Movie Reviewers

From Mod Mania

Today both amateur and professional film reviewers use the power of the internet to read and share reviews with the assistance of websites such as: Youtube, IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes or blogs/personal websites. It’s unfair to say that there is one method or style of reviewing movies or even a path and series of steps that one must take to call themselves a film reviewer. Many people go to the cinema to be purely entertained, although ‘entertained’ can be interoperated in many different ways. The person may simply want to see a movie with big explosions, slo-mo gun fire and hot babes with nothing else, pure dumb entertainment. Other people may watch a film to be informed, while some enjoy a movie going experience for analysing and dissecting elements of a film. So obviously when each one of these people goes home and writes up a review or video themselves, their opinions will be greatly contrasting.

1 Growing Popularity
2 Personal Experience
3 Critics and Reviewers
4 Why do we review?
5 Online Community
6 Bibliography

Growing Popularity

So how did movie reviewing become so popular? It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact moment in time but I believe a couple of film critics had an impact on its popularity. In 1986 two film critics, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert made the TV show ‘Siskel and Ebert and the Movies’ (which was later renamed to Siskel and Ebert) where they often gave brief and concise reviews, and summed up their opinions with their token ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’. Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert were two highly respected film critics back in the late 80s and 90s, and before hitting the big time on TV they even wrote in columns for newspapers. It’s important to keep in mind that during the running of this show (before Siskel died in 1999) that the internet wasn’t being widely used to post reviews nor act as a central hub where people could read and post their own opinions on movies. Movie reviewers such as Gene and Roger were looked upon for whether a movie is worth seeing, during a time where it was difficult to widely voice your opinion on a wide scale. Of course at the time and today, newspaper columns and other TV based reviews were used as well. However, the ever growing popularity of the internet has as a result opened up a world of opportunity for reviewers to voice their opinions without the need for their own TV show or newspaper column. Today anyone can create a free account on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes or even make their own blog if they have the time and rate/review as many movies as they please.

Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert

Personal Experience

I’ve only been posting film reviews since early late 2009 so I would not consider myself an experienced reviewer who has refined their work to a specific style, but I have observed others work to know popular methods of making reviews. The majority of reviewers which I follow post their reviews on the internet, a very smart location since the internet is being more and more widely used than ever before. Such reviewers include people who go under the personas of Confused Matthew, The Movie Preview Critic, Nostalgia Critic and Angry Joe and each of these reviewers have their own unique styles and genres of films which they analyse. Take Confused Matthew and Nostalgia Critic for example, both are extremely different in their methods. Confused Matthew and his guest reviewers analyse movies with a philosophical angle when necessary, and sees good movies when they are clear and have a refined screenplay. The Nostalgia Critic (played by Doug Walker) takes a more comical angle and only reviews ‘nostalgic’ movies, preferably ones made before year 2000. His reviews are far more hysterical and aim towards being over the top. Keep in mind though that Matthew, the Critic and the other reviewers I listed turn their reviews into scripts which are then video recorded, so their production value is much higher than the casual internet based reviewer. The online community often get involved with these veteran reviewers by providing their feedback on the review on forums, and even in the all so popular hate mail form. A lot of the time these reviewers take on board this feedback and use it to make their videos better, or highlight some mistakes they might’ve made when talking about a particular movie.

Doug Walker aka The Nostalgia Critic has a more comical take on reviewing. Ripping into bad movies is his forte.

Matthew focuses more on technical aspects on movies.

Critics and Reviewers

There are sometimes complications on whether a critic and reviewer are the same profession. People have argued that journalist film critics should only be known as film reviewers, and film critics are those who take an academic approach to films. In other words critics are people who have higher knowledge in film theory and studies, and as a result try to come to understand why film works, how it works, what it means, and how it affects the audience. It’s rare to see this type of review in magazines as they are more commonly aimed towards being published in scholarly journals, where they’re used to educate rather than inform/entertain. Although it is possible to come across reviewers who blend the two methods into the one article, which can be interesting to read.

Why do we review?

So why do people review movies? After observing the many film reviewers I’ve followed over the past 3 years I can confidently say that people review because of their love for cinema. The reason that I’ve watched so many films over the years is because I adore the many different methods which make a film. For example, a director may take a conventional ways of telling a story, like introducing our characters and locations in an easy to digest manner. However if you look at a film such as Memento which takes a completely opposite path by jumbling the storyline around, and makes the viewer feel that he/she has short term memory loss (a disability that the main character Leonard suffers from). So basically the story is told backwards, and when I see obscure or just film which makes you think and stick in your mind after the credits have finished, it makes me wonder about why the director chose those particular filming techniques, screenplay and characters. Analysing and dissecting the ingredients of a movie makes me wonder whether other people saw the same film in the same perspective I did. If people didn’t see it in the same light as I did, writing a review is a golden way of spreading my opinion on a film which had an impact on me, whether it’s negative or positive. Lastly as a general consensus to why people review films is summed up in this quote “...the true purpose of a review is to give the reader a look at how they may or may not enjoy a film based on someone else’s experience who shares their viewpoint” 1

The perfect film which can be dissected and analysed...

...and there are some which are better off being watched for pure entertainment

Online Community

The community of reviewers which I’m involved with (Youtube and Rotten Tomatoes) doesn’t have an official hierarchy but people tend to look up to reviewers who have developed a reputation over the internet, much the same way that film lovers looked to Siskel and Ebert. For example on Rotten Tomatoes there’s around 2 or 3 reviewers that I know of who have spent a considerable amount of time building up a fan base, and as a result people respect their opinions on film and regularly checking for updates. There are of course the professional critics who work for big name newspapers and magazines, but their reviews can occasionally be ignored because their opinion can be too critical and be heavily influenced by film study/theory. I’m saying this is a negative aspect for the reason that a lot of people don’t focus on the technical aspects when going to the cinema.

On Youtube it’s a similar story, except professional critics don’t personally post their reviews and instead is dominated by anyone who has a camera/webcam and the right editing tools. So wherever you post your reviews it’s essential to keep in mind that the best type of reviewer is someone who isn’t afraid of giving their honest opinion. In conclusion thanks to the internet’s ease of accessibility anyone can be a movie reviewer and have their opinion heard far and wide.