Music critics have been railing against the blogosphere for a while now. You’ve heard the complaints I’m sure, of how every Tom, Jane and Harry can jump in, and even though they can give a fairly educated personal view about the latest release from their favorite band, the trained and paid journos tell us we have no business getting in their honey jar and spreading the love to all the honey bears for free. Well, turning my attention to movie reviews, what are we to do about movie critics?
As with paid music critics, I have nothing against pro movie critics but as we approach the end of a decidedly digital decade I have to ask – is it necessary to hire one person to give their very personal view of someone else’s art? Someone who is paid to deliver the equivalent of the sermon on the mount about the latest album from U2 for instance? [I link the biblical reference and U2 with the paid critic on purpose because of David Fricke's overly-fawning, puff piece of a 5 star review of their last dull album.]
I really want to be able to instantly receive aggregated information from actual cinema-goers – a practice we know as crowdsourcing; the power of the few, when amassed, reaches many. Meanwhile I can comparison shop amongst critical reviews online. For example, today I read a review of the new movie District 9 in our [Portland, OR] local alternative weekly, The Willamette Week, and was slightly suspicious that the reviewer, Chris Stamm, wasn’t giving me a totally informed and unbiased review; let’s call it a gut check thing, something felt wrong. So I hopped on over to the NY Times movie section and there I found a review from A.O. Scott of District 9 with a completely different tack on the director/writer’s ambitions, one that is at odds with the Willamette Week reviewer’s version.
So there’s nothing earth shattering about two reviewers having differing opinions of a movie, I just think that Metacritic makes way more sense for testing the crowd’s pulse on culture than a single review in a local or national paper can supply. Ironically, Metacritic aggregates its data from just those sources. I want more. I want the community to vote. I want to know what like-minded people prefer. I want to look behind the curtain.
Here’s an example of two different reviews of District 9. Although they veer closely at times, they are intellectually dissimilar; with crowdsourcing I wonder how much the results would veer or align over the long tail of the community’s input?
A Harsh Hello for Visitors From Space
By A. O. SCOTT. New York Times
Published: August 14, 2009
For decades — at least since Orson Welles scared the daylights out of radio listeners with “War of the Worlds” back in 1938 — the public has embraced the terrifying prospect of alien invasion. But what if, notwithstanding the occasional humanist fable like “E.T.,” all those movies and television programs have been inculcating a potentially toxic form of interplanetary prejudice?
“District 9,” a smart, swift new film from the South African director Neill Blomkamp (who now lives in Canada and who wrote the screenplay with Terri Tatchell), raises such a possibility in part by inverting an axiomatic question of the U.F.O. genre. In place of the usual mystery — what are they going to do to us? — this movie poses a different kind of hypothetical puzzle. What would we do to them? The answer, derived from intimate knowledge of how we have treated one another for centuries, is not pretty.
[Edit]
At its core the film tells the story — hardly an unfamiliar one in the literature of modern South Africa — of how a member of the socially dominant group becomes aware of the injustice that keeps him in his place and the others, his designated inferiors, in theirs. The cost he pays for this knowledge is severe, as it must be, given the dreadful contours of the system. But if the film’s view of the world is bleak, it is not quite nihilistic. It suggests that sometimes the only way to become fully human is to be completely alienated.
The Brain Eaters
District 9’s aliens aren’t very sharp. The director thinks you aren’t, either.
By Chris Stamm. Willamette Week
They didn’t come to make war, but they didn’t necessarily come in peace, either. These beings from beyond didn’t speed through space-time to probe us, or to Hoover our brains for food, or to establish an interstellar federation. The aliens in District 9 simply ran out of gas on the wrong side of the universe, and they only want to go back home, wherever or whenever that is. Marooned in Johannesburg, South Africa, on cruel and xenophobic planet Earth, the so-called “prawns”—a human slur that happens to be pretty accurate—actually have quite a bit in common with the earthlings who’ve shunted them into the filthy slum-city that gives the film its name: technologically advanced enough to skip through the cosmos, but sadly hapless and discombobulated once they lose the map. It is an unfortunate frailty that District 9 itself shares, and that first-time director Neill Blomkamp can’t quite overcome.
