KING KONG Reviews- Page 4

[Kad]

Posted: 11/9/18 at 10:00am

I, too, thought the NYTimes review kind of crossed a line into just flat-out meanness and unfunny bitchery, with little thoughtful engagement or even just clever or witty takes (is Jesse Green getting money from big pharma to reference Thorazine or something?). It read like some B-list posters on this board getting together.

[Kad]

Posted: 11/9/18 at 10:04am

ScottyDoesn'tKnow2 said: "What's wrong with the curtain call?."

The puppet being inelegantly dropped in and then left to sort of swing there while doing some automated movements is campily hilarious.

 

[Lot666]

Posted: 11/9/18 at 10:11am

Kad said: "I, too, thought the NYTimes review kind of crossed a line into just flat-out meanness and unfunny bitchery, with little thoughtful engagement or even just clever or witty takes (is Jesse Green getting money from big pharma to reference Thorazine or something?). It read like some B-list posters on this board getting together."

Green is all about the Thorazine, isn't he?

[HogansHero]

Posted: 11/9/18 at 10:12am

As I more or less said above, they are not clever or witty, and you kinda nailed it with the reference to B list posters: the kind about whom we write "don't give up your day job." My issue is with the challenge to the meanness. I think it is warranted. I think it is pretty clear that I do not make a practice of second guessing people's artistic choices, but there is no art here. What I do criticize is laziness and not caring, and that's what happened here. A bunch of people, a good many of which know better, sponsored something that is mediocrity incarnate. There is no valid way of discussing this show without being mean. It is an embarrassment for everyone whose name is above the title or in +size font.

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Posted: 11/9/18 at 10:16am

The behind-the-scenes tech flying by in the Phantom Zone gave me a good laugh.

[Brian07663NJ]

Posted: 11/9/18 at 10:20am

haterobics said:
I didn't see Harry Potter primarily to see magic tricks?!"

HA haterobics...I would have LOVED Harry Potter and the Cursed Child twice as much if it were half as long. A full day in the building, 2 tickets purchased after fighting the masses for a discount code and waiting months...it was well done but just long and drawn out. Felt more used that I got suckered into paying for 2 tickets to attend one full story.

[dexter3]

Posted: 11/9/18 at 11:14am

Haven't seen King Kong.

I have to add my response to the NYTimes review.  It's a new kind of nasty.  It's really, really disheartening. A new low.

Is there any way we can push back against this?

If I'm seeing things correctly, this is the third time this year the the NYTimes has said something in a review that has crossed a line. Smokey Joe's Cafe comment about costuming, Brantley's earlier comment on Head Over Heels, and now this one-two-punch of a review, which is really just a bitchy roundtable of vitriol that somehow got the go-ahead from an editor to be PRINTED IN THE NEW YORK TIMES AS A REVIEW?!

Seriously, who polices this kind of stuff? These are not reviews that are being posted to Joe Schmoe's Theater blog. When we let things like this fly in the world of professional reviews, then it's just going to keep coming and it's probably going to get worse. See VARIETY's review for a level headed pan of the show. 

@JesseKGreen

@nytbenbrantley

@nytimestheater

 

[Patti LuPone FANatic]

Posted: 11/9/18 at 11:30am

Who is to say that the reviewers "crossed a line"?  They saw the show.  They expressed their views.  

[BeNice]

Posted: 11/9/18 at 11:34am

Eye for an eye? Even if the show were sophomoric and insulting to the audience do they have to be too? I don’t buy it. They are allowed to be snarky all they want but Green veers into unneccesary nastiness that served no purpose to his readers other than to show how clever he is. That kind of discourse, especially these days, feels unnecessary.

I don’t disagree with any of their opinions. I just disagree with the way Green sometimes said it. 

Updated On: 11/9/18 at 11:34 AM

[l0l]

Posted: 11/9/18 at 11:42am

The best pull quote I’ve found so far is from Vulture:

“as slick and shiny as an oil spill“

[BroadwayConcierge]

Posted: 11/9/18 at 11:46am

People criticizing Brantley and Green need to chill out. It’s not like they called for violence against the cast or something. They passionately hated the show and wanted to make their opinion (again, THEIR OPINION) known. If you don’t want to be eviscerated by a theatre critic, then put up a good show.

