the Babel situation

Hey guys,

Some new things:

1.  Paul Thomas Anderson on what makes a good movie
   

2. Alberto and the Concrete Jungle is now on YouTube, Google Play, and free on Tubi. (Thanks to those that have put their short review on Amazon. For those that haven't, simply take 5 minutes, or if you're in the IMDb credits, ask your friends instead.)

   

3. I don't really watch K-dramas. The general style annoys me. But now Apple's jumped in with something bold and sophisticated.
   
   Pachinko differs from the book in that it constantly jumps between the timelines, and this is done subtly and tastefully, leaving it to us to make the thematic connections, while seemingly conveying something more philosophical -- the sense that these pieces are always occurring and crashing up against one another in waves of feeling.
   
   As Ian Freer says in Empire:
   In outline, it’s the stuff of soap opera, but the terrific writing and performances keep it honest.
   

4. Watching Better Call Saul's return - but the series is definitely getting drawn out, especially when it spends time away from the amazing lead and more with the gangland characters that put it closer in tone to Breaking Bad.
   
   Tokyo Vice had a great first episode that really places us in its specific world.  Then it gets more genre-typical, and the relationship changes are a bit forced, but it's still immersive.
   
   Moon Knight tries really hard to wow and confound, but it's unfortunately becoming something you stay with just to see where it goes. By-the-numbers, way more than Tokyo.
   

5. Why we're cowards. It's easy to roll our eyes and brush it aside. But worth confronting, I'd say.
   

6. The effects of social media on artists and audiences.
   

7. A film's Rotten Tomatoes score is one of the key things international distributors will look at when browsing your film and considering buying it for their territory.  This is one thing I learned while researching distribution in the past months.
   
   It made me more preoccupied with getting critics to review Alberto. Let's just say, dozens of cold emails daily can lead nowhere -- especially when you're not a sales agent or publicist, and without a publicized release you're pitching. And it's worse if you want to be slightly selective. And being selective is important, or else, as I've also learned, you'll mismatch an eclectic project with a more genre-type reviewer. I used to give people the benefit of the doubt, but now I see that the landscape is so segmented and each segment is so busy with itself, that it can't be swayed easily to something outside.
   
   The Babel situation is explained here. I nod at some of what's presented, though not necessarily the attempts to sum up the left/right extremism. The big point is we're fragmented. The more people I meet, the more I feel my taste is becoming increasingly and exclusively my own. The points of overlap become fewer, 2 ships passing in the night.
   
   Point is, a Rotten Tomatoes score matters. Yet such a score is dependent on being able to get access to appropriate critics, or any critics in the first place. And what are critics nowadays, when there's less consensus... when the only overlap ends up being mainstream signifiers of taste... some of which you realize shouldn't be so valuable....
   
   And still, I must rely on these quick scores to determine what to watch... I've considered looking instead at only a few critics I admire, but that feels narrow-minded. They may not always get it right. And shouldn't the consensus of a larger educated body be more telling?
   
   But here's more on the case against it

   
   And here's Scorsese's complaint - and rightful praise of mother!
   
   These scores can be very inaccurate. For example, if every review of a film says it's "just okay," that's oddly enough to give the film a perfect 100 percent fresh rating. Metacritic avoids this somewhat, but the fact remains that any scoring system will be nonsensically universal across a huge array of movies... How can a 4-star Marvel film be seen on the same scale as a 4-star Kubrick film, though both have their merits?
   
   The more you try to figure this out, the more you eat your own tail. Art can't be rated, but it does need to be qualitatively compared... I, like many others, rely on that. Those companies buying films rely on that.
   
   So the question is, can it be replaced with something better? Can the ratings be nixed? Can critic blurbs/quotes -- which are more descriptive and organic -- be tallied some other way? Would that solve be practical? Food for thought.
   

8. Mads is the man for being outspoken.  He also says Harrison is the man.
   

9. Popstars on life after the spotlight moves on

Feel free to share any of this with anyone you know who'd like it -- you can send the links -- or forward the email so they have the chance to subscribe.

If you’re seeing my scrapbook for the first time, you can subscribe here to keep getting it.

Chris