In an interview with slashfilm.com, Blomkamp said he wanted to make a film that “didn’t depress the audience and kind of ram a whole lot of ideas down their throat that maybe they didn’t feel like hearing.” Could there be a more disheartening statement of purpose by a young artist, or a more cynical underestimation of an audience’s intelligence? Blomkamp’s admission of needless compromise is especially baffling in light of District 9’s first act, 20 brilliant minutes of faux-documentary dread. It’s not subtle, nor is it half as politically astute as Blomkamp seems to believe, but it is a mini-masterpiece of harrowing and darkly funny filmmaking.
I think you’re looking for Rotten Tomatoes.com. It aggregates paid reviews views along side online reviewers and the general public that chimes in. Most democratic of all the review sites.
August 13th, 2009 at 11:11 pmYeah, I like Rotten Tomatoes to a point, it just seems cluttered and hard to get straight to the point. It looks like a Craigslist for movies which is not what I’m looking for. I did note that District 9 is the best reviewed wide release of the summer though – http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/district_9/news/1837658/critics_consensus_district_9_is_certified_fresh
August 14th, 2009 at 8:52 amI will make my review easier to understand, Dave. I give District 9 a 72% out of a possible 100%. Crowds will flock to it. Some people will enjoy it, others will be disappointed. Many critics are praising it. Some are not. It will make a lot of money.
“Testing a crowd’s pulse” is exactly what film reviewers SHOULD NOT do. That’s not criticism, that’s reporting, and it’s fucking boring.
August 14th, 2009 at 9:49 amSorry, that last comment was kinda mean and idiotic. I know you weren’t attacking me personally.
August 14th, 2009 at 9:55 amAre you actually suggesting that A. O. Scott is an “unbiased”, intellectual film critic?…that seems nuts
and who wants an “unbiased” review anyway? And what does that mean? Pulitzer Prize winning Ebert is one of the most subjective film critics in America…and also has been one of the best…
August 14th, 2009 at 10:52 amAs Chris’ editor and the guy who runs Willamette Week’s movie section, I’m clearly not to be trusted on this, but I have to ask: What the blazes are you talking about?
A.O. Scott’s review isn’t “at odds” with our review, nor does it cast any doubt on Chris’ ability to be “totally informed and unbiased.” The two reviews are clearly describing the same movie, and the same intentions; if you ran the pieces side by side (without cutting out the heart of their arguments), you’d see that they both address the movie’s metaphorical intentions, as well as its slide into action set-pieces in the third act. It so happens that Scott and Stamm disagree on the *quality* of the movie. Both of them contribute excellent writing that helps readers to form a fuller view what the picture is doing, and how well it succeeds.
But clearly, quality of writing is not something you care about. You want to know if the vast majority of people think something’s good or bad. It’s a numbers game, right, and who needs movie critics when mass consensus is within reach? Anybody who disagrees with that consensus must be stupid or lying.
August 14th, 2009 at 12:39 pmMarco, no, perhaps my use of ‘unbiased’ was a mistake when referring to Chris Stamm’s review. I do believe Scott tends to have a more intellectual view of movies than some critics though.
August 14th, 2009 at 2:32 pmAlthough I like the idea of a communal rating over single source critics, the reviews by your average Joe aren’t any more enlightening or informative than your typical barroom banter,in which case I’d say go to the bar. I liken it to wikipedia, generally useful but not an authoritative source of information. There also tends to be a beehive mentality, especially early in the release, where fans outnumber the unbiased, inflating the rating. In the end, I will agree that the aggregate rating is an accurate reflection of popularity, in the same manner that American Idol reflects American’s musical tastes.
August 14th, 2009 at 2:40 pmAaron,
Wow, who knew I’d upset the critics with my musings. I must have hit a hot topic button by accident. I don’t need to justify what I think about how I prefer to receive my news or reviews or information of any kind. I also wasn’t attacking anyone so I’m surprised to be attacked here.
I was writing, somewhat loosely, an opinion inspired by some discussions and thoughts I’ve had about the end of the peer group “awards” game – the Grammy’s, the Oscars and even here in PDX, the Rosey Awards. These awards events are not open to the community for participation, they are back room, back slapping affairs that benefit those in the industry that supports them. That will not last too much longer.
When I saw multiple reviews of District 9 that varied on the subject, topic and the director’s ambition, all the while coming to consensus that it was a great movie, I was intrigued by the idea of what a community consensus would look like when it came to movies; as one commenter here pointed out, RottenTomatoes.com does a good job of aggregating reviews with some community input but it’s not a satisfying experience.
To say that the “quality of writing is something I don’t care about” just shows your ignorance of my passions and also shows that you haven’t dug very far through this 3+ years old blog. I care very much about quality writing. I am also intellectually curious, again, for which I shall not justify nor apologize.
