BunnySkull
Silver Meritorious Patron
I didn't say "paranoid". You may be right about Reed though. I confirmed that he did lie about the audiences booing the movie. That cerainly indicates an agenda for his review. But in reality most people are going to ignore his review. I still predict this movie will earn several Oscars.
Totally agree with you. Rex Reed is a prissy old queen and not taken seriously by anyone any more. His job is to provide positive blurbs to movies no one else would. I think his review has zero importance and I do think the movie is going to do very well at the oscars.
Seriously, I think there might be a big urge to finally give the big middle finger to the cult by voting for this movie - besides the fact is exactly what an oscar caliber movie should be - an important art form telling a compelling story about the big issues of life, not just a commodity to generate box office millions. There's also not much competition, it's leading the field by miles. Then add to the fact Weinstien is known for heavily promoting his movies to the academy members, he's the type of guy since he's already made millions in the movies places big importance on awards and backing what he believes are "important" films. He wants the critical adulation, he wants to be known for producing great films. (Sometimes this back fires and he pisses people off by pushing too hard, but that's usually when the movie was somewhat weak anyway and considered a long shot.)
Anyway, that's what really got me about Reed's review the bold faced lies he told. They stuck out because the first reviews I heard in the media about the film were from Venice and Toronto and I was thrilled to hear all the raves and praise - and it was such high praise the type you rarely hear anymore. I specifically remembered a UK critic being interviewed and proclaiming that it was far and away the very best movie at Venice, and he said it was a wide consensus on that point among critics, journalists and audience - everyone was bowled over by it.
So after being stunned by reading Rex's boldfaced lies, everything else he wrote was suspect in my eyes and I inspected everything else he wrote in the review closely with an eye towards hack work.