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Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

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Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#321

Post by makeitdouble »

Lyapunov_Lover wrote: post #269
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 disagree that critic reviews are inherently prescriptive. Major blockbusters rely on cliches for the same reason that supermarket chains spend ridiculous amounts of money trying to get every store to look and feel the same: people find familiarity comforting. But to people who watch thousands upon thousands of movies this gets astoundingly boring. Take any hobby. Literally any one of them. The people who are really…

If I am getting your point, you are basically positing that critics are inherently disconnected for different reasons and we should see them as some fringe freaks more than anything ?

PS: to put it out there, there’s people working at beer makers tasting beer samples every single day to check it is exactly the right taste. Ideally every day it has the same taste, if it differs they’ll do what’s needed to bring it back in line. That for decades in some companies. These people exist in spaces.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#322

Post by AlexandrB »

delusional wrote: post #125
Izkata wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most entertainment-oriented films. There's a big difference between "has a message" (which those usually do include) and "lecture" aka "beat you over the head with".

I think most blockbuster "entertainment" movies are MORE heavy handed in their preaching. The big differentiator for me is that they preach what is already assumed. It's not that they don't lecture you, it's that they lecture you in what you already agree with. In that sense entertainment-movies are more like sermons from your pastor. It's a reframing of a story you've already been told a million times, so your brain…

Yes. The typical modern blockbuster constantly hits you over the head with its messages of "family" or "finding yourself" or "overcoming obstacles" of whatever like you're still in grade school. Compare that to something like No Country for Old Men - a movie with a much more nuanced set of ideas. Or even to older blockbusters like Die Hard which are more consistently focused on the action and keep the moralizing to a minimum.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#324

Post by MisterBastahrd »

Aunche wrote: post #278
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The funny thing is that games used to be FAR more punishing than they are today. Give an 8 year old (or hell, a 16 year old for that matter) Super Mario Bros. Watch their reaction when they get to World 1-3 or something and then lose all of their lives and realize that the game doesn't care, they have to start ALL the way from the beginning. Compare that to Elden Ring, which has difficult boss fights but otherwise is…

I don't think Super Mario Bros was ever considered particularly difficult or punishing at the time. It was just designed for an audience that had less access to videogames. They'd rather repeat the same levels with the prospect of seeing a new one than breeze through the game they paid $25 for ($60 in today's money) in 2 hours.

It wasn't punishing for the time. That's not my point. My point is that being able to save games so that you don't have to replay hard content when you fail has made it so easy for the current generation of gamers that there are a lot who bemoan games that really aren't that hard comparatively. In Elden Ring, you only have to beat each boss once, and you have a save point right nearby to fight the boss without fighting almost anything else beforehand, so if you die, you're right back into it. In SMB, If you struggle on level 7-3 and then die on level 8-3, you start back at 1-1 and have to master them both again (provided you don't warp).

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#325

Post by JetAlone »

logicalmonster wrote: post #17

I don't know if this tells the entire story, but I think these are 2 of the bigger issues at play. 1) The corporatization of social media is a big factor. There's big money involved in controlling reviews. Critics and influencers devoted to certain fandoms inevitably get influenced, pressured, infiltrated by studios who expect favorable treatment towards their product or that entity loses access, gets attacked, etc.…

I think part of why this happens is that critics are part of the "creative" class of people. Creative people are more likely to be open to new ideas and explore, which is more likely to lead them to scenarios in their lives that look something like the non-binary vegan sex worker side of our world. And so, they find the dramatic look into the lives of marginal characters fascinating. I'm going to point to Silence.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/silence_2017

To be a Christian in Japan during this part of the Edo Jidai is an especially marginal identity. It's not hard for a creative type who has seriously been on the margin at some point in their life to relate to that even if they are not Christian. It also doesn't hurt of course that the final message delivered is a pan-out view of his faith in its unconfessed nature which does indeed comport to a contemporary agenda summed up well in the movie's title; "Silence", as an imperative. "It is virtuous to make your sacrifices to Caesar/The Emprah, step on the fumie, and never speak about your religion in public because it causes other people pain and discomfort."

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#326

Post by MisterBastahrd »

monocasa wrote: post #147
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #106

Film critics want triumphs. Audiences want to be entertained. Will Smith was a ridiculous, inauthentic disaster in King Richard, but won Best Actor anyway.

The critics don't decide the Oscars, the academy does. It's more a political thing than a statement of quality.

The want the same dumb, boring, monotonous somber shit every year and the Academy largely votes the way the critics tell them to.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#327

Post by wolverine876 »

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.

Who writes like that? Could you provide an example? I haven't seen it, having read many, many critics, including in sophisticated reviews like the New Yorker, Film Comment, and the NY Times.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#328

Post by monocasa »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #326
monocasa wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The critics don't decide the Oscars, the academy does. It's more a political thing than a statement of quality.

The want the same dumb, boring, monotonous somber shit every year and the Academy largely votes the way the critics tell them to.

No, all of the awards are pretty much lifetime achievement awards that happen to coincide with some movie. 'Sure it's not his best work, but he deserves an Oscar.'

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#329

Post by crispyambulance »

Lyapunov_Lover wrote: post #269
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 disagree that critic reviews are inherently prescriptive. Major blockbusters rely on cliches for the same reason that supermarket chains spend ridiculous amounts of money trying to get every store to look and feel the same: people find familiarity comforting. But to people who watch thousands upon thousands of movies this gets astoundingly boring. Take any hobby. Literally any one of them. The people who are really…

> But to people who watch thousands upon thousands of movies this gets astoundingly boring.

I would say that there's so many different ways to appreciate films, so many different types of audiences, and such wildly different intentions behind the films and the critics who write about them. It seems reductive and a bit misguided, to me, for someone to write an article about the divergence between metascore and imdb ratings. It's comparing two gigantic blobs of scores and drawing straight lines through them. Does it actually say anything interesting? No in my opinion.

I mean, sure, the films with super-high metacritic scores are worth watching. They're a part of "the canon"-- although for the life of me I could never get through Citizen Kane. But a metacritic score is worth about as much as an imdb score. It's a blunt measurement.

The value of a well written review has little to do with "the score". Many include "a score" because they're forced to, but it's so much better to just pay attention to what the critic is actually saying in the review. It might speak to you if you're in the right headspace, and provide some insight into the film that you hadn't considered. They're typically more valuable to read AFTER you've seen the film. But if you find a writer you grok, you'll get some threads to pull on that will open up all kinds of film experiences you would have never had.

The value of an audience score is garbage, by itself, without any recommendation algorithm to match up your viewing habits and limit the pool of films presented to you. Even then, the high-scores mean almost nothing though the bottom-of-the-barrel low ones usually can be trusted to actually be bad.

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