200 posts categorized "ONE STAR"

May 13, 2023

ONE FOR ALL: THE DJ CHRIS VILLA STORY

   ColeSmithey.comGroupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

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ColeSmithey.comAs pedestrian as it gets, this amateurish documentary confirms the idea that DJing represents the antithesis of musicianship.

You could argue that DJs ruin songs by altering their original production with endless scratching, clipping, and mechanical manipulation. Oh, and endless fooling around with headphone placement comes with the territory.

Talk to any working musician about the live work they lose to DJs, and you'll get an ear full.

Curating a cool song list used to be the province of Jones Generation music lovers who would make endless mix tapes (cassettes) to impress their friends. That was cool.

ColeSmithey.com

For as much of a nice guy as "One For All" paints its subject, Chris Villa's personal story comes across as mundane.

Villa's effort at winning the Red Bull 3Style World Championship, sets the movie's minimal narrative arc.

ColeSmithey.com

Clearly, there is a closed community of people who make the rules and harvest money for Red Bull, but we don't get any behind-the-scenes dirt.

Would-be DJs out there might get a whiff of inspiration from watching Chris Villa's story, but you won't learn any craft. That is if you consider rhythmically fiddling with faders and dials much of a craft.

ColeSmithey.com

Personally, I say get an instrument, like a guitar, and learn how to play it.

Music doesn't come from DJs.

Not Rated. 110 mins.

1 Star

Cozy Cole

Cole Smithey on Patreon

January 09, 2023

TÁR

      ColeSmithey.com    Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

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ColeSmithey.comPeople are a complicated mix of good and bad elements. Talented people more so. 

Cate Blanchett's lesbian orchestra conductor character Lydia Tár is a lot of important things to a lot of people. 

Lydia preys on young women when she isn't busy rehearsing, composing, giving interviews, co-parenting a child with her partner, and all that goes into leading the Berlin Philharmonic.

ColeSmithey.com

Where does Lydia find the time for keeping up the subterfuge of pretending to sublimate her ego for art?

Todd Field's first film in 16 years is a (seemingly) rigorous psychological thriller, an intellectual puzzle if you will.

Sadly, it's a broken puzzle.

ColeSmithey.com

Lydia Tár gets in Dutch with the mob rule of social media — ironic especially because social media is neither social nor media.

No telling how many lives social media has destroyed.

ColeSmithey.com

As for its creator, Field gets in Dutch by cutting too close with the character of Lydia Tár to real-life lesbian symphony conductor Marin Alsop, music director laureate of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and chief conductor of the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra.

For the record, Marin Alsop has voiced her outrage at the film, and its parallels to herself.

ColeSmithey.com

Marin Alsop calls Tár "antiwoman."

Hard to argue with Marin Alsop.

You're a fool if you do.

ColeSmithey.com

As such, "Tár" comes across as a cheap parlor game.

Why Todd Field chose to craft his film so closely to a specific musical artist is a mystery deeper than any in the film.

If Todd Field had an axe to grind, that axe has come back to hit him in the face.

"Tár" does itself another disservice by neglecting key elements of a suicide subplot that contributes to the challenges of its unreliable protagonist.

ColeSmithey.com

Reality has stepped in too much for "Tár" to be considered the masterpiece that it strains to be, much less what it is, a B-movie in big budget trappings.

ColeSmithey.com

Cate Blanchett is nonetheless transfixing as ever, even if her narcissist character is a flat cardboard creation.

Rated R. 158 mins. 1 Star

Cozy Cole

Cole Smithey on Patreon

April 10, 2022

WEWORK: OR THE MAKING AND BREAKING OF A $47 BILLION UNICORN

Welcome!

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

ColeSmithey.com

This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon.

Thanks a lot acorns!

Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

ColeSmithey.com

 

 

ColeSmithey.comJed Rothstein has a lot to learn about making documentaries. 

Repetitive and redundant to a fault, this overlong doc still manages to put a even a dull point on Adam Neumann's wework con game that makes Anna Delvey's schemes look like un-popped popcorn.

Billions of dollars burn like flash paper.


ColeSmithey.com

Douchebag extraordinaire Adam Newmann managed to make renting office space seem like something much sexier, namely a culture for entitled white millennials to pretend as if they were "changing the world."

Gwyneth Paltrow’s cousin Rebekah Paltrow Neumann proves to be a piece of work in her own right. Whew. What a terrifying person.

ColeSmithey.com

Forbes editor Randall Lane has the best insights on Neumann's outrageous con game that ruined lives and made Neumann a billionaire.

ColeSmithey.com

Yes, capitalism is well and thoroughly fucked.

Rated TVMA. 102 mins.

1 Star

Cozy Cole

ColeSmithey.com

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