a great movie - why has it gotten such poor reviews?

Your kind of all over the map on this one. While I happily agree with you that ASC is being bashed way too much for my liking - personally I thought it was a brilliant film worthy of a 9 to a 9.5/10 in my books. That being said, Thank You For Smoking was truly deserving of all the praise it got, and to suggest critics are siding with one film, and bashing another, because of a 'political agenda' that directly relates to their profession and attitudes is simply absurd. All I can say, is I'm glad you phrased that opinion in the form of a question, becase the answer is simply no. Continue to show your love for ASC on this board, as will I, but please don't try and take down other great films with it, as well as in the process, giving film critics a lot more bad credit than they deserve.

Neither were great, but TYFS seemed like it was trying to be an intelligent comedy while ASC seemed like a joke how trashy it was.

I mean, Jerome serving alchol at the party, him not realizing Jimmy was a killer, A cigarette killing Jimmy, the fact that all the teachers were burn outs and all the students were idiots. There's so much more, it was almost embarassing to watch.

Yeah, I'm not sure why ASC is getting generally lukewarm-to-chilly reviews. While it has its problems (as did TYFS, which I liked as well) and it's not as sharp as "Ghost World" was, it was still nonetheless worth it. Of course, I'd much rather see a daring/edgy but flawed film than a well-made but generic/derivative one. And I only see movies I'm sure I'd want to see again, anyway.

You're spot on with the notion of the major being reason for criticism. After all, art is a major sub-section of the Liberal Arts & Science conceptration. Another major element is journalism and a third is of course English/Writing/whatever you want to call it. LAS majors havealways cast a negative perception of outsiders (in conjunction with an overly protective tone with regard to other LAS concentrations). So its only natural to assume that movie critics jump all over anyone who elects to critique their sacred disciplines. Movies critiquing the art world, where people on average earn SO much more than LAS majors is accepted as a form of backlash for the dominance of Corporations in the US. I think the critics have two main categories: 1) How DARE that director insult our own major and 2) How close the film's stereotypes are to reality. If every film poiking fun at the office environment grossely exagerates the mundane lifestyles and cliches of "the cube world" *beep* "Office Space" is still the dominant perception of the IT industry) then this film hits a lot closer to home with the redundant nature of art school. So naturally, it warrants a hate-filled critique.

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>>Could it be because TYFS ridicules corporations, politicians and do-gooders, while ASC mocks artists and academia(whom critics identify with)?<<

Bingo!

I have to agree with you. Having just seen Art School Confidential I thought it was brilliant and was completely surprised afterwards to find that it was blasted by most critics. Upon reading most of the reviews I think that a lot of them just missed the point. One review couldn't understand why the main charactor would give up on his dream of being the greatest artist of the 21st century only to plunge headfirst into trying to outdo his classmates. What they didn't get was that the main charactor was so achingly naive that he never stopped to think that maybe his Professor snd most of his classmates were full of *beep* From there I think that the frustration was more than enough to turn him into the embittered drunk he becomes without it seeming trashy or far fetched. As for Daniel Clowes interpretation of Art School as a former Art School student I'd say he hit the nail right on the head on both this film and the comic that he produced of the same name. Sure it might have been exaggerated a little, but what fictionalized film doesn't. Just one more thing I think this movie blew Ghost World away and I loved Ghost World. Any critic who claims that Art School Confidential is just a transparent outlet for Dan Clowes own bitter rants should try taking another look at Ghost World and try to say it isn't the exact same thing, but hey I'm not complaining in either case bitter ranting is what Dan Clowes does best.

Possibly because it's a movie about a student trying to find his originality in the art world and yet the film itself has not a shred of originality. I think it scores a 9/10 on the irony scale but not many others.