bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron C. Howes) (09/23/85)
This subject seems to make the rounds every year or so in net.movies.
Frankly, I've never understood the position of those who claim to abhor
film critics. A film critic doesn't tell you, most of the time,
whether or not you will enjoy a film. The film critic tells you
whether the film passes a set of critical standards. These standards
may be arbitrary, but for good critics they are at least clear. You
can make your own mind up as to whether they apply to you or not, much
as you can with the product reviews in Consumer Reports.
Bad reviewers/critics (the borderline is fuzzy here) tell you whether or
not they liked a film, but without either comparison or standards. I
would agree with Kelvin Thompson here, such reviews are useless. Good
reviewers like Frank Rich, Siskel/Ebert, Judith Crist and even Joe-Bob
(or should I say especially Job-Bob, I never read a column of his that
wasn't based around a truly excellent review of the film he was writing
about) tell you about the film, where it fits with films of its genre,
what worked and what didn't. Nobody presumes to tell you what you
should and shouldn't like -- that is your inference.
We are fortunate that we have two individuals, Mark Leeper and Peter
Reiher, who are excellent critics and who freely contribute to the
discussion here. Both are knowledgeable about film, both have a good
sense of the historical continuity of films and film-making and both
have a reasonably good grasp of the analytical process that needs to
be undertaken in reviewing a film. There are many professional film
critics who could learn from these two. I don't always agree with them,
but I have always found the information they supplied to be consistantly
good.
As for Kelvin Thompson's reviews, I stopped reading them as there was
very little film reviewing going on undeneath all the satire. For it
to be funny, satire has to be based on some grain of truth.
--
Byron C. Howes
...!{decvax,akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!bch