pdinosaur

i think we just found another teeny weeny peeny

freudguy

I think you are the rudest message poster EVER!

pdinosaur

thats nice. well, you pooed all over my thread. forgive me for not whipping out the threadcrapping smiley face earlier. but here you go now

QuiGonJosh

message poster?

freudguy

Sorry, didn't mean to crap on it. I guess the attempt of humor was unappreciated.

To get back on track, I do think these guys crank up the venom because they think they have something to prove...and it sells. Who would listen to a critic that describes SW III ROTS as "eh, it was ok"? Hyperbole is the steam in the media engine.

pdinosaur

ah its ok. we can get back on topic :P

i guess to hone the original point. at what point does hyperbole cross the line?

jaeufraser

When people stop reading their reviews. Or when it's written by David Manning.

Hendrik

...but... but... but... it is an "artsy fartsy" and foreign film...!... yes!... it is...

. . . . . .

wendersfan

Lemme get this straight - you guys are complaining about film critics being critical? Surely that's something that's gotta be pretty high up in the job description, don't you think?

WANTED: Film critic. Must hold no opinions whatsoever, have zero critical faculties, and like all movies unconditionally.

Yeah, that's gonna fly.

Giles

Sounds like (Washington DC's NBC) Channel 4's Arch Campbell, he is a sucker for everything Hollywood, the man's opinion of movies is pathetic.

pdinosaur

i don't think that's what i was suggesting. i'd be more inclined to post this ad:

WANTED: film critic. realizes ben affleck isn't the antichrist, jerry bruckheimer and michael bay aren't 2 year old monkeys and that, gigli is not so bad that it induces suicidal thoughts and that no movie in itself will show the coming of the Apocalypse.

it's like all film critics susbcribe to the dr. forrester theory that many movies out there are so bad that they could destroy a person's will to live.

wendersfan

I think enough are them are bad enough that, if your job entails watching a couple a day, they could destroy your will to live.

SINGLE104

I never take heed of any film critics reviews. Everbody has different taste of movies, and what the critics may not like, someone else may love that same movie. So it all depends on the individual, and their personal preference. If there is a movie I want to see, then I'll go and see it, no matter what the film critics opinions are.
What do they care if a movie is bad or good anyways, because they are just doing what they are paid to do, and they do not have to pay an admission to view any of these movies period.
To me personally, I think that would be an extremely non-active, tiresome profession. I am custom to a physical line of occupation.

Adam Tyner

Well, obviously. The point of movie reviews isn't to say "if you like this movie, you're wrong" -- it's to give the reader a little more information to help them make a decision whether or not to see a movie. A review has never stopped me from seeing a movie I really wanted to see, even if I regretted it afterwards. On the other hand, reviews have pointed me towards numerous movies I would never have thought to watch otherwise.

Oh, and reviewers and critics don't march in lockstep with one another either -- otherwise everything would be exactly 0% or exactly 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Yeah, it doesn't sound like that sort of writing would be up your alley.

mifuneral

because they're all embittered former would-be screenwriters/directors/actors.

DonnachaOne

I am sick to fucking death of this assessment, even in jest, whenever this topic is touched upon. It's so dismissive and uninformed.

Jay G.

How could they be former would-bes? The only way I can think of becoming a former would-be is to become an actual screenwriter/director/actor.

Jay G.

And while this thread is back:

That's actually not a hallmark of good filmmaking. It's a component of good filmmaking, but not a hallmark.

from dictionary.com:
All hallmark has to be distinctive to what you're attributing it to. Bad movies can be made without any obvious framing errors. Unless you think a movie can't be bad unless a boom mike or crew member enters the frame, then you can't really consider the lack of them a hallmark of good filmmaking.

story

Thought: When I have a friend that tells me how much they like a movie that I know for a fact sucks sour frog ass, I berate the film even more vehemently than I would have otherwise. Same deal for critics and shitty movies - it's their way of asking the uneducated to become educated and see something better than the crap they had to see.

mifuneral

lol, sorry margaret, I didn't realize I'd touch a nerve

Former would-be = someone who tried to be something and then stopped trying to be it? I guess "never-was" is a better term, but I'm giving them points for the effort.

Jay G.

That's a former wanna-be, not a former would-be.

MrE

Personal attacks, that's rude. Photographing a famous person's child, that's rude. Film critics? We're talking about mosquitoes. At most they're annoying.

mifuneral

Yeah, but wanna be is so demeaning. I'm not trying to demean these people. Just mock them. :P

Jay G.

My point is that adding the qualifier "former" to the phrase "would-be" doesn't make sense. Just using "would-be" makes sense for any person who wanted to be a filmmaker, regardless of whether or not they're still trying, e.g "He would be a filmmaker, but he stopped trying years ago."

What I find interesting is that the idea of critics being "bitter, would-be filmmakers" only comes up when they write a negative review. You never see this description pulled out when they say something positive, e.g. "Embittered would-be filmmaker Roger Ebert calls Spiderman 2 the best comic-book movie ever." In fact, positive reviews in and of themselves defy the logic of the "bitter, would-be filmmaker," since if that were the reason they gave a particular film a bad review, why wouldn't they give all films bad reviews? Maybe it's possible that, based on the fact that they give some positive and some negative reviews, they base their reviews on whether they like or dislike a particular film.

Really, the people to mock are those that get all worked up about a negative review and have to slam the reviewer in order to defend the movie. It's like they feel their personal opinions of a film have to be validated by every public opinion expressed for that film.

mifuneral

I'm not sure which is funnier, your anal nitpicking over semantics or your complete and absolute inability to see a joke. Then again, maybe you simply love to type and take every post as an opportunity to get offended and thus write a rebuttle regardless of whether or not it's necessary. If that's the case, then write away, my friend. Afterall, that's how the best critics are born.