I thought this was brilliant:
Red Letter Media Video Review of The Phantom Menace
(First part – from what I can remember the whole thing’s about an hour. Well worth watching the whole thing as it’s very funny, and right on the money imo).
My mistake.
wasn’t there something like this in the notebook a while back? stoopid search function.
i love these things. it’d be nice to have a resource here somewhere. the only one i bookmarked was paul malcolm’s notes towards a project on citizen kane though. and i saw a tag gallagher one on ophuls the other day though for the life of me i can’t remember what film that was…
there’s one on cowards bend the knee but i also found one once on guerin’s in the city of sylvia which i can’t find now….
@Scampi
Good times!
Even though they weren’t strictly reviews, Scorsese’s two docs (My Voyage to Italy, A Personal Journey…) had elements of this, where he would talk about specific scenes from films he really loved.
Another good doc in line with Visions of Light is Cinematographer Style. I have not seen it but have read the books on it and have heard it’s very informative. Although I don’t know if they have film clips – it might just be talking heads.
@Twodead
Hey, if you ever find that link for In the City of Sylvia, let me know. I’d be interested in seeing that.
@Scampi
I think I’ve seen that one on Phantom Menace. (It had a strong mocking tone, right?)
@Santino
Thanks for the tip on Cinematographer Style. Hopefully, it’s streaming on netflix. (I don’t mind talking heads without clips, but it’s so much better with the clips.)
FWIW, those Scorsese films would apply, although I’ve never seen them because he talks about some films I’ve never seen.
I haven’t seen a lot of the films Scorsese references either but I still enjoyed My Voyage to Italy. It actually motivated me to seek out some of those films.
I just meant I wanted to see the films before hearing commentary about them.
Jazzaloha
My favorite parts of films about movies (e.g., Vision of Light, The Cutting Edge: the Magic of Movie Editing, etc.) involve showing specific scenes with accompanying commentary from critics or filmmakers. When done well, I absolutely love these moments, and I could watch them all day. What I’m wondering is why this form of film review/criticism has taken the world by storm, so to speak. I would think this would supplant written reviews on the news/culture websites (e.g., The Daily Beast, Atlantic, Huffington Post, NYTimes, etc.). Or am I just unaware of these? If you know of any great film reviews that use video, please post some links so we can check them out. (There was a pretty good one explaining The Birds, although I ultimately disagreed with the guy.)