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Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

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Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#411

Post by wolverine876 »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #386
wolverine876 wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do people die from erotic self-asphyxiation? Because we have a compulsion to escalate and to push things further. We need novelty. We need new stuff. We go mad if it's just the same thing over and over. At least that's true for most of us. Not everyone takes it all that far, but when you invest a significant amount of time doing one thing in particular, you're always going to want to take it to greater heights.…

The brain is a data compression engine and it's designed to ignore/"not enjoy" anything too repetitive and predictable. You can get novelty from more extreme experiences and from complex experiences. Franchise movies tend to go for more extremes (more characters, more CGI, more superficial complexity over an unchanging core), while art movies aim for complexity, implication, depth, and weirdness/unfamiliarity - to ge…

> The brain is a data compression engine and it's designed to ignore/"not enjoy" anything too repetitive and predictable.

I generally agree, but that is not at all the only way our brains enjoy or experience things. To imply otherwise is a vast oversimplification. Again, see my example above of seeing the same play - same thing, different experience.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#412

Post by digisign »

yakubin wrote: post #382
noisy_boy wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What they do share is that the main character is an underdeveloped Mary Sue, without character flaws, without weaknesses they must overcome. Regarding Rey in context of The Last Jedi, did we watch the same movie? She was basically a mixture of having doubt and uncertainty and being troubled for the large part of the movie. Only in the confrontation with Kylo, we see her inner strength but even that was tempered wit…

She never lost a fight. She's never shown to have any moral flaws. Compare that to Anakin who lost plenty of fights (thereby also losing parts of his body) despite being an overpowered character; he was also arrogant and impatient. What moral flaws does Rey have? Doubting yourself and then winning at everything doesn't make you relatable. It makes you like that colleague from school who was stressed out before every…

When she did the mind trick on accident(?) and without a single lick of instruction, I was done.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#413

Post by AvocadoPanic »

OneLeggedCat wrote: post #348
bananamerica wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

God I miss Ebert. It's not that I agreed with him always. It's that I knew where he stood, and I found his writing entertaining. As my familiarity of him grew over the years (decades!), I could accurately guess whether or not I would like a movie based on his review, whether he liked it or not. He's been hard to replace for me.

This has been my experience too. :(

Though now I mostly only go when I take the kids, I'm sure he'd hate most of the movies I see now now as much as I do.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#414

Post by bananamerica »

wolverine876 wrote: post #332
bananamerica wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Nowadays I see everyone shitting on super heroes Who is doing that? IMHO the NY Times film reviewers, for example, overrate the superhero movies more than they do anything else. > Many critics are just sad elitists because now they must share the cultural zeitgeist with everyone else Who are you thinking of? BTW, where did you do reviews?

I'm not always willing to dox myself, but I can say it was a big newspaper in South America.

I also made a comment, not an article or a study. I don't have any ready sources to present you, I merely expressed my opinion and you're free to take it as such.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#415

Post by bananamerica »

stackbutterflow wrote: post #303
bananamerica wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A counter argument to your Shakespearean argument, movies are made once, recorded once, and can then be viewed anytime anywhere. Whereas a play exists at one point in time and space. It has to be remade in every city and every year.

That doesn't make a lot of a difference, there will always be enough differences between two versions to make the effort worthwhile. 1916s Romeo and Juliet quite different from 1996's Baz Lhurman Romeo+Juliet.

1996

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#416

Post by munk-a »

michaelmrose wrote: post #166
munk-a wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Artsy movies are great... sometimes, and unartsy movies are also great sometimes. Sometimes I want to watch the Seventh Seal and sometimes I want to watch Die Hard - both movies have their place but a lot of critics tend to lean strongly into arthouse movies and sell them well above their actual appeal. I think one of the hardest parts of being a genuinely good critic is being able to leave your own tastes at the doo…

Isn't their specific taste the only thing of value the critic is adding.

I think the most valuable thing a critic brings to the table is a wide breadth of experiences to compare new experiences to - you're watching all the crappy movies to pick out the good ones to recommend so that people don't waste their time on something flat.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#417

Post by ascagnel_ »

gigaflop wrote: post #164
ascagnel_ wrote: post #39

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.

Sometimes, I'd prefer some sort of limited series more than a movie. 'Maniac' was enjoyable for me because it had time to let things go slowly, despite taking course over what was probably 1 week in-universe. I may also be different from the usual audience, in that I try to avoid binging anything. Hour-long episodes are great for my WFH lunch break, and to pad some time in the evenings if I so desire, but I prefer to…

> Sometimes, I'd prefer some sort of limited series more than a movie. 'Maniac' was enjoyable for me because it had time to let things go slowly, despite taking course over what was probably 1 week in-universe.

Maniac is an excellent example. If it were a film, much of it would be cut down, and the movie likely would have had a singular focus on Jonah Hill's Owen character. The show, in having more time to breathe, realized relatively early on (by episode 3 or 4) that Emma Stone's Annie character had a far more compelling story to tell, and shifted its focus accordingly.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#418

Post by bananamerica »

robbiep wrote: post #246
bananamerica wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That’s an interesting take on the remake I hadn’t considered before. But as someone without an artsy bone in my body, I wish something other than superhero movies could be made

> I wish something other than superhero movies could be made

You can literally watch movies all day every day and never watch a super-hero. It was never so easy to watch exactly what you want, when you want, spending so little. I don't get this kind of insatisfaction nowadays. Maybe the hidden premise is that what bothers you is not a lack of content you enjoy, but the fact that so many people love so much a thing that you consider inferior and a abject. To put it bluntly: that's cultural elitism.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#419

Post by bananamerica »

onpensionsterm wrote: post #385
stackbutterflow wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A counter argument to your Shakespearean argument, movies are made once, recorded once, and can then be viewed anytime anywhere. Whereas a play exists at one point in time and space. It has to be remade in every city and every year.

But how many films are essentially just Hamlet or The Taming of the Shrew?

Every remake is a piece of its own, even if they're based on the same story.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#420

Post by bmelton »

mikkergp wrote: post #139
bmelton wrote: post #15

There's an interesting concept with user reviews, in that they're inherently OF the people, whereas critical reviews are FOR the people. In a way, critical reviews are like celebrity chef cookbooks in that they should be considered aspirational. What we HOPE to be watching to please our senses of austerity, versus the pulp trash we might actually prefer to be watching. Similarly, sure, we might WISH we were making /…

Freakonomics just did a good podacast about this this week: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/dont-worry-be-tacky/ . Essentially that what we talk about liking and what the general population actually like are very different. They interviewed this woman, who as an art student learned all about 'high art' and 'low art' and in a moment of loss of inspiration went back to using some low art she appreciated as inspiration…

Oh, thanks! I've pushed that to the top of the queue (but which I'm woefully behind on now without a commute)
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