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Sometimes I want a finely prepared gourmet meal with an expensive glass of wine.

Other times I just want a burger and a beer.

Both of these can be cooked badly, which should be criticised, but the difference between them should not be cause for complaint.

Same thing for films, and too many critics forget this.

When I was a child I would often go to the movies with my father. Some of my happiest memories are those days. We would discuss the films at length on the drive home or at dinner on the way back.
One particular weekend we saw two movies...
Waterworld and Congo.
Critics panned Waterworld and praised Congo. It was at that young age I learned that critics are morons that have absolutely no idea what they're talking about. From that point forward I ignored any "professional" critics until Red Letter made the Star Wars Episode 1 Review.
Now I still watch Red Letter Media and also Critical Drinker, Mauler and Caravan of Garbage.

Thing is though, films aren't just made to enjoy. The making of all art is to evoke feelings, thoughts and criticism. Film critics aren't reviewing something, you don't have to base your feelings entirely on their words. They are there to provide context, critique. A film critic introduces the audience to the film, they interpret and analyse the directors vision, they point out technical and tonal errors. It's still up to you as the audience to appreciate the film and you may or may not like it. This can differ from the critic response. A reviewer and a critic are not the same thing. A critic does not validate the opinion of an audience.

The best non-spoiler review I'd heard was by way of mouth from a friend to a friend about "The rise of skywalker":
This is if Disney came to your house, shot your beloved old golden retriever in the head with a shotgun and as you're yelling and scraping the blood off, they hand you a new pug puppy dog. Then they demand to know why you're hysteric- you just got a new puppy!

Also, this (old reference)... is just.. this:

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
They can still be useful, especially if you want a deeper dive into the depths of cinema history and movie making (although you need real critics for this like Barry Norman or Mark Kermode)

That's a good point. There's definitely still a need from an academic style critical analysis of film media, if for nothing else than to advance the art of movie making and for cinematic history. But that's pretty niche.

Voss wrote:

Bran Dawri wrote:

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

Whenever I see a critic talk about "groundbreaking" this or that, I'm pretty sure that whatever is "the first ever!" was achieved decades before the person was born. Why pay money for that level of ignorance? The old critics knew all of this. The new ones are selected for pliability rather than knowledge.

The other problem is that it cheats actual pioneers out of their accomplishments. I can't get behind that.

Hear hear. "Black Panther was the first black movie superhero!" springs to mind.
Um, Blade came out in the 90s IIRC. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone told me Blade wasn't even the first.
And the same claim for female action/scifi heroes gets thrown around tiresomely regularly. Guys, gals. Alien ffs... Saying stuff like that only proves to me how ignorant a given person is, and that I should just ignore their opinion on the subject.

That's a weird example, however. Most general audiences (and some comic book guys) wouldn't point at Blade as a 'superhero movie.' They had no idea it was anything other than part of the general vampire slayer trend.
It wasn't marketed as superheroes (because, being the 90s, most superhero movies had sucked) and early internet being what it was, there wasn't a lot of voices to 'um, actually..' at the general public.

How *isn't* Blade a superhero movie? He's got superhuman powers, a sidekick, saves the damsel in distress and in the process of defeating the evil villain overlord he beats up a lot of bad guys. I guess technically he'd be an anti-hero, but I wouldn't expect anyones Aunty to make that distinction.

How *isn't* Blade a superhero movie? He's got superhuman powers, a sidekick, saves the damsel in distress and in the process of defeating the evil villain overlord he beats up a lot of bad guys. I guess technically he'd be an anti-hero, but I wouldn't expect anyones Aunty to make that distinction.

You just described Elric of Melnibone in particular, more than half the fantasy genre in general and a substantial chunk of sci-fi (particularly anything with psychic powers, genetic engineering or cyborgs).
I think your criteria of 'superhero movie' needs a little work.

And, again, for the 90s in particular, people didn't default to superhero movies as a genre.

Considering how vastly broad DC and Marvel create SuperHeroes; almost any film can be superhero so long as they have a single lead character and deal with anything that isn't fully real world elements.

James Bond and Conan are also super heroes now (heck they've all but forced Conan into becoming a super-hero through their mad desire to have every single IP they own appear in the same universe setting so they can do endless crossovers).