I wonder what it is about community input that you actually fear? Or is it that some untrained lackey like me, who happens to have an audience, can have an opinion about a movie and actually not get paid to write about it that worries you? Your harshness in your “comment” probably belies a normally even-tempered personality, but I have news for you – no it’s not a “numbers game” for me and I would never say that “Anybody who disagrees with that consensus must be stupid or lying.” I’ll leave that to you.
August 14th, 2009 at 2:59 pmChris,
Don’t worry, I never take anything personally here. If I did I’d never sleep nor leave the house. “Testing a crowd’s pulse” works well in the arena of my day job and it worked well for then Senator Obama’s presidential campaign, but you could be right, maybe it won’t work in popular culture. Yet as my friend Josh pointed out on Twitter – “the district 9 critic isn’t in the mix when the viewer is sold after the first second of the preview.” Word of mouth trumps the critic perhaps? Beware the crowd is all I can say.
August 14th, 2009 at 3:05 pmBut Dave, you didn’t give your opinion of the movie. It seems you were able to infer an “uninformed bias” without having seen the film I’m writing about.
And Metacritic, which you endorse, is nothing if not a numbers game. It’s a fun one, and it’s nice that Metacritic links to most of the major critics in the country, but it assigns rather arbitrary scores to unstarred reviews. If that’s not a game, I don’t know what is.
And again, I don’t write to simply say to people: “see this, see that, don’t see this, don’t see that.” The joy of writing reviews, and of reading them, is entering into a conversation with engaged people with interesting opinions.
I think I can speak for Aaron Mesh when I say that he would love to have more informed arguments with the people who read his and my and the other WWeek writers’ stuff. But to do that, we all need to be on the same page. We write about movies, not, for the most part, box office receipts. So when you see District 9, let’s talk about how my review got it wrong.
August 14th, 2009 at 4:45 pmRarely have I seen so many boats miss the dock! I’m not sure where to even begin but I think it’s quite clear that few who read this piece can fully grasp the irreverent yet poignant nature of the ‘alternative press’ (new media, or whatever else they are calling it these days).
While some will only see a movie review others will walk away with a far more valuable deconstruction of the issue at hand. I’m not sure which is worse, the critics not being able to take a critique, or their being so self absorbed as to think the piece was exclusively about THEM.
So what about the so called ‘numbers game’? Metacritic/crowdsourcing, is certainly no panacea but that doesn’t mean they are devoid of value. They are very usefull as a starting point of reference but their value quickly declines or is mediated when juxtaposed with other data. (It of course depends entirely what your intended purpose of such data is) But shouldn’t we already know this? Why I feel like I have to spell it out is pretty sad. Have we really lost so much subtlety and nuance that every piece of writing needs to be reduced to a PR statement? Shame on you Dave for not focus testing this before posting it. :/
August 14th, 2009 at 6:13 pmChris,
I wasn’t writing about my opinion of the movie because unlike you I don’t get the privilege of a pre-screening or preview – I was debating the value of criticism in a world of instant pundits – whether you or Aaron like it or not, the Internet beats you to the punch every time; even the in-cinema previews have folks making up their minds instantly. It’s odd that you say that I’m accusing you somehow of “getting your review wrong” I never said you did – here’s where I became “slightly suspicious” of your review though – The Brain Eaters. District 9’s aliens aren’t very sharp. The director thinks you aren’t, either.
With a headline like that you seem to be suggesting that a) what we have here is just an alien b-movie full of, well, dumb aliens and b) the director is taking the audience for granted and he thinks the audience is also less than “sharp” too and by inference dumb too. That didn’t set things off on the right foot for me, rightly or wrongly. In an era of micro-skimming, those that read just the headline would sum up the movie instantly. Whereas Scott’s headline laid the table differently – A Harsh Hello for Visitors From Space. From that, without reading the entire review, I was able to infer that, hey Mr and Mrs Alien, you set foot on this planet and you’ll get your ass kicked, oh and by the way, we’ll make life pretty fucking difficult for you too…and that there is more to the story than the headline. One still has to read both reviews to get to the subtleties though.
So, two different styles of reviewing for sure, or you can blame the copy/headline editor, whoever it is that comes up with those jaunty lines, but as for the actual reviews, I just felt that Scott’s was more illuminating about the director’s intentions and the film’s premise that’s all.
