Beware the hacks

One of the sad byproducts of media consolidation is that the number of diverse voices go down. New Times and a number of websites from television stations each have one so-called critic reviewing RHI. For New Times, it's Robert Wilonsky, no KC lover, and his reviews appear in every New Times-owned paper from Miami to Dallas to Denver and beyond. He's writing for himself, more than any of you.

For those tv stations, it's Steven Snyder, and he rips KC, too. Same story.

What happened behind the scenes in RHI?

Kevin Costner hasn't promoted this film at all, and hasn't said a peep, other than a couple of interviews with Pat O'Brien of "The Insider" earlier this year.
It's true KC has been busy filming "The Guardian" in Louisiana. This is the first time he's missed a premiere of one of his movies.
I wonder, though, whether the events of last year - that false story planted on a website about KC allegedly being responsible for director Ted Griffin's firing, Griffin's replacement with Rob Reiner and Reiner's reworking of the script - also had anything to do with KC not being at the premiere or doing any promotional work for the film.
Meanwhile, the critics are mainly doing what I expected them to do when this project was announced last year.....Holding this movie up to the shrine they erected to the 1967 film "The Graduate," and finding it lacking. Most of them, though, have applauded KC's performance.
I plan to see the film this week, and then I'll write my own thoughts.

Hollywood Reporter RHI review

There are mild spoilers.

In a nutshell, the review says the actors are better than the movie.

Kevin Costner speaks often about taking a movie based on the script he reads while he's lying on the couch in his den. I wonder how the final movie, with Rob Reiner and company's rewrites, looks different from Ted Griffin's original script.

Here's the link:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/reviews/review_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001700164

Cheers and hisses

Cheers to the San Francisco Critics, which honored KC with a Best Supporting Actor award for TUOA:

http://www.sffcc.org/

And cheers to the Satellite Awards and the Critic's Choice (Broadcast and internet critics), who nominated him for awards....

A big HISS to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and their Golden Fleece (with apologies to Senator William Proxmire) Awards, which left both KC and Joan Allen out--and seriously threatens their Oscar nomination hopes. I mean, I like Pierce Brosnan too, but a Golden Globe nomination this time? And one critic took a jab at Johnny Depp being nominated for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

A good portion of the blame, of course, goes to Cheap Line Cinema (that's New Line for the uninitiated), which did a horrible job of promoting The Upside of Anger both here and around the world.

I believe the Satellite Awards are given by reporters who broke off from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Good choice.