For most people "superhero" tends to mean "appears in DC/Marvel comics or is clearly based upon those creations".
Thing is, like a lot of films, most people don't know the source material of the film in question unless the film marketing is designed to market that heavily. For most people the Blade Film was the first time they ever saw Blade. They never really considered he came from a comic book or had other stories or such. It wasn't even presented in any of the marketing nor film elements.

Tales from the Crypt was a comic book. Does that make the Crypt Keeper a superhero?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Tales from the Crypt was a comic book. Does that make the Crypt Keeper a superhero?

I'm ok with that.

 Overread wrote:
On the flipside the internet also gave birth to the negative critic. Who is paid (by clicks, views and attention) to be hyper abusive/insulting/negative about whatever it is that they are reviewing.

Just as you can show that many professionals are paid to give positive reviews directly or indirectly (you give too many negative ones and suddenly you don't get your press-access/advanced copies/early info etc...); the extreme opposite is also true - the payoff just comes from a different source. Indeed you could argue that Google metrics and search criteria and "the algorithm" are actually heavily weighted toward encouraging hyper negative opinion works.

There have always been negative critics, though. Frank Rich was called 'The Butcher of Broadway' for a reason. And 'if it bleeds, it leads' has always been a thing, along with sensational headlines. Opinion columnists have taken extreme opinions in order to elict angry reader responses for decades now.

What's changed of course is that technology has make it all very, very targeted and very, very efficient. So yeah, stay away from the critics that are some dude with a blog. There's a real chance that he's just kinda creating content to feed the machine.

 Ahtman wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Tales from the Crypt was a comic book. Does that make the Crypt Keeper a superhero?

I'm ok with that.

I am too!

Bob, amazing post. No critiques here.

Herzlos wrote:
If anything, I use them as a kind of reverse windsock - if the critics hate it, then I'll probably enjoy it. I've rarely been wrong.

Been doing that most of my life. The critics all hated Star Wars at the time it came out, and that said everything that needed to be said.

Professional movie critics watch dozens if not hundreds of movies a year, and are educated to look for deeper meanings and such. When the movie is just a fun action flick, it a) kinda bores the critic who's seen hundreds of them in their life, and b) lacks the deeper meanings they've been trained to look for, obviously they're not going to like it. But for the typical movieGOER, who maybe sees a dozen movies in the theater per year (if that), they're looking for something very different. Mainly, to be entertained for a couple hours.

And that's why there's a big disconnect between the critic and the average audience.

That really implies:

A). Critics are of a higher intelligence, as they see higher meaning in things (and are trained to find it).

B). Everyone else is a dullard who can't begin to grasp what the critics see.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
That really implies:

A). Critics are of a higher intelligence, as they see higher meaning in things (and are trained to find it).

B). Everyone else is a dullard who can't begin to grasp what the critics see.

Or C) They spend a lot of time looking for something that isn't actually there...

I mean, if you watch and think critically about movies constantly, I'd hope you have a better grasp of subtext and directing than the average Joe, myself included.

I don't think critics are useless by any means, but you'd have to find one who's tastes align to your own. For instance, I'm not a big romance fan-a critic who looks for romance movies wouldn't be a good match for me, no matter how competent they are in their own sphere.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
That really implies:

A). Critics are of a higher intelligence, as they see higher meaning in things (and are trained to find it).

B). Everyone else is a dullard who can't begin to grasp what the critics see.

On the contrary, it seems smarter people enjoy dumb movies, presumably as a way to switch off : https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/enjoyment-of-trash-films-linked-to-high-intelligence-study-finds-a7171436.html


I think his point was more that someone who watches many movies a week (or even a day) professionally will have a totally different take on what makes a good film than someone who goes once a month at best.

I get to the cinema maybe twice a year, so I'm happy to watch stuff blow up for 90 minutes without needing to have to think too hard about nuances and sub-plots.

From watching serious movie critics a lot, I gather there’s also a specific mindset cinephiles have that makes them more intensely interested in films or aspects of film that most audiences notice but can overlook. I always roll my eyes when critics talk about the movies they are looking forward to in the next year, and they’re all oscarbait snoozefests. When someone says Tar was his most anticipated movie of the year, I go ahead and treat his opinion like it’s coming from a film-knowledgeable space alien.