Live data from Hacker News

Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

stephenfollows.com

311–320 of 421 posts

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#311
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?

I've been reading it since at least 2017 which was the first time I can find that I emailed someone about it. Don't remember how I was introduced.

I really enjoyed the recent 100 Greatest Stars series as it is always fun to read a ranking list and see where your own picks slot in but few ranking lists go as in depth with their reasoning as this one. Plus, it highlighted a lot of films by the big stars that I haven't got around to seeing yet.

https://seeingthingssecondhand.com/category/better-than-afis...

For people with kids, or who still enjoy kids movies, this one is good:

https://seeingthingssecondhand.com/category/disney-pixar-ran...

I'm hoping he does a Studio Ghibli ranking at some point.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#313

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 ge…

> 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.

Wait you’re not going to tell us what movies these were? Also I assume in the first example they were kidding? Or the director was dead?

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

also consider the fact that you might have a 40 year old reviewing videogames when the target audience is like 4 years old. my kid and the typical video game reviewer probably have different opinions about the latest paw patrol game.

I sometimes hear this, but I disagree. If you're 40 years old, you need to be able to consume any kind of media and then place yourself into the mindset of a younger person and judge it from that mindset - because you used to be that younger person. Truly exceptional media is good enough to transcend the age barrier and is enjoyable for everyone, e.g., The Incredibles is enjoyable for young kids because it's a cartoo…

> Ghostbusters (1984) is another expertly crafted movie that is fun for kids, but well-written enough to be incredibly enjoyable for adults.

When you get right down to it, it’s a movie about exterminators—not exactly fun-for-kids fare. And yet…

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#315
In the dim reaches of the past, I did film reviews (even compensated) for a 'zine.

I quickly learned that, while it is certainly fun to savage a bad film, or to plunge off into some obscurity, my (hopefully) number one priority was to equip the readers of my review with what they need to decide whether or not they want to watch a movie. Just as a crude example, Joe Bob Briggs frequently reviews drive-in cinema, and at the start of a film review he will tally up breasts, decapitations, "fuzzy wangdoodles," and the odd types of martial arts you might see in a grindhouse flick (should someone be killed with a toaster, this is toaster-fu), and so these can serve as kind of metrics for drive-in movies. If your audience is a horror crowd, you might talk about practical f/x versus CGI, jump scares, black cats hurled into the screen, cheap tricks like loud scores, and "Did the movie scare me?"

Later, though, you can get into the "critical" business, as sort of a past the fold realm where spoilers rule. You might even -- and here those with fond memories of Dead Poet's Society might flinch -- what the director wanted to accomplish and just how close he or she came to doing that. You can nerd out as much as you like, but ... not until you have done the job of equipping your audience with a way to make decisions.

This naturally is the point where subjectivity rears its head.

You have two defenses against this. The first is your basic film summary, the TV guide version. One or two sentences describing the setup, drop the names of one or two relevant actors, year of production, a genre (likely split down the middle), and the dangerous assignment of stars.

The second defense is more subtle, and requires that your readers understand you as a reviewer, which is to say "wear your biases on your sleeve." As an example, read Ebert's review of Leon: The Professional, and then pause for a bit and ask yourself how Ebert might react to Chloe Moretz's character in Kiss-Ass before actually reading said review. If you knew ahead of time that he would find that concept pretty objectionable, well, then Ebert has done his job, he let you know what he cannot be objective about. Here, it is about developing that relationship of trust between the reviewer and the reader.

After this, you can talk about the progression of the careers of the director, how this screenplay probably lifted elements of something else, how a given actor is up and coming, and the suitability of the selected aspect ratios. You can get pretty deep in the weeds with that.

The job itself is as easy or as hard as you wish to make it. If your concern is only the "messaging" of the movie for whatever your political interests are, it is a breeze. Similarly, if you just want to trash a film -- and the joys of MST3King something which has wasted your time are not to be underestimated -- your effort comes largely in crafting whatever jokes you might make at the film's expense. If, however, you want your readers to feel like they can read at least the spoiler-free portion of your review and trust that you have given them enough information to decide whether or not they want to spend their time and money on that movie, well ... it is a bit harder.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#316
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What killed the mid-budget movie was the rise of "peak TV" -- the B-list actors that defined mid-budget movies can land a meaty TV role that pays them well on a consistent basis. We're also seeing more and more A-list talent move to anthology or event series, where you can make a deep dive over 8/10/13 episodes instead of a 120-minute film.

Matt Damon talks and laments about this. What killed the mid-budget movie was the collapse of DVD sales. Without DVD sales, there is no extended "second bite" that allows word of mouth to build up. So, instead, your marketing is $30-$50 million and you need to make that back. Getting a second bite is also responsible for the recycled pablum with China pandering--if you say something that the Chinese government deems…

> "Encanto" was an absolute poster child for this

That’s just kinda how musicals are.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#317
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…

Good critics aren't 'prescriptive'. They are scholars of various media who elucidate where a new piece of work sits with in an artist's oeuvre, or the larger canon that the work is contributing to.

While some self-anointed blogger critics might have certain ideas about what they wish an audience would watch, an actual critic's (broadsheet paper, industry trade) only job is to contextualise a work in the larger bodies of genre, medium, and culture.

> User reviews are retrospective: how much did they actually enjoy watching the movie.

How can ANY review not be 'retrospective'? In fact, probably the majority of film criticism speaks to how much or little the critic enjoyed a film. Pauline Kael (probably the most incisive and celebrated American critic in film history) built a legacy based pretty much on how much she much she enjoyed the film.

> I think a very interesting graph would be so see to what extent critics prescriptions are accurately forward-looking to viewer attitudes.

Why do critics and audiences have to have the same opinions? I this is the fundamental misunderstanding and wonky premise of the article.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#318

A couple of things: People today confuse reviews with criticism . The two are not the same. A review is a consumer recommendation, i.e. should you pay to see this movie? Criticism is discussion of a piece of art. Both are inherently subjective. Second, how many new movies did you watch this year? I'm guessing for most people, it's >10 (data seems to suggest it's even lower). If you are a film critic and you watch 50…

> People today confuse reviews with criticism. The two are not the same.

They are if you're talking about journalistic film criticism (vs. academic film criticism): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_criticism

> Personally, I like guys like Mark Kermode, who can say "this movie was complete and utter nonsense and I had a great time" or "this was a really smart movie, but it just didn't work".

I think you're implying that Mark isn't a film critic, but that's what he calls himself (his bio: https://www.markkermode.co.uk/). Also, movie critics recommend "bad" movies (https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/speed-2-cruise-control-19...) and dump on "beloved" movies (https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-usual-suspects-1995) all the time.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#319
post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ge…

> 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. Wait you’re not going to tell us what movies these were? Also I assume in the first example they were kidding? Or the dir…

I thought the movie was "Kids", but I looked it up and that wasn't it. But it was a movie about teens in the 1990s.

Of course they were kidding. Dogs can't talk, for example.

Eddie Muller has commentaries on Film Noir dvds I've gotten from Netflix. Angel Face is an example. Google produced a list:

https://www.eddiemuller.com/completelist.html

Enjoy!

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#320
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…

Ok, but he did also penalize films for having bad goals. Case in point The Human Caterpillar.

Centipede.

I... think I just won the prize of most useless nitpick ever.

Post reply on HN