Film criticism and talking about media in general is dirty work, but not for the reason you’d think. The most common issue I encounter is fan reaction to opinion, where readers seem personally insulted by another person’s known preference.
Fundamentally, that’s all film critics do: they establish their taste through their body of work. The more verbose and prolific the critic, the better the frame of reference you get. It’s up to you to filter your own taste through what the critics say. Film criticism – and all criticism, really – isn’t a ruler, it’s a barometer.
A Preference Is Established And Needs To Be Considered
As of this writing, I’ve produced over 1,400 articles for Giant Freakin Robot. Most of these are reviews offering my subjective take on the media I consume. If you’re new to me, you might think I’m an idiot because I seek out so-called bad cinema in a never-ending quest to find redeeming qualities that may have been overlooked.
More often than not, I’m pleasantly surprised by what I see, and I share those findings with whoever’s interested in my assessments. I wouldn’t call myself one of the great critics of our time, but I’ve established my taste, and that’s the entire point.
All critics work this way. They have hard likes and dislikes, and they use that context to help readers understand what they themselves might like or dislike about something.
Roger Ebert Was Tough But Fair In This Context
Roger Ebert is a prime example of what critics do. He devoted his life to documenting his preferences and sharing them with his audience. A lover of classic screwball comedies, Ebert praised films like His Girl Friday, Bringing Up Baby, The Lady Eve, What’s Up, Doc?, and It Happened One Night for being character-driven, intelligent, and supported by well-placed gags that serve the narrative.
At the same time, he publicly punished the genre’s weaker modern attempts, unloading on films like Bio-Dome, French Kiss, Tommy Boy, and Freddy Got Fingered. If you’re a fan of those movies, it doesn’t mean critics like Ebert hate you personally or think less of you for finding enjoyment in them. His frame of reference still provides valuable insight. If he hated Tommy Boy for its over-the-top slapstick antics and dimwitted lead, and that’s exactly the kind of media you’re seeking out, then you can safely assume it’s your kind of movie based on his negative review.
It’s also what made his praise for Major Payne so meaningful. He gave the Damon Wayans comedy 3 out of 4 stars, writing: “The key to this kind of comedy is to go all the way with it, and Wayans creates a comic character out of narrowness, obsession, and blind commitment … Wayans is one of the most talented comic actors around, especially when he lets go and swings for the fences.” Knowing Ebert’s disdain for modern screwball comedies, the fact that Major Payne won him over says everything.
Critics Still Have Blind Spots
Critics have the same blind spots every human being has. A trip to Rotten Tomatoes for a proper assessment of Five Nights at Freddy’s proves this. With a 33 percent critical score and an audience score of 86 percent, you’d think reviewers were dogpiling for no reason.
Why the split? Five Nights at Freddy’s is built on a massive backlog of lore from the video game, which attempts to adapt, that casual fans won’t understand. Critics knocked the film for being overloaded with Easter eggs and references that alienated general audiences.
Fans of the game series were thrilled to see those details onscreen. That doesn’t make the movie good or bad; it just makes it niche. Critics didn’t get it, but the fans did, and that’s all you need to know.
Use Their Judgment To Sharpen Your Own Opinions
The entire point of critics establishing their preferences is to filter the quality of an IP through their personal taste. If you know a critic’s taste well enough, you can use it to sharpen your own.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com ’
