Trickshot

Typing this up for the 3rd time... Damn interwebs!

My two cents. I think in general, audiences want to be entertained, critics want movies to actually mean something and reviewers want to make a hook that will draw you to their blog/site/whatever. A "blockbuster" means very different things to each of those.

Zack Snyder - The movies of his that I have seen, I like the way they look, and I love how he uses music in his movies. I absolutely loved Sucker Punch. And also enjoyed Watchmen, 300 and Dawn of the Dead. I didn't bother with Man of Steel, Owls Of Whatever and I am not in a huge rush to see BvS.

Agree with you Jay G. my first thought is Buffy too!

Count Dooku

There are enough critics with reputations for fair-minded opinions and substantive reviews that anyone who wants to get guidance about movies can find it.

People bemoan RT because it includes so many critics of questionable origin and reputation, but you can always just look at the top critics, and you should really be reading the reviews of a critic you like and trust.

I read James Berardinelli.

Sub-Zero

Thanks for the link. I have seen a few of these types of articles lately, and I am surprised that anyone actually felt the need to respond to this at all.

clemente

Yup, this pretty much nails it down. There's never going to be a consensus that everyone agrees with which means RT is the LAST place anyone should be looking for advice.

I have a couple of reviewers that I follow and even when I don't agree with them, their reviews give me their insights and what did and did not work clear enough that I can understand their perspective and how it might not be my own (which is why I read them).

I feel like that used to be the norm back in the olden days of newspaper reviewers - but this is one situation where wisdom of the crowd isn't really better.

inri222

Of course Armond White liked it.

Batman v Superman Returns Soul to Superheroes

http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...ar-gets-mythic

Nick Danger

It sounds like Armond White is an old-fashioned conservative, one who believes that Western Civilization is in decline and he's fighting a war to preserve it.

Doesn't it bother him that he's recycling arguments made against jazz music?

Supermallet

Armond White is a professional troll. Whatever the prevailing mood is on a film, he'll vehemently argue for the opposite, using a lot of pseudo-intellectual bullshit to justify why the movie most people think is awful is actually a masterpiece, and the films people praise are really dogshit.

I think White sees himself as a provocateur, a gadfly to the critical cinema establishment. At least I hope that's how he sees himself, because there's some shred of nobility in that. If not, he's simply the film critic version of the National Enquirer.

rocket1312

Armond's other piece on BvS:

The Sexiest Batman and Superman Imaginable

http://www.out.com/armond-white/2016...man-imaginable

Nick Danger

Now Armond White likes the movie because the leads are hawt. I suppose he's tailoring his reviews to his audiences. There's no pseudo-intellectual claptrap in the review he wrote for Out.

Brack

Not to get too political, but he fits right in with National Review.

The Bus

His dream is that the National Review one day gets called "the Armond White of political magazines"

Supermallet

He does try to tie things in a bit for the Out review with his other review, talking about the politics of the film.

Dan

I didn't really want to start a new thread just for this, but I think it's a pretty insightful video and something you guys might enjoy.

mcnabb

I'm on the critics side as most blockbusters are utter crap that are dumbed down for the mass audience these days. There is very little character development and usually a thin story, as the wow moments are what seemed to sell to the general public. I always attribute this to the advent of CGI as that led to the eventual downfall of the blockbuster. Once a director can use any CGI tool for action, then the characters and story are usually the things that suffer. The only blockbuster I disagreed with critics was The Last Jedi as I thought that was utter crap too, but they seemed to glow about it. I rarely goto the movies anymore because we are bombarded with endless comic book movies, action movies, sequels, prequels, and the end of the year is when you only get the movies with an interesting story. The problem is they are all made by independent studios anymore so you have to kind of search for these movies, so I just wait for cable/streaming at this point.

TomOpus

You don't have any arthouse/local theaters in Philadelphia? We have several out here in KC. I'm getting ready to see The Party in a couple hours.

Pizza

Critics see a wide variety of movies. I feel it gives them more perspective on films. Majority of the public stick with just the popcorn movies and are rarely challenged. But these films aren’t meant to challenge but to simply entertain and some critics lose that viewpoint.

AaronHernandez

It's weird if a food critic bashes Taco Bell or Pizza Hut and prefer's an upscale local restaurant no one think's they are "out of touch" but a film critic is a snob if they don't like Giant Robots,Superheroe's and Fast and Furious Part 12.

RichC2

Hah, this reminds me of that Netflix show Ugly Beautiful where David Chang, a chef, goes over the most advanced and most simplistic versions of many different foods.

On the pizza episode, he admits outright that he digs Dominos and will order it once every couple of months. Even the elite like their trash from time to time.

I think that applies to critics as well, but it can't be a copy and paste re-do of something they've already seen.

Dan

I watched that same episode the other day
Of all the major chains, I order Dominos every once in awhile too.

The New Orleans / Houston crawfish episode was pretty great, too.

Brack

I just don’t enjoy reading most reviews of critics because I don’t get the “feel” of the movie like I used to with Ebert. Also, is anyone burned out from reading reviews in general? I will try to check out some of the reviewers from that video. I’m ashamed to say I've heard of only one of those reviewers, and never read any of them. Maybe I’d gain some new insight, I don’t know, but I’m just kinda over reading a bunch of reviews due to many of the reviewers spoiling too much.

melasnus

The only professional critic I have ever agreed with (most of the time) was Ebert.
As far as I can tell, I am the best critic I know.

big e

Same here. Even when I didn't agree with Ebert, I could see where he was coming from in his critique. He seemed like a good (mostly) middle-of-the-road critic. Most modern critics seem to have their own wheelhouse of movie genres they like and hate anything that falls outside that wheelhouse.

What bugs me about critics ("professional" and arm-chair) is that they seem to forget that Hollywood is called the "Dream Factory." Not every movie out there has to be a "realist indie drama message movie." Hollywood was built on making larger than life movies. Those movies now just happen to more and more be the super-hero/blockbuster types, which I have no problem with, but do agree they have their own set of problems the filmmakers have to address (runtime, too flashy, shakeycam).