7 votes

The problem with film criticism

4 comments

  1. HotPants
    Link
    Great article! This one line inspired me to subscribe to Empire Magazine. A UK magazine that reviews movies and makes them sound... fun! Well of course not. In the 80's and early 90's, watching a...

    Great article!

    they don’t sound as if they’re any fun

    This one line inspired me to subscribe to Empire Magazine. A UK magazine that reviews movies and makes them sound... fun!

    there is currently no must-read critic, no Pauline Kael or Andrew Sarris whose opinion can kick off a conversation or an argument.

    Well of course not. In the 80's and early 90's, watching a movie was a huge time commitment. Back then I used to religiously read Roger Ebert.

    Nowadays I can check out the aggregate score on IMDB, cross reference them with Rotten Tomatoes, and start watching a movie all within a few seconds.

    I’ve been a film critic on and off for twenty-five years

    American movies have replaced story and character and emotion with spectacle and noise, something you couldn’t say about the first contemporary special-effects movies, like Close Encounters of the Third Kind or E.T., or even the best comic-book movies like Richard Lester’s Superman II and Tim Burton’s Batman.

    I think the author is suffering from selection bias. Of course all the movies were great before they became a movie critic. Nobody watches a crappy movie from the 80's. If the author watched as many 80's movies as they do 2020's movies I imagine they would have an entirely different perspective on the glory days of American film :)

    4 votes
  2. cloud_loud
    Link
    I am a little surprised to learn that the problems I have with modern film critics has apparently been pointed out for at least ten years. Including the part about all of these film critics...

    I am a little surprised to learn that the problems I have with modern film critics has apparently been pointed out for at least ten years.

    Including the part about all of these film critics writing to impress other film critics and media writers, as opposed to writing for general readers.

    I will say though that traditional print publications also have a lot of these types of critics now. So that’s the biggest change that’s happened since 2011, when this was first written.

    3 votes
  3. [2]
    post_below
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    Critic critiques criticism critically :D

    Critic critiques criticism critically :D

    4 votes
    1. EgoEimi
      Link Parent
      Next up: critiqued critics critique critics critiquing criticism critically It’s critics all the way down

      Next up: critiqued critics critique critics critiquing criticism critically

      It’s critics all the way down

      4 votes