msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader) (03/13/86)
Chuq Von Rospach (chuq@sun.uucp) writes: > I think it is MORE important that a reviewer discuss WHY they liked or > disliked a work than whether or not they liked it (or not). You need to > help your reader understand the limits of your objectivity (reviewing is > objectively a subjective operation) so that they can compare that with their > own limits and decide whether or not to agree with your review. > > A strong key in this is consistency -- anyone who reviews a number of > works needs to define a common ground between themselves and their > readers, and make sure the reader knows when that common ground is left. I agree completely. When a movie that generates strong opinions appears, net.movies suddenly gets flooded with reviews of the form "See it! It's great!", from people who ordinarily never post here. Folks, net.movies is not a poll. 10 "It's great!" and 5 "It stinks" messages add up to nothing at all. The next level of article is "It's great, I loved the action and humor." I'm sorry, but this is really no better, unless the movie has had very little in the way of promotion. There are many types of humor, and action means gore to some and car/subway chases to others. The best way to say what something is like is usually to say what it is LIKE. Book publishers caught on to this long ago... you know, "In the tradition of Agatha Christie", "more suspenseful than 'The Day of the Jackal'", that kind of thing. We are used to ignoring this when it's just hype, but expressions like this serve very well when used in an objective review. We don't all have time to be Mark Leeper, Peter Reiher, etc. (Sometimes I wonder how Mark Leeper has time to be Mark Leeper.) We do, perhaps, have time to say, not: BRAZIL was the best film I have seen for a long time but: BRAZIL is both a dramatic story of one man's rebellion in a world much like that of "1984" (1984), and a hilarious satire on that world -- a mixture of absurdity, subtlety, and occasional grossness in the Monty Python tradition. Not for all tastes, nor for children, but some people will like it a lot. That's my actual opinion, by the way. My numerical rating is $10 (Cdn). Mark Brader Suspicion breeds confidence. -- "Brazil"