Becoming A Film Critic
What is a "film critic"?
A film critic is going to tell you who might like a movie and who should definitely stay away. They're going to put the movie in context as to where we are in the moment culturally. Film critics are going to let you know what works about the movie and what doesn't work, and give you a heads up on what's out there.
What do film critics do?
Film critics review movies. They criticize movies. They usually review everything from the studio movies, to the indie movies, to movies that are totally under the radar that they caught at festivals. Film critics let people know what's out there so that they can search out the best stuff.
Is there a difference between a "film reviewer" and a film critic?
I don't think there's really a difference between a film critic and a film reviewer. I think they're synonyms for each another. At the same time, when you're dealing with NPR, the New Yorker or the New York Times. you're more likely to call that writer a film critic; if the publication is high brow, if they're really an expert in their field. If it's a commentator on E giving a movie a thumbs up, maybe he could be described as film reviewer. However, I think film critics and film reviewers are the kind of the same thing.
What is the purpose of film reviewing?
The purpose of a film reviewer is to be an advocate for the movie going public and let audiences know what's good out there, whether it's a blockbuster or an under the radar indie. A film reviewer also creates a dialogue. They place a movie in the social context of the times. For example, a good film reviewer in the 80s would have, and did, talk about the sort of hard bodied Reagan era, and why movies like Rambo and Terminator were doing so well, why people wanted to see like those big, beefy guys battle it out for our country. They put it in the context of the time. Or in the 70s counter culture, we started to see movies, both independent movies and Hollywood movies, that were reflecting the tumult going on there, with the Vietnam War. You were seeing movies that had ultraviolence, you were seeing movies that dealt with issues in a more sexually frank way, and a good critic would put it in the context of that era.
What education or experience must film critics have?
The kind of education that a film reviewer needs to have in order to be a film reviewer is quite funny. You can study film theory and you can study film criticism. I certainly think it helps to be educated in the world of film. However, it really depends on the type of critic you're going to be. I would venture to say that most film critics did not major in film criticism. They might have, but I think those people actually ended up being professors, social theorists or writers, who might talk about film in a broader context. I think a lot of film reviewers are simply people who love movies. For every Pauline Kael, who's a very famous critic who wrote for "The New Yorker" in the 70s and 80s, and a little bit of the 90s, there's critics like Harry Knowles, who's just a big film fan on the Internet who has a ton of popularity. People go to Ain't It Cool News, and he's just a man of the people. What it takes to be a film critic is having a self-education in film. You've got to love film, and that's what it boils down to.
When did film reviewing begin?
Film criticism really took off with the advent of film and the advent of movies. There were more critics when there were more movies, and the introduction of talking movies. I would say at the beginning of the 20th century, as I know in the early 1900s, Variety and the New York Times started writing reviews of movies, that were not just a new commercial form, but a viable artistic medium that needed to be better.
How have film reviews changed over the years?
I think film criticism has changed over the years because film has changed over the years as a medium. Imagine being a film critic when movies went from silent movies to talking pictures, and suddenly you had a whole new set of criteria to evaluate and criticize movies. And I think, in more recent years, with every era, reviewers had the challenge of placing the film in the context of that era and what it means, why people responded to certain movies, why they didn't respond to other movies, why certain films spoke to them. So I think, more than ever, there are so many film critics out there to get feedback from: you can go to a site like Rotten Tomatoes, you can go to a site like Metacritic, and really get a broad base of different critical opinions from all over the country, from all over the world, from some guys who are at home, kind of Internet bloggers, to people who write for the New York Times, and you can really get a sense of how different movies really speak to different kinds of people. Some people say that film reviewers are out of touch with the general audience sometimes, but theres so many different types of film critics out there, that I don't think that's the case anymore.
What are the various types of film reviews?
I think there's different types of film criticism out there. There's certainly the very high-brow, erudite, scholarly stuff that you'll see in literary journals from colleges, where they're talking about the psychosexual implications of the Harry Potter movies, and they're talking about things in a very intellectual way. You'll see reviews in popular magazines that are just quick and have quick things like thumbs up or thumbs down or pick of the week or pan of the week. Most people don't have time to read this in-depth analysis, they just want to know what's good and they want to know what's bad. You'll see very colloquial reviews by industry blogger types, who will say things like 'that movie was boring' and 'it wasn't fun' and 'i didn't get it.' There are different types of reviews for different people.
What makes a film critic great?
A great film critic isn't just a film critic, a great film critic is a great writer. It's somebody who has elevated the form of criticism into good writing, plain and simple. Whether you see the movie or want to see the movie, if you're enraptured by the prose that they're writing, that elevates the status of them as a great film critic I think.