Meanwhile you say – “The joy of writing reviews, and of reading them, is entering into a conversation with engaged people with interesting opinions.” Who are these people with interesting opinions who are engaged? How do you engage with them? That’s the part I’m really interested in.
BTW, I don’t “endorse” Metacritic, I mention that site only in that it rates all reviews, no doubt yours too, and gives a trending topics-style overview of general critical opinion. That one is a “numbers game” as you call it.
August 14th, 2009 at 7:12 pmDave, if you read the review and not just the headline, you will find that I quote THE DIRECTOR OF THE FILM as saying he wanted to make a film that “didn’t depress the audience and kind of ram a whole lot of ideas down their throat that maybe they didn’t feel like hearing.”
That statement, combined with my impression of the film as rather pedestrian and simple-minded, is where the headline was born.
You also questioned Aaron about whether or not some lackey like you with an opinion about a movie is threatening. So you framed this debate as one about movies and opinions people have of them.
And the headline is good if it suggested those things to you. That’s pretty much how I feel about most of the film.
Again, if you read the review, which I’m beginning to suspect you did not, you’ll see that I gave a good two paragraphs to praising the film and its director.
You’re free to prefer Scott’s writing to mine. God knows I do about half the time. He’s a great writer. But there’s absolutely nothing misleading about anything I wrote in my piece or my editor wrote in the headline.
And if you don’t think writing and reading is a way to engage, you’re lost.
August 14th, 2009 at 7:26 pmAndrew,
Very smart response! This blog is a focus group of sorts… My new mantra is ‘test and analyze’ before moving forward. Your line – “Have we really lost so much subtlety and nuance that every piece of writing needs to be reduced to a PR statement? ” is not something I can align myself to as it presupposes that the internet is perhaps killing off reading and writing, as many people claim. I prefer Clay Shirky’s opinion, when he writes – “the internet is the largest group of people who care about reading and writing ever assembled in history…” I say, amen to that..
August 14th, 2009 at 7:27 pmChris,
Somewhere along the way this debate, or its to and fro, ran off the tracks. It was never my intention to start a personal debate but you and Aaron took that tack. We don’t know each other and nothing written here between us suggests that we do. As for engagement, what we have just gone through today is just that. The sharing of opinions in writing or verbally is of interest to me. Passive reception of the written word without debate is of no interest to me. This is merely a very large forum of 100’s of thousands of readers who make their opinions clear to me, often vigorously disagreeing with me, but I never take it personally. I apologize if I’ve offended you and Aaron’s sensibilities in some way but, as you say of me, I’d prefer to remain “lost.” Thanks for the exchanges, they’ve been informative.
August 14th, 2009 at 7:36 pmDave,
I like a good argument, so there are no hard feelings here, but I took your insinuation that I was somehow gunning for this film–and doing so in an uninformed way–as a pretty harsh and unjust assessment.
Also, I just hopped over to Metacritic and found quite a few reviews that are eerily similar to mine.
And just so you know, if I went into the film with any “bias” for or against the director, it was a strong bias FOR the guy: http://blogs.wweek.com/news/2009/08/02/the-best-of-blomkamp-why-district-9-might-actually-be-good/
Best,
August 14th, 2009 at 7:46 pmChris
Here it is in a nutshell: when you read reviews and take them seriously, it’s because you don’t give a shit what the masses think, anymore than you will go out and buy Britney Spears because, hey, it must be good (not that Toxic is not a masterpiece).
