I know better than you, now listen!
It was two weeks after the release of “Kick-Ass” and I was on the basketball court with some friends shooting the shit. Eventually someone asked if anyone had seen the film and what they had thought of it. I quickly chimed in, stating that the film was pretty good from a technical stand point and a blast to watch. Another friend, who didn’t feel the same way, said that the movie was ridiculous. Ding ding! It was on like Donkey Kong; we literally argued about the differing opinions for over half an hour, while still playing basketball. Our sensible friend then stops the game, and the arguement, telling us that the discussion was stupid and that shit like this ruins movies for people. He then continued to ask, “Can’t we just watch them?”. I stopped for a second and actually took what he said to heart. At that moment I thought back to all of the reviews I’d read from critics that had started me on the wrong foot with a movie I’d eventually enjoy. What about the films I wouldn’t even watch because someone else went on about how bad it was? Were film critisms ruining my film watching experiences and did I really need some self-appointed “god of films” telling me what was good and what wasn’t?
Context. Movies are all contextual. Superbad was written for me and my friends, not my mother and her group of church friends. Because of this reviewers are no longer just 50 year old people who relish in classics and revear new-wave cinema. However, with films being so “up in the air” what really makes a good critic, or do they even exist?
Movies have become a popular form of entertainment, but at the heart of the medium is an art form. Believe it or not, majority of the films you watch follow the rigid guidelines of this art form, even a film like “Kick-Ass”. Half of the reason why we like these films so much is because they’ve successful used the tools of the art form to create scenes and moments that are visually moving in someway. This is where critique comes into play: How well did the filmmaker and his crew use the conventions of cinema to express this piece of work? Keep in mind, I use the word critique, not opinion. Now, as you can imagine, that would take some knowledge of the art form and the technologies involved, which is where a more defined line is drawn. Far too many film critics stick with the “what” in their articles as opposed to the “why”. Anyone can tell you what happened in a movie, in fact, I’ve had four year olds tell me the storyline of “Batman Begins” without skipping a beat. Unfortunately for us, the critics with that knowledge are usually the ones who get offended, or just don’t agree with the content of the film, and tend to input their opinions and use it towards a final grade. We also have the people who can only give us the “what” and are left with nothing but their opinions for rating a film. “Toy Story 3” premiered this summer to excellent reviews, so good in fact that it held an amazing 100% on rottentomatoes.com, a review site I’ll be explaining in the following paragraph. I was so excited for the movie that I decided to read just about all of the reviews. One review really threw me for a loop when a critic bashed the film for the price he had to pay for a 3D movie. As I continued to read the review it seemed to be his only reason for giving this movie a 2/5. Now, to me that is just ridiculous, but it is just an extreme example of something that happens everytime somebody gives a movie a bad review because it was over their head, or contained too many vulgarities, or wasn’t what they expected. Luckily, we live in a day and age where one review doesn’t have to be all we can get.
These days we have found better methods of taking these reviews and generalizing them. A site like rottentomatoes.com takes the review of a movie, combines it with the reviews of many other critics, and gives you a percentage based on the number of people walking away from the film with positive things to say (a rating of at least 3/5 consitutes a positive rating). The number does not dictate the quality of the movie specifically but the enjoyment factor based on a large group of reviewers (usually at least 50 reviews for recent films). Yes, you still have reviews that are more opinion based than critique, but its no longer the viewpoint of one but the consensus of a group, a group of critics on the right side of the page and the wrong one. This brings a balance to a scale that can be tipped for some because like I said, movies are all contextual. Through reading the reviews on a site like this, you might be able to find a reviewer who is on the same page as you, and knows something about film, which is probably your best source. Sites like facebook.com also allow you to hear, whether you want to or not, how your friends felt about films aswell, but once again, listen to those who are on the same page as you with movies or you will probably be disappointed. In addition, the introduction of these sites have allowed for indie films to flourish from obscurity to box-office dynamite. Usually critics are the ones that find these gems and without there positive feedback, we would probably never have heard of them (remember people, Slumdog Millionaire was supposed to go straight to DVD). Having so many reviews accesible in one place allows you to truly see all the buzz a movie can be making, allowing you to find films that haven’t had such a strong marketing campaign.
It seems that in the end we are our own worst enemies. Critics are a dime a dozen but the right one is hard to find. Understanding the information we take in is key, and that applies to everything in life. There are critics out there who are enriching our film watching experience by bringing material to us that we would have overlooked if it wasn’t for their recommendation. With that in mind, the guys doing the job right are going far beyond informing us about the rights and wrongs of film, they are bringing culture into our lives. Find out what’s right for you, and hell, you might find that none of what I said applies to your thinking, but then again, I did say movies were all contextual, right?
Until the next time…
Pieces of the Puzzle 
You bring up some interesting points. Like you said, a lot of it is contextual, and I’m pretty sure most of can muster an appreciation for certain movies that some critics aren’t too particularly fond of. The key word in that sentence though is ‘some’, as opposed to most though, in my opinion. Websites like rotten tomatoes provide a very reasonable way to amalgamate critic opinions and can give a fair assessment of whether the movie will be enjoyable. That being said, I think many of us are compelled to rule out our enjoyment of a movie if its standing is say, 50% or below on that website. Granted, movies on the lower end of the scale (let’s say, 0-20%) are most likely fundamentally bad movies, highlighted by poor acting, story, etc. These ones shown to be unanimously poor by critics most likely we can agree, are not enjoyable. It’s the ones that are say, 35-50% (which is why I mentioned earlier, ‘some’ reviewers) which aren’t considered fresh but we might skip out on – these are the movies we should use more discretion before throwing them out of the window.
I’ve found over time that the best reviewers are my friends. I know what it is about movies that they do and don’t like so I can take their review and place it against their personal taste and then compare it to my own.
As a reviewer myself, I try to offer up the best viewpoint I can. I’m not a huge fan of comedies and I let my readers know that so if a movie can make me laugh a little they know they could probably laugh a lot. Everybody has different tastes and I try to point out what I thought was good and bad about a movie so people can decide themselves.
If a reviewer said there was too much blood in a movie and gave it a bad rating I would probably jump at the chance to see that flick because he pointed out what I love about some movies. Just because he doesn’t like it doesn’t mean that I won’t!