Posts by Craig Ranapia
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Or you could do it the American way....hold open the sleeve, shake it up and down and if no crisp $100 bills or packets of white powder fell out...say "I can't hear a hit".....
Where do I get a job like that? Heck, I'll prostitute my critical and artistic integrity for Up-sized Filet O' Fish Combos and cough mixture. :)
-
Simon:
Fair enough, but isn't it funny how folks who complain about bad notes always blame the malicious, lazy retard who wrote the review and can't bring themselves to entertain the possibility that the work is... well, not very good? I'm a huge admirer of Lou Reed, but there are some turds in his back catalogue that won't shine no matter how hard you try and polish 'em up. In my opinion, of course. :)
-
You know, the more I think about it the more I come to the conclusion that Trevor Nunn is a very clever old bird. To be coldly cynical about it, McKellen could be shit (which I doubt), but his name has enough marquee value to guarantee full houses. Still, I don't think bad notes would do much for Nunn personally, or the RSC in general.
Look at the Sydney Theatre Company's US tour of Hedda Gabler last yea r- it got terrible reviews, which would have been financially disastrous except for the presence of Cate Blanchett in the lead.
-
as Lou Reed said...you spend a year and a half making an album and some arsehole gives you a B+ after one listen,
To which Samuel Johnson would have retorted, "An author places himself uncalled before the tribunal of criticism, and solicits fame at the hazard of disgrace." I'd also point out some very considerable critics -- Orwell, Robert Hughes, Pauline Kael, Kenneth Tynan are just a few that float to mind - didn't have their critical facilities notably blunted when their hack work produced on deadline for newspapers or magazine are stacked up against their books.
Having recently cringed my way through Hannibal Rising -- which apparently took Thomas Harris over six years to write -- I don't see how time or repeat exposure would improve my opinion of a shockingly bad book. (And I'm a fan of Harris.)
-
Here's something else to consider: There are some critics - New York Times reviewer Michiko Kakutani come first to mind -- whose sensibilities are so out of tune with my own, that if they praise something to the skies, there's an 80% I'll lhate it, and vice versa.
And when you get right down to it, there are hundreds of thousands of books published every year and no more than a fraction of one percent will be reviewed at any length anywhere. The same applies to every other form of artistic endeavour. Surely even a pan is better than being ignored?
-
Aaargh...
And I just have to ask how many people - yes, you and me - are going to trot off to the bank, reduce our overdrafts, get the credit cards shredded, and run the fiscal responsibility rule over our own spending.
-
I just have to ask: How many people who receive tax cuts will put it into their savings, and how much of it will they put?
Hum... fair question. Then again, the largest items of capital expenditure in our house over the last eighteen months was replacing an elderly car - with something siginificantly more fuel efficient, so we did your bit for mitigating climate change - and my partner's private by-pass surgery. Not even a sniff of an imported widescreen TV with a Wii on top. (Though I guess I should stop screwing the country by buying imported books and DVD. Mea culpa.)
Of course, if Doctor Cullen really wanted to address the "debt-financed non-productive consumption spree" there'ssome politically unpopular questions I don't see anyone asking, let alone answering.
Could there be a regulatory response to make it a damn sight less profitable for banks and finance institutions to peddle debt like fiscal P?
And, serious question seriously meant, how many folks around here actually finance their consumption old skool: You know, saving rather than putting it on a credit card or HP? At the risk of sounding a tad Grinchy-y. I find it hard to muster much sympathy for a chorus of 'poor, poor pitiful me'from folks who have serious debt monkeys and very little to show for it. And I'd be eternally thankful to Doctor Cullen and Mr. Key if they even began to deliver a reality check on the downside of easy credit.
And I just have to ask how many people - yes, you and me - -
Russell:
Can you please deactivate my account, because 1) I think that's the only outcome that's going to satisfy some people, and 2) I don't really any point in continuing to contribute to a forum where I generate this much angst.
I'd also like to publicly apologise for providing the occasion for attacks on your personal integrity that (IMO) were totally out of line, and absolutely unfair.
-
Lambert:
Thanks for the reminder -like Yes, Minister, I can't understand why Frontline was so popular with the very people it was painting as venal half-wits with the manners of a guinea-pig and the morals of a gangster. (Virtual chocolate fish for the person who picks which venomous satire of the Filth Estate I lifted that line from - and probably mis-quoted.)
-
Yikes.
Hum... I think it may be time for Commissioner Broad to send out a STFU memo - c.c.'d to Annette King - suggesting any information on the Investigate story be sent to the PCA not the Minister's in-box. Pretty hard to come away from that linked story with any respect for any party involved. Not looking forward to the PCA's report, somehow.
Last ←Newer Page 1 … 1195 1196 1197 1198 1199 … 1235 Older→ First