Go buy this.

[dsrtao]

Mister Magorium's Wonder Emporium. (Hoffman, Portman, Bateman, Zach Mills, and Steve Whitmire as Kermit (cameo)). It's wonderful, it's magic, and Henson would have approved.

Why were the critical reviews so terrible?

Comments

[liamstliam.livejournal.com]

Because they were critical?

;)

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

(Pushes it up the 'watch' queue.)

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

Saw major chunks of it on a plane. It was pretty good, in chunks. I plan to see it whole some time.

[mangosteen]

Probably because they all saw the trailer, said "MOST DERIVATIVE THING EVER.", and went in with that prejudice because, seriously, the trailer had the feel of "well, what happens if we do a search and replace on the Willy Wonka script?"

I'm glad to see that that's not actually true.

reviewers

[robertdfeinman.livejournal.com]

I don't know which "critical reviews" you are thinking of, but according to an article in the NY Times yesterday you won't have to worry about reviews "critical" or otherwise soon.

More and more newspapers are dropping their film reviewers since their role is being displaced by online reviews (like yours!) from just plain folks and dedicated film buffs.

Since my film viewing is determined by what the library buys on DVD I never read the newspaper reviews anyway, so I won't notice the difference. Even if I did read them I wouldn't remember what they said when it came time to make a choice...

There was a time when people read reviews (of all sorts) because the reviewer was a good essayist, but they seem to be in short supply these days.

One thing about derivative movies aimed at kids, they don't have the history so it's all new to them. Reviewers need to put themselves into the mindset of the intended audience if they are really trying to guide choices rather than showing off for their peers.