I was asked a few weeks ago by the Chicago Reader's J.R. Jones if I'd like to submit a capsule review of Ong Bak 2: The Beginning to the paper. Here is a link to the piece, which was published on the Reader's website on Tuesday and in print on Wednesday (11/18):
Ong Bak 2: The Beginning
I hope to publish a more detailed piece on the film here in the coming weeks. It's enjoyable as a whole, but eschews most of its predecessor's strengths.
Though not of the same analytical rigor as the essays published here, this opportunity was especially gratifying for three reasons: It simultaneously marked the first time I've been paid for writing and my first appearance in print, and it was an honor to submit a piece to the paper that published most of Jonathan Rosenbaum's output for the past quarter century.
To return briefly to the issue of print publications, I'd like to say that, for what it's worth, my heart still beats for printed media. While my experience with much of the writing by critics upon whom I've modeled my own approach has been on the internet (beginning with Roger Ebert and Jonathan Rosenbaum, whose print publications were unavailable in my home town), I still quixotically aspire to publish in print. It seems a foolish, antiquated ambition, but a print version of The Pensive Spectator would be an incredibly satisfying culmination, even if the cost of such an operation is prohibitive and its likelihood close to nil. The internet has given me an outlet that I'd otherwise lack, but its qualities as a medium fail to replicate the virtues of a printed journal, newspaper or magazine. Eyestrain and hyperlink fatigue have never marred the page-turning experience.
showed Ong Bak 2 at the harris. dismal numbers, but that's with anything showing at the harris.
ReplyDeletethe printed version of the Pensive Spectator is called a zine . . . totally possible.
but alas, even Harper's has declared the death of printed newspapers. PF has stopped advertising with City Paper in the belief that people don't read papers anymore but go online. well, here we are.
How inhospitable of me to fail to notice TPS' first comment.... unforgivable.
ReplyDeleteQuite nice to know that someone is reading.
In light of its dismal failure at the box office, I feel a bit more charitable now toward Ong Bak 2... it certainly deserved better than that gloomy fate. It's preferable to any Hollywood action pictures released in the past few years, though it falls victim to some of the trappings of its Big(ger) Budget Cousins. Tony Jaa is the best thing to happen to martial arts filmmaking in a while, and here's hoping he resists the temptation to jump aboard shitty American action comedies like some of his contemporaries.
It's funny that a moderately budgeted Martial Arts extravaganza is playing art theaters in the United States, when its luck might have improved considerably had its distributor booked it at multiplexes.
I'll add "zine publication" to my to-do list... it would require more organization... I wonder if there's a potential audience for a film studies zine.... time will tell....
My predication on Newspapers is that in five years, there will be the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal... everyone else will be online only. This is something of a loss, but what can you do? I also predict (though I'm in no position to do so with any authority) that magazines will either plateau or increase their popularity during the same time span. I think people will find it more justifiable to spend eight bucks on a great magazine than eight bucks on a week of newspapers. In my own personal reading experience, newspapers are making themselves irrelevant by publishing non-stories similar to the evening news.
thanks again for the comment, LJK.
-Patrick