Movie Reviewers MOD

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.Weather this is can purely be a hobby of themselves or just because they like to review films it is very beneficial for film fanatics and people who love film, because someone could read your review and really like it, and then tell their mates to watch the film or whether they hate it and tell their friends not to watch it. Weather if it’s a good thing or bad thing, the power of words that really influences a person can change other people’s opinions about a particular film. (Movie) With our technology of the internet, TV, mobile phones and word of mouth it is a never ending cycle of word being passed on.

1 Growing Popularity
2 3-D
3 Personal Experience
4 Critics and Reviewers
5 Why do we review?
6 Online Community
7 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.

Reviewing has branched to many places from the magazines, newspapers, the internet and even morning shows on TV and if it even becomes a national blockbuster it could even be broadcasted on TV news. Today people and their entertainment is greatly loved and we want to see better and see more. We want to see the best, see what’s popular, see what everyone else is talking about and just be in the film community and immersed in it. While popularity of film is strong the people who create new forum and site that bring movie enthusiast together not only to be satisfied but to share and show the reviews for others to read and become more and more involved in this community. Without the growth of the internet we wouldn’t be where we are today.

Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert

3-D

As we grow and move towards the future of film and film reviewing, we are also changing the way we review, there are many ways of reviewing a movie, for example the film tile, film maker and how good the film is made by the director, including; space, scene, camera movement, timing and lighting, purpose of the film and how is the plot is told, special effects and much more etc. One popular growing film advances is 3-D film which makes watching a movie real making you feel you’re in the action, with things jumping out at you but in fact, it is a motion picture the gives the illusion of depth perception giving the feel that the “ball” is coming at you. I always have wonder if 3-D film would impact the rating and review because it was more than a 2D film, and with the launch of Avatar the movie in 3D it has since Boomed and nearly all movies are now in 3-D. I‘ve researched that forums and groups have grown largely for 3D and not all movie suit 3D and good 3D film enhance and make the movie experience so much enjoyable and fun. But we ask our self will 3D affect the Critics and Reviewers. In my opinion it won’t, because 3-D is just like blue-ray, it doesn’t mean that have a greater motion picture that it will be a great film. 3D Forum Site; http://3dguy.tv/

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. Critics and reviewers have been a very important and a vital role to the movie industry depending on the review of the film it can greatly impact the performance of the DVD and films sales weather it boosts sales or not. Most films before they are released to the box office (cinemas) they are rigorously reviewed by professionals (Critics) who rate the movie and give awards, for example “Best Picture, Best Story line .etc” Awards like this are really beneficial to the films earning so when these films are advertised they factor in all this to show the consumer “us who decides what to watch” that this movie is the one to see. Even tho Critics and reviewers gets confused between the two, to the general people who look to towards ratings and reviewers venerable believe what they say. Another reason why we don’t take all lot off notice of professional critics is because people like reviews from people similar to them who like their tastes and interests which makes the reader agree and believe what they are reading.

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

As I often ponder and think why we really do this in the first place gets me thinking and from hearing from other people, I found that going to the cinemas are seemingly declining, as prices go up and home entertainment gets more larger, and movies much more assessable and available by other means. It makes people care how they spend their money, because it is important and fulfilling that you are making the right choice with you entertainment, quote, “money well spent”. It creates an assurance that you a choosing wisely and that u won’t get ripped off. There are a lot of movies out there that a just a waste of time and money and a film is to be enjoyed and be entertained and be emotional effected by the movie. I can see that people who go out and start talking about the movie soon as they walk out is a indication that it was good, we usually start blabbering about how good this part was and that scene was and on and so on... So people to the people who watch movie and blog and post reviews on the internet it helps other who aren’t to sure what to watch. Lastly I have to say that reviews play an important role in our ever growing popularity of film and different styles of motion picture.

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.

People in our society look towards reviewers over the internet, magazine and newspapers due towards thinking critics are to critical due toward there film study/theory so most people head more towards the social network sites and forums like “flixster” where it allows movie lovers to connect, meet and allow for flixster members to review movies and communicate and just express their views on movies by sharing and comparing their own reviews with other member seeing if they saw the movie the way they did. Because I’m a member of flixster I know that some of the other members that I compare reviews with are very detailed and very opinionated on what they write about on upcoming new movies or just classics that people love to analyse and really they love showing their personal opinions and views.

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.