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© 20th Century Studios, Hulu & Disney+In the last few days, it was reported Quentin Tarantino's final outing as a director will be a film about a movie critic.
Rumoured to be about a character based on the legendary critic Pauline Kael, the story prompted a meditation on the Deadline website about the state of movie criticism.
It wasn't pretty reading.
Noting the retirement of the New York Times' AO Scott, the article contrasted the world in which Kael operated with that faced by today's critics.
© 20th Century Studios, Hulu & Disney+In Kael's day, there were less entertainment channels vying for everyone's attention.
There were cinemas, theatre, radio and TV but no streaming services, no podcasts, YouTube influencers or TikTok videos.
Reviews mattered and critics' opinions were respected.
With today's deluge of film and television content, critics have a lot of material to wade through.
In this context, Scott observes very often they resort to giving "faint praise" to a lot of work while they juggle reviews of around 20 releases a week.
© 20th Century Studios, Hulu & Disney+Today's box office is dominated by franchise movies like the Marvel and DC Comics films, 'Avatar,' 'Star Wars' and the 'Fast and Furious' sequels.
The notion of ambitious, heavyweight, awards laden films like 'Platoon,' 'Rain Man,' and 'Schindler's List' burning up the box office has disappeared.
As they chase huge profits, studios have greatly reduced making prestige films or farmed them out to their indie branches.
Streaming services like Netflix, Apple TV+, Amazon Prime and Hulu/Disney+ picking up the baton.
The recent Oscars success of the enjoyably quirky but pretty flighty 'Everything, Everywhere, All At Once' at the expense of more traditional heavyweight awards fare like Charlotte Wells' 'Aftersun,' Sarah Polley's 'Women Talking' or Martin McDonagh's 'The Banshees of Inisherin' was as much a reward for putting bums on seats than it was about honouring the best film.
© 20th Century Studios, Hulu & Disney+Social media and word of mouth can often influence the fortunes of a film.
Algorithms on streaming services and social media feeds also influence what people watch.
Deadline's article, therefore, concluded with this grim observation by Scott: "The cultural space for movies I care about seems to be shrinking.
"The audience necessary to sustain original work is narcotized by algorithms or distracted by doomscrolling.”
As if to illustrate Scott's point, Matt Ruskin's 20th Century Studios movie 'Boston Strangler' has landed on Disney+ and Hulu with Keira Knightley, Carrie Coon, Chris Cooper and Alessandro Nivola.
Based on a true story, it gives Knightley the kind of period role she normally excels at and she delivers a typically robust performance.
However for a supposedly prestige drama, 'Boston Strangler' is one of those movies that inspires the kind of tepid reviews Scott is taking about.
It is watchable but you feel it ought to be a whole lot better.
Written and directed by Ruskin, Knightley plays the real life Boston Record American reporter, Loretta McLaughlin who made her name covering the Boston Strangler case in the early 1960s.
At the start of Ruskin's film, McLaughlin is intrigued by three rapes and murders of elderly women in the city - believing it is worth examining if there is a link.
© 20th Century Studios, Hulu & Disney+Consigned to writing lifestyle pieces in a male dominated newsroom, she lobbies her editor, Chris Cooper's Jack MacLaine to allow her to follow her hunch.
While initially expressing misgivings about letting her chase the story, he relents and after a bit of digging, Loretta is able to confirm that the Boston police are indeed investigating if it is the work of a serial killer - given similarities in all three murders.
She gets a front page splash, beating the rival Boston Globe and Boston Herald to the scoop.
However the story provokes a furious reaction from the police, with Bill Camp's Commissioner Edmund McNamara turning up in MacLaine's office to claim it is a work of fiction dreamt up by police sources trying to impress a woman they wanted to bed.
Spooked by McNamara's denial and similar claims made to other male reporters on the crime beat, MacLaine's instinct is to kill any further attempt by Loretta to follow up the story.
© 20th Century Studios, Hulu & Disney+However when a fourth victim turns up, Loretta is put back on the story on condition she works alongside Carrie Coon's more experienced reporter Jean Cole.
The duo's probing of the murders raises some uncomfortable questions about how the Boston police are handling the investigation, fuelled by Nivola's disgruntled source Detective Connley.
As they go about chasing the story, both women encounter chauvinism in the justice system and also have to battle it in their own workplace.
Loretta's marriage to Morgan Spector's initially supportive James McLaughlin also comes under strain as she diligently pursues the truth because it means longer hours in the office and time away from her family.
Nevertheless as the bodies pile up and the profile of victims changes, Jean and Loretta's enquiries see several suspects gradually come into the picture.
© 20th Century Studios, Hulu & Disney+These include Ryan Winkles' Daniel Marsh, David Dastmalchian's Albert DeSalvo and Greg Vrotsos' George Nassar.
It also becomes clear that the Boston Police aren't even talking to colleagues in New York where another suspect Paul Dempsey has emerged or in Michigan after a murder in Ann Arbor resembles the Massachusetts killings.
And as they ratchet up the pressure on the police, Jean and Loretta also face a backlash.
In his telling this story, Ruskin comes up with an investigative journalism film that feels like a cross between David Fincher's 'Zodiac' and Maria Schrader's 'She Said'.
Yet it fails to come up to the mark of either.
© 20th Century Studios, Hulu & Disney+While he elicits solid performances from Knightley, Coon, Cooper, Nivola and the rest of the cast, it just feels slavishly formulaic.
'Boston Strangler' is one of those films that goes through the motions of aping better investigative journalism movies without mustering sufficient indignation or passion for the story.
Ruskin's film is entitled to outrage at the casual way the Boston police treat the investigation into the horrific rape and murders of women but the dialogue is inert and stale.
The cast trot out phrases we have heard a hundred times before.
Of the two movies mentioned, Ruskin's most resembles Fincher's 'Zodiac' in look and tone.
© 20th Century Studios, Hulu & Disney+The dark blue green tinge of Ben Kutchins' cinematography specifically recreates Harris Savides' work on 'Zodiac'.
But this only underscores the lack of originality.
And given this is about inspiring women reporters, you inevitably compare it to 'She Said' which was rather unfairly cast aside during awards season after a disastrous release.
'Boston Strangler' has none of the spark that Rebecca Lenkiewicz's screenplay in that movie had.
Nor does it even come close to matching that film's visceral anger at the way women were treated by Harvey Weinstein and a movie industry that protected him.
© 20th Century Studios, Hulu & Disney+At best,'Boston Strangler' is a competently made movie for Hulu and Disney+ that you stick with in the hope that it might be a whole lot better.
However it has nothing original to say in pursuit of its tale.
Watching it, it's, therefore, hard to shake off Scott's criticism of an industry that lionises hugely overrated fare like 'Love Actually' 'The Greatest Showman' or 'Top Gun: Maverick,' yet marginalises genuinely interesting, imaginative work like 'Leave No Trace,' 'First Cow,' or 'The Power of the Dog' by confining them to arthouse cinema releases or streaming services.
We've undoubtedly gone past the point where critics' opinions carry as much sway as they once did and where narratively sophisticated films can force their way to the top of the box office.
However, collectively critics still need to keep trumpeting films of genuine quality while being honest about those that don't come up to scratch.
© 20th Century Studios, Hulu & Disney+We just have to keep promoting them , using as many channels to trumpet them.
It means being honest too about films like 'Boston Strangler'.
It means saying they're not good enough, as hard as that might be for some people to take, in the hope that it spurs filmmakers and their backers onto more ambitious things.
('Boston Strangler' was released on Hulu in the US on March 17, 2023 and on Disney+ in the UK and Ireland one week later)
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