August 14th, 2009 at 9:04 pmAnd to dispense with the nutshell: You talk about “like-minded people”–how do you know that flurry of tweets is “like-minded?” You’ve answered your own question. I suggest trying what I have always done, and what anyone I know who cares about movies does (full disclosure: I used to write reviews for wweek, but I am talking about “real” people, not reviewers): learn what reviewers you trust/ have simpatico tastes with. Learn who you hate. If they hate it, you may love it. Read more than one review of a movie you are on the fence about (never, never read any reviews of a movie you KNOW you will see). Collate the CONTRASTING information (see, I emphasize that because it can be a GOOD thing, not a flaw in the system–ever heard of a movie getting “mixed reviews”–that means there is something about it that divides people–that too can be a good thing, Dave!) Contrasting even two reviews that rate say, a “50″ and a “90″ respectively will tell you far more than knowing that it comes to a “70″ collectively (with perhaps a few buzzwords added, or whatever it is you are looking for), especially if you know the bent of the reviewer. And who are these people you are listening to? People you consider more educated on the subject of film, more knowledgeable on the breadth and history, more versed in the films that might be relevant to a discussion of this one (films the average reader may not have even heard of) and probably more intelligent than the average Joe, at least as far as this topic is concerned. Not all critics fit this description to say the least–please refer to the above section on learning who you feel you can trust. Frankly, I think alt weeklies and local papers (Oregonian) are a mostly terrible source of criticism, Chris Stamm and a few rare others aside, and avoid them like the plague. You do get, on the whole, better criticism from say the NY Times, say, but some of their third-stringers (Jeanette Catsouils or whatever it is) are awful, and easily bested by the best wweek has to offer. Yes, I wrote for an alt weekly–make that two–but I didn’t expect the blind trust of the reader, most of whom I am probably too elitist in my tastes to serve properly. I was there for those select few who could not give a flying fuck what the “hive mind,” as another commenter capably put it, think. Honestly, many of my fellow reviewers at both local papers ARE good compasses for people with less discerning tastes, and hopefully those readers are attuned to that fact–in fact, I’ve been surprised to learn that even people who love High School Musical 3 or whatever know what they can expect from certain bylines in the local paper. So they get it, they get the point, even people who probably don’t need critics because their standards are pretty low. I have no idea what your standards are, and am not going to wade through your 3-year old blog to find out. I feel silly having to explain to you the things I have, and maybe a perusal of your blog would show that it is unneccessary, in which case I would be confused as to why you asked the question. Sine you did, that is the answer, Virginia. Yes, there is a point to paid, professional critics. But I would say that most of the world understands intuitively whether they are the sort of person who needs critics, or if their coworkers will do the trick. I feel there is a good chance, despite whatever lip service you pay to engagement and discussion (contrasting reviews would provide that, so that’s a good thing, right?) that coworkers (or a mass lump of tweeting or whatever the hell) are probably best for you–if you have to ask why critics exist, you don’t need ‘em.
And for the record, you did “attack someone”–not me or the profession, to which be my guest–but your ridiculous assertion that Chris was biased (which you have retreated from) and uninformed, which is the highest insult to a critic for the reasons I went into far above, and could use a little, you know, specific substantiation as to what the hell you meant by that.
But anyway, definitely go with your “crowdsourcing,” I think it might be a good fit for you (sorry I can’t be sure, please don’t be insulted I’m only gonna read this one page of your blog).
Thanks for hearing me out,
Andy
p.s. Even first stringers like Roger Ebert, David Denby and Steve Holden, while capable writers, are basically idiots as far as I am concerned when it coems to their opinions.
August 14th, 2009 at 9:08 pmWait–aren’t you the Gang of Four dude? Mad props, yo. I realize nowadays things are very different, musically, and you guys are ripped off all the time, along wih many others in the big Recyclomatic. But when I was in high school in the eighties, it was critcs pointing me to bands like yours that made my adolescence, and partly who I am today. What would the masses at my high school (or anywhere else) have thought of Gang of Four? Fuck that, even my COOL friends weren’t interested! I’m sure you get the point. And seriously, mad props (and thanks).
August 14th, 2009 at 9:19 pmi’m not gonna ask that you correct all my idiotic typos, but if you could change that part at the end of my first response to “that Chirs is BIASED” i would be obliged, and it would make more sense for anyone reading.
August 14th, 2009 at 9:25 pmChris,
As I said earlier, I’m happy to remain lost. You guys are the whizzes… I’ll keep listening to my audience.
August 14th, 2009 at 10:02 pmI love good criticism, which I think is ultimately more valuable than a site like Metacritic. It refines the meaning of the film for anyone who cares enough to read it. I also think it’s a very rare thing, but here’s a good example: http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_casablanca.html.
As far as being motivated to go see a movie, I appreciate the ubiquity of feedback from friends and online trailers. I’m more likely to decide to see a film based on those things and my background knowledge than I am from two thumbs up or an 80+.
I always check Metacritic toward the end of the year for their top records though.
August 14th, 2009 at 11:06 pmOne thing that I am finding interesting here is that it seems as though Chris, as a critic, is quite concerned with his assesment being skillful and accurate, whereas Dave is talking more about the future of media influencing decision making. Media’s power is in how it affects the public to make choices. In a system in which mass media production is costly, theoretically the most effective and resonant voice is the one selected to speak (ok very theoretically). Thus an honest and skillful critic would of course take great pride in his ability to provide a review that reigns true from a broad and well informed vantage point.
