I recommend sticking to IGN and staying away from real film criticism.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Is a reviewer who scores the film more on its supposed impact rather than its quality of work a good / professional reviewer ?
- Thread starter OtherWorldly
- Start date
I recommend sticking to IGN and staying away from real film criticism.
Yup. Literary reviews, which certainly incorporates film criticism, are not meant to be buyers guides. Nor should they be.
I think this is how OP wants movie reviews to work:
-Cinematography: Great
-Costumes: Great
-Direction: Great
-Performances: Great
-Original score: Great
-Art direction: Great
-Sound design: Great
-Editing: Great
-Screenplay/Story: Absolute dogshit
-Special Effects: Great
Final Score: 9/10
-Cinematography: Great
-Costumes: Great
-Direction: Great
-Performances: Great
-Original score: Great
-Art direction: Great
-Sound design: Great
-Editing: Great
-Screenplay/Story: Absolute dogshit
-Special Effects: Great
Final Score: 9/10
I don't think it's that simple. Film is many different things to many different people. People will see Joker because they want to see the performance. Some people want to see it because it seems like it may have something to say. Some people just go to eat some popcorn and be entertained by flashing images for two hours.
I'm not a general audience kind of guy. I gravitate towards things that make use of themes, and messages, or try to make a statement on something, or offer a look into a part of the world, or type of person I'm not familiar with, or challenge my preconceptions.
If a film is made to be a commentary on society or any other subject, then you can judge it based on the strength of its commentary, or whether or not it has anything meaningful or valid to say about said subject. But if somebody wasn't looking for stuff like that and they had a different experience and take on a given piece of art, then that's fine too. But I do feel like since film is comprised of so many parts, you should offer more than just a single critique. It can't be all about the commentary, or all about the performance. The script has to come into play as well. The writing is the most important thing.
I'm not a general audience kind of guy. I gravitate towards things that make use of themes, and messages, or try to make a statement on something, or offer a look into a part of the world, or type of person I'm not familiar with, or challenge my preconceptions.
If a film is made to be a commentary on society or any other subject, then you can judge it based on the strength of its commentary, or whether or not it has anything meaningful or valid to say about said subject. But if somebody wasn't looking for stuff like that and they had a different experience and take on a given piece of art, then that's fine too. But I do feel like since film is comprised of so many parts, you should offer more than just a single critique. It can't be all about the commentary, or all about the performance. The script has to come into play as well. The writing is the most important thing.
No
And you've now officially killed the word censorship congratulations.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It's like when a kid that wants to be an adult because they want the freedom and respect but don't actually want the responsibility and accountability.
Yeah and that's a fair point. Personally for me, I just don't inhabit the view that art has to be socially responsible to be good. It just needs to effectively convey a feeling or some sort of expression.
That being said, there are many ways tricky media can accidentally screw up the ideas it's trying to convey, but I also see people that attempt to go for the least charitable interpretation.
I've found it laughable that some critics have said American Psycho glorifies yuppy culture and serial killers. Like the only way you could come to that conclusion is if you rob the context of the ending and the specific portrayals of it all.
The ending clearly calls yuppy culture out for what it is, pathetic and hollow. Patrick Bateman is a pathetic man, who despite his psychotic rage for attention and power is ignored and invalidated. He is left entirely impotent.
what a ridiculous concept for a thread. the review had plenty to say about the quality of the movie. people just feel this way about reviews that disagree with them. it's why reviewers are hesitant to write about movies like this. it provokes all sorts of silly reactions that other negative reviews just don't.
I haven't seen the movie yet but the consensus critique regarding the commentary has been that it's heavy-handed, simplistic, derivative rather than reflective, like the movie is simply copying the text of Taxi Driver and King of Comedy without grasping the subtext of what those movies were commenting on. That the commentary is carried by Phoenix's performance but feels thematically hollow within the context of the overall film
Critics are welcome to write anything they want in whatever way they want just how I'm not going to score an old movie higher because it did cool tech stuff at the time or what culture and events surrounded it when it was made which made it significant.
We can enjoy movies as just movies if we want and enjoy and analyze them more if you're into that. I don't think there's a wrong way. It's a personal fucking opinion.
We can enjoy movies as just movies if we want and enjoy and analyze them more if you're into that. I don't think there's a wrong way. It's a personal fucking opinion.
Your analogy doesn't work. Video games are not exempt from cultural criticism. There has literally been criticism of shooter games' depiction of war and violence. Here's an example.
Two Iraq War Veterans Share their thoughts on CoD Modern Warfare Depiction of Realism
Get over the whole 'so and so will inspire this'. That's not what the theses of the reviews in the OP are.
I think people are getting so defensive over 'the Joker movie will inspire incels' and are missing the forest for the trees.
Isolating culture and context from film criticism is why people don't understand why Black Panther was a hit. The black representation and Afrofuturism, in the context of Hollywood whitewashing and American racism, matters, and it mattered to a lot of reviewers.
The only reason people complain about reviews that don't fit their idea of what a review is are people who are upset about the impact that said reviews have on an aggregate review score.
Art criticism isn't a points game.
