Critics Changing Music/Movie History

Either helping or hurting... As for music, from a recent Pink Floyd interview, it seems like Nick Kent's criticism of a show removed them from complacency after Dark Side.

I haven't read much movie criticism, but I remember reading Pauline Kael's enthusiastic review of Nashville, which hadn't even come out yet. This was a book reviewing a review, and mentioned that although Kael had got too close with Altman, that it helped a movie that might have never received any popularity.

Especially if their paycheck comes from Rolling Stone 

^ Good point, and ones from the same year that probably deserved the award more and have stood the test of time better.

Reviews are most useful as gauges of content rather than quality: "If you like dry, absurd British humor you'll love this.  Otherwise steer clear of this ridiculous, unfunny movie".

two words itched in music critic history... God this site used to rule...

Torman Maxt

good times.. while the never to be touched PA's record holder in hidden and deleted posts it was my deleted review I was most proud of... an angry Mick is a very bad thing

one could almost feel sorry for that band.  They had no idea what they were in for...  but neither did M@X either.

One really could point to that whole saga is the beginnings of the decline of the site as we did lose some collaborators out of it and the real nature of what this site is about became apparent thus starting the drain on enthusiasm and passion for the work we did....and we started to lose 'the talent' in spirit if not in body whose knowledge and hard work built the site.

BaldJean wrote: critics destroyed "The Night of the Hunter" starring Robert Mitchum, the only movie Charles Laughton ever directed. he did not dare to direct another movie after this disaster. today this movie is regarded as a classic

I think it was a fine movie.. Do you remember what was said that was so damning he never directed another movie again?

I will give one example:

Bosley Crowther of the New York Times said: "A weird and intriguing endeavor to put across something more in the way of a horror story involving children than the mere menace of a bogeyman is made in "The Night of the Hunter," a film based on the novel of Davis Grubb and directed by Actor Charles Laughton, which came to the Mayfair yesterday. Paul Gregory produced this audacious film.

The trenchant and troubling proposition they are obviously aiming to convey is that being a child in the midst of sordid adults is a terrible experience. Innocent, sweet and trusting youngsters are sorely torn in a world of greed and hate. Withal, the authors assure us, the strength of little children abides.

This is a difficult thesis to render both forceful and profound in an hour and a half of tangled traffic with both melodramatic and allegorical forms. And the fact that Mr. Laughton, undertaking his first film directorial job, has not brought forth a wholly shattering picture is easy to understand.

The story that Mr. Grubb provided is a dark and horrifying account of the torment a fake evangelist inflicts upon a couple of kids. In a frenzy to discover where a hanged bank robber has hidden $10,000 in stolen bills, ??? perambulating back-country preacher insinuates himself into the home of the robber's family, marries his moronic widow, murders her and then persecutes her kids (the only ones who know where the money is hidden) until he drives them forth into the world.

All this has been crisply compacted into clear screen drama by the late James Agee and it is put forth under the direction of Mr. Laughton in stark, rigid visual terms. The locale is crushingly rural, the atmosphere of "the sticks" is intense, and Robert Mitchum plays the murderous minister with an icy unctuousness that gives you the chills. There is more than malevolence and menace in his character. There is a strong trace of Freudian aberration, fanaticism and iniquity.

Credit Mr. Laughton with a clever and exceptionally effective job of catching the ugliness and terror of certain ignorant, small-town types. He has got out of Shelley Winters a grueling performance as the vapid widow and wife. The scene of the wedding-night of Miss Winters and the preacher is one of the most devastating of its sort since Von Stroheim's "Greed." And Evelyn Varden's and Don Beddoe's performances as village gossips and busy-bodies are edged with a sharp and treacherous cruelty that shows through the appearance of homely farce.

But unfortunately the story and the thesis presented by Mr. Grubb had to be carried through by Mr. Laughton to a finish - and it is here that he goes wrong. For the evolution of the melodrama, after the threatened, frightened children flee home, angles off into that allegorical contrast of the forces of Evil and Good. Strange, misty scenes composed of shadows and unrealistic silhouettes suggest the transition to abstraction. When the children find sanctuary in the home of a little old lady who befriends orphans, the idea comes across. The preacher, pursuing, is the Devil; the little old lady is Goodness and Love.

All this is handled with obvious pretense. Lillian Gish is sweet but wispy in the role of the benefactress of orphans, and Billy Chapin and Sally Jane Bruce, who are fine as the youngsters through most of the picture, become posey and incredible in the later scenes. The toughness of the grain of the story goes soft and porous toward the end. The conclusion is an uncontestable statement that children, God bless them, will endure".

so the critic completely destroys the famous riverboat scene, which today is usually cited as one of the best moments of the movie