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Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

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Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#211

Post by labrador »

lamontcg wrote: post #131

I feel like the mass of people are ossifying around the familiar. People like re-watching the same stuff that they've already watched, they're comfortable these days watching reboots of the same superhero movies. They like big budgets and flashy special effects. They don't like being challenged by anything. Even when it comes to something like online forums, something like reddit is mostly a wasteland of the same 50…

    I don't know who needs to hear this
    X is fine until it's not
    kick the can down the road
    in the tank for
    let's normalize Y
    Is it just me or 
    Anyone with an opinion other than mine about trans is transphobic
    I'm calling you out
Ugh, that's just off the top of my head. I'm having a hard time with it as well. My theory is "monkey see, monkey do" is actually true and people learn how to communicate in groups by mimicing others.

> They don't like being challenged by anything

I got in trouble yesterday on Twitter after making a simple suggestion about video techniques, got called a douche, all their friends jumped on me and I got blocked. It was bizarre. Afterwards I came up with this:

Ignorant people will attack and ignore you if you try to give them information they lack. That's why they're ignorant. From Latin ignorantia "want of knowledge". Ignoration (1832) has been used in the sense "act of ignoring."

I'm abandoning social media more and more these days because so few people have the ability to think critically. It's mostly emotional reasoning and it's the same old tropes over and over again, endlessly.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#212

Post by unfocussed_mike »

dogleash wrote: post #157
lamontcg wrote: post #131

I feel like the mass of people are ossifying around the familiar. People like re-watching the same stuff that they've already watched, they're comfortable these days watching reboots of the same superhero movies. They like big budgets and flashy special effects. They don't like being challenged by anything. Even when it comes to something like online forums, something like reddit is mostly a wasteland of the same 50…

>They don't like being challenged by anything. "Challenging" is such a bullshit term. It implies there's something meaty for your brain to chew on, but 9/10 times it's a pretentious way to write off people who don't like hamfisted righteousness that fits squarely into run-of-the-mill positions and ideas that are Hollywood-safe. Those movies are pablum just as much as marvel franchises or 90 minutes of fart and dick j…

I tend to mischievously misapply the word "Challenging" to movies I think shouldn't have been made because they expose the bigotry of their audience.

Like all the Taken movies, or A Boy And His Dog, or anything Steven Seagal made after he discovered Russian money.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#213

Post by nmat »

watwut wrote: post #194
cwkoss wrote: post #186

Critic reviews are prescriptive: what they think the masses should watch. User reviews are retrospective: how much did they actually enjoy watching the movie. I think there has always been a fundamental disconnect, in that critics think the masses should be watching 'smarter', 'more artistic' or, less flatteringly, more pretentious movies. The world has become a lot more political over the past couple decades. I woul…

> Critic reviews are prescriptive: what they think the masses should watch. This does not seem to be accurate description of movie reviews I have read. Like, not at all.

Part of a critic's job is to educate people. A good critic can explain why a certain film is groundbreaking and why another film is recycling ideas that have been done thousands of times. The critic's end-goal is to push the industry to make better films not because of critics, but because the public demands it.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#215

Post by frumper »

oehpr wrote: post #156
pessimizer wrote: post #140

I think the numbers are just a distraction. What the critics like is informed by the desire to maintain access to the studios and the quality of the goodies they've been given (access journalism/junket whores), and what the public likes is informed by the size of the marketing spend and what the critics have already written before they saw the film. A better proxy for public sentiment would be viewer scores from test…

my... I see you have adopted an appropriate name. By this logic I could just spend all my budget on telling the public a movie is great, then show them a grey rectangle for 2 hours and get rave reviews. If this is not the case, then to what degree is it one or the other? Where would you put your ratios?