Art criticism isn't a points game.
This is one of those threads where I can't tell if a comment like this is serious or satirical
Please tell me this is sarcasm. This thread makes it so hard to tell.
I'm just saying that the OP wouldn't have a problem with these reviews talking about the cultural element of the movie if the reviews were positive.
Reviews are relevant if they inspire you to recontextualize your understanding of the subject. You don't have to agree or disagree with them to engage with them.
I was too vague. I meant that whenever this discussion comes up, it's usually not because someone has a genuine complaint with the way the reviews are written, but because they disagree with the reviews.
Most "are reviews relevant?" complaints are actually "I disagree with these, so they're obviously doing it wrong."
People should write whatever they want to write. I don't think "reviews" are a good format for cultural critique because that's a nuanced subject and a lot of these reviews are so short that they barely scratch the surface of what they want to talk about. Long-form critique is way better at these things.
I think it's important to point out that review != all forms of critique.
I think it's important to point out that review != all forms of critique.
If these reviews were written the exact same way but were positive, OP wouldn't have a problem with them.
You think that's what Ebert did for goodfellas or godfather? Made sure you knew that this morals of the plot were bad before talking about the movie itself, if ever?
We are almost in full on hyperbolositic throw baby out with bathwater mode anymore. Anything even slightly offensive is considered bannable. Get ready for book burnings, everyone.
Are you actually serious. Godfella's itself literally spells out that its morals are bad to you. As in it literally says it out loud. You don't even need a review for it.
Interesting, see, now I don't have a problem with this sort of criticism. If it fell short of having meaningful commentary then so be it, the only thing that really bothers me is when a reviewer or a thinkpiece writer makes the leap that a piece of media is dangerous and morally repugnant based on subtext that most people wouldn't interpret or are able to see the film as a whole and then therefore must be condemned.
I think media can be problematic and valuable still.
Those movies only broke ground in terms of budget, plenty of films had already done what those films "pioneered," see Brows Held High's vid on Birth of a Nation and Folding Idea's vid on Triumph Des Willens for context on both (at work or would link vids)
Last edited:
And yet, the protagonist, gets away in the end, almost laughing about what he got away with. Sure, it totally spells it out for you. Do bad shit, then flip before it can catch up to you and enjoy maximum payoff. Sounds like it totally chastises that behavior...
The Godfather is a movie that examines crime, but I wouldn't say it glamorizes it. There's a difference between offering a character's worldview, to pull you in and create identification, and actually endorsing actions and choices made in the story.
In my opinion it's also okay to sometimes enjoy dark or amoral content if you have mature emotional faculties and can at some point contextualize and examine what you're watching. That's obviously part of the appeal of Breaking Bad, but the show had a bigger project in mind.
I haven't seen the Joker, so I can't really comment on what side of the line it falls. But the ethics of a piece of entertainment is a totally valid dimension for a reviewer to comment on.
Totally. I see nothing wrong with talking about the themes of joker or how they may be taken in today's society but not if it cuts out all other conversation about aspects of said media. At least in a review.
I would argue that giving scores is stupid and reviewers should stop doing that and all aggregate web sites should just shut down. What is an 8 to someone can be a 3 to someone else.
A review is at the end of the day a short essay with limited number of words. Let the writers write on what they think is important, rather than go through a checklist of things that they must talk about. It reminds me of 90s video game scoring where you need to give a score for every part of the game and it is reductive and pointless and doesn't add anything to the conversation.
Do you remember what happened to everyone else.
Why do you feel people talking about the cultural impact of a film will prevent the discussion of other aspects?
I didn't wanna be the one who said it but...yeah here we are :(
I think you should watch goodfellas again. They gave him egg noodles and ketchup. That might be worse then death
How is the commentary, or in other words the themes, messages, subtext, intent, etc. of a film in any way shape or form separate from its quality?
[/QUOTE]
It would be helpful if you stopped thinking of reviews as "good" or "bad" and validating your opinions but more as making you think about a work more deeply.
It would be helpful if you stopped thinking of reviews as "good" or "bad" and validating your opinions but more as making you think about a work more deeply.
Wouldn't that make them good reviews, just ones you don't personally agree with? Or by variety of perspectives do you mean variety for variety's sake, like reviews based solely on the number of swear words or boobs per minute would be welcome because they broaden our critics horizons?
I mean I guess they would be kinda funny but I wouldn't call them good criticism.
First they came for the objective film nerds, and I said nothing
Fucking nerds ruin everything for us nerds
But seriously people forget reviews are opinions and good ones are more than "cinematography good" and "plot holes bad"
OP
OP
Another new example from today
Are you new to film criticism or something? That's a completely reasonable review that is looking at the subtext/themes, tone, context, and story/characters that are in the damned movie.
I haven't seen the movie so I can't comment but what's bad about it
People should only write about movies the way I want them to write about them, because if they write about them the other way they're censoring creators. I therefore demand that film critics stop writing about film in ways I don't want them to. Because I'm worried about censorship. So they should stop writing about those things.
A new example of a succinctly well-stated critique regarding a movie's tone, themes, and relevance?
What is your issue with that excerpt?