[Lot666]

Posted: 11/9/18 at 11:53am

BroadwayConcierge said: "People criticizing Brantley and Green need to chill out. It’s not like they called for violence against the cast or something. They passionately hated the show and wanted to make their opinion (again, THEIR OPINION) known. If you don’t want to be eviscerated by a theatre critic, then put up a good show."

If you want to be perceived as a credible theatre critic, don't turn in "reviews" that would be more at home in a tabloid than the New York Times.

[HogansHero]

Posted: 11/9/18 at 11:55am

I am really shocked by some of the things I read here. 

Do we really want an editor at the Times censoring a review? Think, people, think.

I suspect most people who think this review is mean have not seen the show. It is hard to see it as a theatre-goer (meaning someone who cares about the theatre as opposed to a thrill seeker or vicarious amusement park witness) and not thinking this deserves punishment. This is unworthy, in a way that the worst of this deplorable year of Broadway musicals had no precursor. It deserves being treated as the joke that it is. Sorry but this one got to me. 

[Kad]

Posted: 11/9/18 at 11:55am

No one has been criticizing their opinion, but rather the presentation of it.

I think an informal bitch duet is an unprofessional and snobby means for the two most prominent theatre critics in the country to express their opinions.

[Brian07663NJ]

Posted: 11/9/18 at 12:01pm

A thought to ponder... if this were a glowing review from these 2 men would people be reacting the same way? Bitchy it may be it is their opinion and we all know: Opinions are like A-holes...everyone has one.

 

[Kad]

Posted: 11/9/18 at 12:03pm

Brian07663NJ said: "A thought to ponder... if this were a glowing review from these 2 men would people be reacting the same way? Bitchy it may be it is their opinion and we all know: Opinions are like A-holes...everyone has one."

I thought their positive review of Oklahoma was also useless and lacking insight or rigor.

All I'm getting from these dialogue reviews is that I never want to have a conversation with these two men.

[Bwayfan292]

Posted: 11/9/18 at 12:09pm

If you put out a crap show and didn't learn your lesson in Austrilla, then you deserve to get slammed by negative reviews.

[MadsonMelo]

Posted: 11/9/18 at 12:11pm

Im dying with people asking for a dignity review for this trainwreck of a show. They deserved this kind of treatment, it a lousy thematic Park show.

[HogansHero]

Posted: 11/9/18 at 12:12pm

I agree with that last part, Kad, and I have done it LOL

Let's face it. These duets are getting a LOT more attention than any singular review would have here. Newspapers are dying, and their utility has been compromised. They are trying to hang on for another few years. That's what this is about, even if the product is lame.

[ChildofEarth]

Posted: 11/9/18 at 12:13pm

I don’t have a problem with the content of the review or even how it was a dual review. The presentation feels icky to me.


But I’m also positive they know more about reviewing than I do

[devonian.t]

Posted: 11/9/18 at 12:21pm

Talk about shooting the messengers!  These NY Times critics are responding in the way they think most apt to a crushingly inept and cynical new product, which takes the lowest common denominator and heads downward.  Such projects deserve to be nailed.

"What I do criticize is laziness and not caring, and that's what happened here. A bunch of people, a good many of which know better"

Sadly I think you are being generous: this director just completely c*cked up 'Strictly Ballroom' following a series of weak, over-fussy concepts in other productions.  This book writer has no track record in musical theatre and is not the strongest contributor to the 'Harry Potter' product.

This show exposes the Emperor's New Clothes on a grand scale.

[Lot666]

Posted: 11/9/18 at 12:23pm

Kad said: "All I'm getting from these dialogue reviews is that I never want to have a conversation with these two men."



 

[Lot666]

Posted: 11/9/18 at 12:25pm

Lesli Margherita chimes in on Twitter

[Bwayfan292]

Posted: 11/9/18 at 12:30pm

Alex Brightman chimes in on twitter 

 

https://mobile.twitter.com/ABrightMonster/status/1060919956399906816

Updated On: 11/9/18 at 12:30 PM

[MayAudraBlessYou2]

Posted: 11/9/18 at 12:30pm

Hogan hit the nail on the head in the above post. Even more than just the newspaper industry, criticism is all but dead. Anyone can now put up a blog post and call themselves a critic, and being a "Top Critic" means less and less to the general public as time goes on. The Times is clearly trying to experiment with the form in order to draw in more eyeballs and keep the theater section afloat. It may be nasty, but that dual review will probably get twice the clicks as a standard review. And that's what its all about.