You know, I think there would be people in this thread that would call that a good movie. It challenges you to think about cinema differently and provides a unique theater experience.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#216

Post by riffraff »

jknecht wrote: post #159
lamontcg wrote: post #131

I feel like the mass of people are ossifying around the familiar. People like re-watching the same stuff that they've already watched, they're comfortable these days watching reboots of the same superhero movies. They like big budgets and flashy special effects. They don't like being challenged by anything. Even when it comes to something like online forums, something like reddit is mostly a wasteland of the same 50…

I think it has always been this way. I worked in a video rental store in the 90's, and every movie was either a military story (Vietnam: bad, Russians: bad, current US military: good), courtroom drama, divorce drama, or high school / college comedy. A few decent psychological thrillers and campy horror flicks too. Basically a never-ending stream of the same movie with different actors. Hollywood has never been accuse…

I think the '90s had a bit more variety than the '10s and (for now) '20s. E.g. we seem to have lost good legal procedurals, thrillers, weird fiction, and "small scale" sci-fi.

Fo example, what are the'10s equivalents of "A Few Good Men", "Seven", "Dark City" and "The 13th Floor"?

There is _some_ stuff, but less than before, replaced by a massive amount of super hero movies or long-running franchises.

As a support clue, I invite you to consider the winners of the MTV Movie Awards, which are more "popular" than other Awards:

   92 Terminator 2: Judgment Day
   93 A Few Good Men
   94 Menace II Society
   95 Pulp Fiction
   96 Seven
   97 Scream
   98 Titanic
   99 There's Something About Mary
   00 The Matrix (bonus: not 90s)
compare with the 10s

   10 The Twilight Saga: New Moon
   11 The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
   12 The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1
   13 Marvel's The Avengers
   14 The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
   15 The Fault In Our Stars
   16 Star Wars: The Force Awakens
   17 Beauty and the Beast
   18 Black Panther
   19 Avengers: Endgame
I have the feeling most "risky" movies, for lack of a better word, have moved to streaming services.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#217

Post by zasdffaa »

I look to good critics and they do help, but in the end what a critic wants to watch will differ from the average pleb like me because they do a lot of watching.

I suppose it might be put thus: If you're eating out every day because that is your job you'll want good quality food with a bit of subtlety and care. If you're me and you've had a few days of keyboard work and naff all else, you want the junk-food-level moderately brainless entertaining tripe to distract your mind.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#218

Post by registeredcorn »

lamontcg wrote: post #131

I feel like the mass of people are ossifying around the familiar. People like re-watching the same stuff that they've already watched, they're comfortable these days watching reboots of the same superhero movies. They like big budgets and flashy special effects. They don't like being challenged by anything. Even when it comes to something like online forums, something like reddit is mostly a wasteland of the same 50…

removed

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#219

Post by bananamerica »

cwkoss wrote: post #186

Critic reviews are prescriptive: what they think the masses should watch. User reviews are retrospective: how much did they actually enjoy watching the movie. I think there has always been a fundamental disconnect, in that critics think the masses should be watching 'smarter', 'more artistic' or, less flatteringly, more pretentious movies. The world has become a lot more political over the past couple decades. I woul…

I'm a film major. I wrote about film on print for quite a while. This was not in the US. I did want to prescribe, but not to the masses. To other crítics, to the pedantic purists that thought Bruce Lee was unimportant and Spielberg formulaic and uninspired, and that unless your name is David Lynch anything American is worse by default. People who thought anything with emotion was trash for the masses. And I was there, at the newspaper, saying *no*, romcoms can be of value, there's an artform to the action movie, the screwball comedy, and every genre film. I'm really proud of my time as a critic.

Nowadays I see everyone shitting on super heroes and remakes, they're easy targets to make people think that you're distinguished. Complain about sequels and reboots, and I say "Shakespeare is remade 100 times a year, a remake, reboot or whatever is always an artistic reconstruction that says a lot about its time, it's history, it's socioeconomic context. By studying the multiple versions of a story, we understand ourselves".

Many critics are just sad elitists because now they must share the cultural zeitgeist with everyone else, when even Roger Ebert, when you read his reviews, was historically a lot more open and fair than many of his admirers today.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#220

Post by Sophistifunk »

It will always be this way. Movie / music reviewers are in love with the artform itself, and view each movie / album as an artefact through that lens. Joe sixpack wants to see some exciting or funny stuff, or some heartwarming stuff, and to see some baddies get their comeuppence for once, or to briefly live vicariously through some sort of heroic or inspirational archetype.

Viewers don't even have to disagree with reviewers in order to ignore their advice. They're just not looking to bask in the wonder of the artform, but to be taken on an emotional journey.

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