurring. The remarkable thing about the holocaust was the industrial scale of its horror, meticulous organisation is after all what Germans are reknowned for. Our capacity for barbarity continues to develop and is alive and well today, anything that helps us try and confront the fact that we are all, ordinary people, capable of doing extraordinarily unspeakable things to each other. This story should be welcomed because it raises this question in a very cleverly indirect way, the subject is far from trivial or trite as the critics suggest.

ShalomFreedman  01/27/2009 02:55 AM Report

Charlie Rose closes by saying 'That this is the best conversation about movies that has ever taken place at this table.' Charlie Rose knows a lot more about the conversations that have taken place at his table than I do , but I seem to recall a few conversations with Peter Bogdanovich which were a lot more entertaining and , excuse this, inside-full.

jwconnell  01/26/2009 07:21 PM Report

Hey Charlie, I think you might be right about that, re. the conversation with Denby and Scott.

REMant  01/26/2009 04:44 PM Report

My guess is that in a very few years these five films will hardly be remembered, much less thought classics, even of social conscience. They all pander to popular prejudice. The actors and actresses wallow in it with the objective of garnering awards. None is even art, much less truth. Charlie deserves credit for having put his finger on which the nominees were to be, but I'd have rather seen something about a really good film that no one knows. One that will be thought a classic. Mr Scott knows that, for which I'm glad. Regarding Milk, SF has always exhibited a lot of interest in sexual freedom, but I don't see anyone making a film about the Mitchell Bros. The Reader I thought schlock in particular. Merly Streep I have always thought is Meryl Streep no matter what character she plays, somewhat like Jimmy Stewart. I agree wholeheartedly about this discussion. Ask them back.