Critics: why them? (1 Viewer)

[Seth Paxton]

Just like car reviewers for something like Car and Driver are not necessarily engineers. And many engineers would flounder horrifyingly if required to write an interesting and lively review piece on car design.
The #1 thing I saw being taught in college and which I honed myself was the ability to think critically, to be able to contrast and compare, and to be able to express these thoughts outwardly. Almost every course touches upon these ideas and relies on the student to understand them. College is really more about "learning how to think" than it is about learning a subject. That is one thing that distinguishes a college/university from a trade school.
From the outside I can see people thinking "what's the big deal, anyone can do it", but then you go to a class and hear 2 mismatched people debating and the one who has not learned these skills struggles noticeably, independent of whatever point they are making.
And now for this very point, I am taking my first film class in order to pursue a critical reviewers career, at least to begin to dabble in it. At times I already exceed most of the class (not to brag, even the professor said this unprompted - I have nothing to "win" here), but I still have quite a lot of boundries to overcome within this first year course, let alone the subsequent courses I will be taking. And keep in mind that I have already gone through many 3rd and 4th year writing, speaking, philosophy, etc. courses in pursuit of my first degree (BSEE) which gives me an advantage over at least the 1st and 2nd year students. It's not something you can just walk into and excel without effort.
There's just that much to know and consider in order to FAIRLY place a piece of film art within the perspective of the entire field. While that does differ from being able to recommend a film to the masses, I think the artists deserve more effort from a reviewer than that.

 

[Mitty]

Seth as movie critic. God help us.

Would it even be possible for you to write a one paragraph capsule review?

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

Would it even be possible for you to write a one paragraph capsule review?

Short and to the point - Seth? Nah...

~Edwin

 

[Tino]

Ebert and Paxton At The Movies.

Can't wait.

------------------
Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus.

 

[Mark Palermo]

Film is a criticism of life, so criticism of film is also the criticism of life. Why then, are filmmakers OK but film reviews bad? Is a film review not a form of creativity?
Ideally it is, but in practice it's very rarely the case. Even if critics have taken film courses, many of them just ape what others said before them. Worse still, a lot of them have little interest in film and are simple graduates of other parts of their newspaper. They wish to reflect the views of other critics and audiences, thereby avoiding the possibility for expressing intelligent thoughts. Several critics understand this dilemma (namely, The New York Press's Armond White, who I almost never agree with but respect more than almost anyone else in the field). Somebody mentioned that as a good critic Roger Ebert knows better than to give 4-stars to Ishtar. OK, maybe he thinks it sucks, but what if he did give it 4-stars? Does this make Ebert a bad critic for not mimicking everybody else in trashing a universally detested movie? If critics insist on upholding this mind-mass, then what's the use in keeping them all employed
Mark