Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

stephenfollows.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 421 posts

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#291

Post by WalterBright »

bananamerica wrote: post #219
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…

I saw "Enter the Dragon" as a teen and liked it a lot. I rewatched it recently and had a hard time thinking of anything good about it :-/

I've turned into my dad. As a teen, I begged him to see a movie I thought was great. We went to see it, and on the way out I was like "well? what do you think?" He thought for a while, and came up with a rather lame compliment he'd obviously struggled to come up with.

Watching that movie today, I agreed with him.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#292

Post by WalterBright »

jdougan wrote: post #281
JadeNB wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Critic reviews are prescriptive: what they think the masses should watch. I think this really depends on the critics. Lots of critics never explicitly articulate a philosophy—or, if they do, I don't bother to seek it out—but, for one notable example, Roger Ebert explicitly subscribed to the philosophy that you should review a movie based on whether it achieves its goals, not on whether its goals are the same as you…

I miss Ebert. He never cheated and was clear as to which standard he was judging a movie by.

I rarely agreed with him. But I enjoyed his reviews. The best part of his show was when he'd bicker with Siskel.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#293

Post by WalterBright »

bluenose69 wrote: post #249

Others have said they miss Ebert. I'm certainly in that club. I haven't paid much attention to film reviews since Ebert died. Sure, he gave scores, but they were not the point. I read his reviews because they helped me to explore my own thoughts about the films. It's the same reason I enjoy chatting with friends about films, books, art, etc. Scoring is not the point. Agreement is not the desired outcome. Oftentimes,…

These days, I find I enjoy Eddie Mueller. Some movie dvds have an alternate soundtrack which is him critiquing the movies. Listening to his prattle is often far better than the movie.

In related news, I recall one movie with a director's commentary track. It was full of each of the actors saying their bit about the movie. Everyone (including the dog) casually concluded with he/she had to sleep with the director to get the part. Another one where the commentary track was better than the flick.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#294

Post by casefields »

unfocussed_mike wrote: post #207

No, I don't think so. I think they get it largely right. How many reviews of movies have you seen from a senior, experienced reviewer got a film really totally wrong? I don't mean "hated a movie that genre fans will like", or "dunked on a trashy movie", because in almost all cases those reviews acknowledge their biases and even the people who like that sort of thing will get the picture. I mean: really wrong. In rece…

>How many reviews of movies have you seen from a senior, experienced reviewer got a film really totally wrong?

Tons. Even legendary critics like Ebert got movies wrong. He gave thumbs down to Full Metal Jacket, Blue Velvet, The Thing, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The Usual Suspects, Ace Ventura, Tommy Boy, and many more.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#295

Post by cookie_monsta »

okasaki wrote: post #2

I've done this analysis for games. My theory was that the correlation was falling because the ratings of old games were dominated by players playing old games now and then rating them, and they were more likely to play games for which there is already a consensus that they are good (old bad games are mostly just forgotten). Whereas for current games the games being played are more random.

I had a run of games a while back that were next to unplayable for the first 6 months while the bugs got ironed out and the patches got patched. Now I just wait 6 months or so (bonus - they're generally heavily discounted by then, haha) - if games critics are reviewing new releases but gamers reviews come in over the lifetime of the game, they're kind of reviewing two different products and it would make sense if critics' reviews were harsher.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#296

Post by wly_cdgr »

The good ones have never had it. The point of good criticism has never been to convince mass market audiences to like things they lack the cognitive / emotional / aesthetic skills to appreciate. The point is to provide good directors with the appreciation they deserve and need to stare down poverty and despair and keep making good work, from the few people whose opinion they care about

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#297

Post by wj »

I'm going to drop a link to my favorite film critic and one of my favorite sites on the Internet: https://seeingthingssecondhand.com/

His reviews always rekindle my love for film when it is waning (mostly due to lack of time). Love the rankings (Marvel movies, Disney movies, etc.) as well as the reviews of the other top movies list (Better than the AFI Top 100). Feels like required reading for a cinephile.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#298

Post by sdiupIGPWEfh »

robocat wrote: post #137
_dain_ wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't consider either of these to be the "correct" solution. You don't need to posit anything at all about how film criticism works. Occam's Razor suggests (ROT13): Vg'f whfg erterffvba gb gur zrna pbzovarq jvgu erfgevpgvba bs enatr. Vs lbh unir gjb pbeeryngrq inevnoyrf K naq L, naq lbh cvpx gur zvavzhz A fnzcyrf sebz K, cebonoyl gur pbeerfcbaqvat A fnzcyrf sebz L jvyy unir uvture crepragvyr enax. Lbh pna pbasve…

Off topic question: Is there anyone here who reads raw ROT13?

A couple years ago, I could manage reading and writing ROT13 somewhat decently. I can still do it after some warm ups first. I can also do arbitrary Caesar cyphers in my head, but not fast enough to impress anyone. Memorizing the alphabet backwards helps, as does being able to visualize the numeric value of each letter. Embarrassingly, I'm actually rather slow at the simple mental arithmetic part.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#299

Post by muh_gradle »

wj wrote: post #297

I'm going to drop a link to my favorite film critic and one of my favorite sites on the Internet: https://seeingthingssecondhand.com/ His reviews always rekindle my love for film when it is waning (mostly due to lack of time). Love the rankings (Marvel movies, Disney movies, etc.) as well as the reviews of the other top movies list (Better than the AFI Top 100). Feels like required reading for a cinephile.

This is my first time seeing this critic. I'm just curious how you were introduced to this and any posts you enjoy in particular?
Post reply on HN