Ask Prospero anything...thread

[Stavros]

Prospero, as someone who works in film, what is your view on the state of film criticism in the UK? I am not even sure if film reviewers are film critics, they rarely take a film apart to see how it works; but that aside, since David Thomson left The Times, and Derek Malcolm and Philip French retired, there do not seem to me to be any distinctive reviewers/critics. Instead there are various people writing for one paper, and none of them impress me -I can' recall their names but there are two people writing for The Times and the Telegraph, and Bradshaw for The Guardian whose reviews are not based on any real knowledge of cinema. And I assume it means if they don't like your work it is as irrelevant as they are -?

[Prospero]

I would concur with your broad judgement. The last reviewer who I thought of any real worth was Philip French. He had a terrific knowledge of cinema history - not simply cinema since the 1970s. THis successor at the Observer is poor and the Sunday Times has recently handed over film reviewing to a blonde woman who seems to know zilch about films and can hardly write.

Real criticism in the manner of someone like Ray Durgnat is very rare these days. I think the best reviewers now tend to people like David Denby of The New Yorker who oesn't measure up to Pauline Kael but is still pretty good.

[Dino Velvet]

Who you got on Sunday? You watching?

[Prospero]

I don't understand that question Dino.

[Dino Velvet]

I don't understand that question Dino.

Super Bowl. You watching? Any pick for the winner?

You know that day is like a holiday over here. The presentation of the game is as good as the game itself. The additional entertainment and high-dollar advertisements rope in additional demographics so even the broads have a good time. If you watched it as an event you'd be impressed.

[Prospero]

Oh... I don't know nothing about sport in America. We don't get that here.

[ImpulZ]

are you a cockney?

[Prospero]

Sorry... no. Technically Cockneys have to have been born within the area where you could hear the sound of Bow bells (a church in east london borough of Bow).

[ImpulZ]

i missed chop shop with bernie fineman and Leepu....That show was awesome...silly and nice cars

[sukumvit boy]

It can seen along a section of the London Underground that was planned but not built -this Spriggan, from Cornish folk-lore is somewhere around Crouch End, I think. There is a link here-
http://thestationmaster.wordpress.co...ghgate-places/

Now that , is amazing! Abandoned Art.
Spriggans ,Pixies and Brownies ,oh my!
Spriggan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pixie - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownie_(elf)