Poland Smells a Dump, Then Takes One
Karina at SpoutBlog points us to this little bowl-circling floater at Movie City News and I was suddenly reminded why I rarely read David Poland. Most of us see the recently announced September 12th wide-release of Joel and Ethan Coen’s Burn After Reading as cause for celebration, but Poland puts on his Oscar colored spectacles and sees Focus Features hitting the Oscar eject button. In his mind, the picture is clearly no good and Focus is dumping it. To Poland, it’s tantamount to a stink bomb.
He then chews through the cat turds like a dog chained up in the backyard and finds a bevy of evidence that the release date means Burn is DOA as far as Oscar is concerned. The horror!
I don’t remember what all the evidence was because my eyes started to glaze over and I’m pretty sure at one point I felt my soul actually trying to leave my body in an attempt to escape the utter drudgery of Poland’s peanut-picking Oscar obsession.
Finally, mercifully, at the very end of his little analysis, he concludes that ”perhaps The Coens have just learned the trick of lowering expectations and being satisfied by a decent box office result (likely under $50 million) and less awards pressure.” Gee David, do you think? Or maybe they’ve “learned the trick” of making good movies and that’s the end of it. Is it possible it was never intended to be an Oscar movie? Does Lebowski after Fargo mean anything to you?
You can tell how slow the news day is by how much folks like Poland strain themselves trying to make up stories.
You’ve also got to smile at that little “likely under $50 million” caveat. Or grit your teeth.
Filed under: Opinion
Reading that a couple of days ago over at MCN, I just find it amazing how seemingly schiozophrenic Poland appears to be. On one hand, he’s clearly obsessed with the Oscars and thinks of the annual ceremony every hour of every day.
On the other hand, he simultaneously acts like he couldn’t care less and he’s just reporting the facts of it all. In this case, Focus is “dumping” Burn After Reading.
As many of the posters over there rightly note, a Coen comedy, even with Pitt and Clooney and McDormand and Swinton, is unlikely to gain much Oscar traction.
Unless I’ve been duped by the citizens of IMDB, I’ve read the damn script, and both the Coens and their fans are going to be just fine. But Poland knows everything of course.
Poland is not a film critic, but rather he’s more of a gossip columnist all wrapped up in hyperbole and contradiction. His critical “perceptiveness” makes Leonard Martin seem inspired. Tell me I’m not surprised. LOL.
I happen to dislike Poland intensely and rarely read his blog. Schizophrenic is an understatement. To see him at his schizo best, read his review of There Will Be Blood. He pretty much bashes it then gives it a “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. What a nut.
And he was the last person to concede Daniel Day-Lewis to be the frontrunner in the best actor race.
Sam sums Poland up perfectly.
I kind of think of Tom O’Neil along the same lines. I mean, really, anyone who refers to themself as an ‘Oscarologist’ can’t be taken seriously. At all.
Huh, wow, I imagine Poland must be right since Focus may not have seen a final cut of the movie before they made their decision. Principal photography just finished on this one, didn’t it?
Obviously a Coen Brothers comedy is normally Oscar-bait, so them dumping it in September is clearly a sign that it’s going to fail at the Awards this Winter.
Yeah, I stopped reading Poland not long after I started, with his whole Eli Roth/Hostel 2 review where he admitted to watching a pirated, unfinished non-theatrical cut of the movie then berated Roth for his clear violations of ethics and morality as writer and director of the film.
Poland is a hack and it’s amazing how far he has carried his hacking, even to the extent of getting numerous publicists to grant him video interviews with their clients. The mind boggles.
You people are clearly not getting it! The Coens are OSCAR HAS-BEENS!!
You know it’s true because you were told by a journalistic never-was.
He’s Sid Hudgens with less charm, ten times the ego, and half the intellect.
This story is even funnier considering it’s about the Coens, who seem to give about as little of a shit as possible about such things as awards and reviews.
Good one Sartre.
And there Chuck pretty much nails it on the head.
Personally, I’m with the Coens (in case anyone doubted).
Now if all of you would stop being interesting for a while, I’d appreciate it. I really do have work to do. (just kidding, talk amongst yourselves)
“…work to do”? I can’t even keep up with your posts, let alone the comments! 4th of the day. Well you didn’t live up to my 100 Posts in February challenge (thankfully, for your sake), but you’re still draining many workplaces of productivity. Nice work.
I know the Oscar season “begins” in September with the Toronto FF, but recent years have shown that earlier releases do just fine – Gladiator and Crash (May), Seabiscuit, LMS, even the The Departed all came out earlier than the Nov/Dec rush, and those are just BP nominees off the top of my head. My point being, a September release date should not be considered an Oscar hazard, even if it might have done in Jesse James (that’s just speculation and excuse-fishing on my part).
I try to avoid this kind of inconsequential muckraking as much as possible. Got some interesting news about the movie itself or the next project the Coens have lined up? Fine, I’ll bite. Got speculation about the box office revenue or quality based on the film’s release date? Don’t waste my time.
Poland (and Wells and their ilk) are good examples of what not to write/read. If film critics are really failed artists, what exactly are they? Failed film critics? Failed journalists?
Ok, seriously? WHO CARES! I don’t mean this post, of course (Poland bashing = always fun. The person, not the country), but Poland’s. Who cares if it’s Oscar material? I just wanna know if it’ll make me laugh. And the sooner it gets here, the better.
Hedwig, isn’t there something to tell us about a certain recent film experience?
sartre, click on Hedwig’s name and you’ll see the review. :-)
Daniel. Cut me some slack, February was a short month.
I’m glad to see others noticing Poland’s idiosyncrasies. He’s a smart guy, but his pretensions and overbearing self-importance have tainted his blog since he become self-employed.
Extra Credit Question of the Day:
Kennedy expresses deep concerns about Poland. 1960 or 2008?
Kennedy: “I know some of the people will say that all this is a wasted effort, that the people of Poland, however brave, are in a prison from which there is no escape, but is this the reason to ignore their needs? Is this an excuse for inaction?”
Kennedy: “I don’t remember what all the evidence was because my eyes started to glaze over and I’m pretty sure at one point I felt my soul actually trying to leave my body in an attempt to escape the utter drudgery of Poland’s peanut-picking Oscar obsession.”
One powerful Kennedy remark is from 1960 and the other historic Kennedy statement is from 2008. Although pretty much interchangeable, can you identify which is which? (10 points.)
I am a jelly filled donut
ha!
Dude. Just don’t tell me you have a secretary named Lincoln, or you will Trip. Me. OUT.
Even more alarming, when I was looking for that quote, Google threw this at me: Fly cheap. Daily departures from Kennedy to Poland.
I don’t think I can handle this on a daily basis.
Google targeted ads in gmail freak me out too. Forget about the fact that they’re parsing my correspondence, but some of the crap they come up with to try and sell me… weird.
Yeah, how did they ever get the idea you’d be interested in the Bianca doll?
Hahahahaha…funny one there, sartre.
I expect the Kennedy-Poland exchanges of 2008 will soon supersede those more boring Google search results from 1960. 9th-graders across the country will have a brand new topic to write about for their Civics essays — another tangled hotbed of repression and liberation to unravel.
[...] Kennedy over at Living Cinema gets mad at David Poland’s odd analysis of Burn After Reading: Most of us see the recently announced [...]