The thing is, we don’t live in that world anymore. Even if Chris’s viewpoint is more intellectually superior to many of the other musings about this film, humans are multifacted beings capable of looking at their experience from more than one vantage point. We now have the capacity to explore and synthesize these multiple viewpoints in a way that offers dialouge (like the one happening here) and the ability to see a larger picture. The expert is important, but his voice is not the only one that is heard now. Might as well make friends. We just wanna talk Chris, and what’s more, it frees you from having to be right.
I for one want to hear what experts say about movies, but I also want to hear what my friends think. The future of decision making based on media influence incorporates both. What that means for experts is yet to fully unfold.
August 14th, 2009 at 11:29 pmThe Eco review of Casablanca is interesting – he, of course, is a masterful writer and pop culture critic, but a review of a movie that has bubbled in the imagination for decades is a different beast than review of a movie just released. You bring your personal memories of watching it as a child, with old lovers, in class, etc. into bear. Frankly, I disagree with some of Eco’s points, and he totally ignores the fine directorial performance of Michael Curtiz, a sadly neglected master. Still an enjoyable read though.
I usually don’t read reviews of movies I want to see – I’ll read them afterwards, and see how i agree or disagree with them. I’m able to go into the film without preconceived notions that way…Although I do recall seeing Starship Troopers after reading one bad review after another – my roommate had worked on it so I wanted to check it out. I was thoroughly entertained. Yes, some hilariously bad acting and weird casting choices, but dang it, I really enjoyed that film. And still do.
I look forward to seeing District 9, and then I look forward to reading the reviews…
August 15th, 2009 at 12:46 amAs a side pov i’d say D9 is a film that doesn’t require critique as a means for deciding whether or not to see it. As soon as we saw that ship hovering over the city it was a must see. We can smell an original idea and will flock to it despite its critical merits. Now that i’ve seen it i’m ready to dig into the good/bad critiques as a way to process the film.
August 15th, 2009 at 1:01 amI like the metacritic numbers game when i’m on the fence but that was never in question here and heady critiques by real critics is more for moving forward and finding the film’s place in popular culture.
joshk
Yes, “Metacritic makes way more sense for testing the crowd’s pulse on culture than a single review in a local or national paper.” I agree 100%.
But that’s only because the point of reviews isn’t to test the crowd’s pulse on culture. It’s to test an informed critic’s opinion on culture.
If you trust the aggregate crowd more than a single critic (which is wise in the case of Willamette Week, not so much when it comes to A.O. Scott) then that’s your prerogative. But don’t compare the two like they’re equivalent. That’s exactly the same mistake that people make when they ask whether bloggers are journalists.
August 15th, 2009 at 2:26 amI think jetstream’s got it just about right. I decide to see a film based on a director’s past work, or based on an intriguing image or trailer or poster even, or, in the case of horror and Will Ferrel comedies, because I dig the genre. Or because someone like Manohla Dargis or Scott Foundas or Aaron Mesh or A.O. Scott has championed it. But I tend not to read reviews before I see a film. I like to go in as naked and free from contamination as possible. THEN I dig into reviews and see where we all stand. Reading reviews is–and always will be–a necessary part of a thriving film culture.
August 15th, 2009 at 9:46 amBut, as Andy said, some people also trust certain critics to tell them what to see, and that’s important too, even if it’s not the way you or I prefer to go about things.
August 15th, 2009 at 9:48 amOk, a final note from me. First, I want to publicly apologize to Chris as I was wrong to write that his review was “unbiased and uninformed.” That was a bad choice of words as I tried to explain what I felt in my gut reading his review at the time. I will do better next time. Secondly, thank you to everyone who jumped in with a POV, it’s heartening to see that people are passionate about the arts and are willing to speak up. The net result here seems to be that people want a mix of a well written critical review, word of mouth and an element of crowdsourcing – which may encapsulate all three of those needs. Arguably RottenTomatoes.com does those things and Metacritic also pulls in close. I will continue to enjoy reading reviews but I still sense that a completely open forum, such as a wiki, would be an interesting part of the mix – maybe there is one out there that I haven’t yet found…
August 15th, 2009 at 9:55 amThe foregoing conversation has been interesting to follow. My POV is that there is plenty of room for both “expertise” and crowdsourcing with regard to reviews of film (not to mention books, theater, visual arts, dance, etc.). I appreciate reading a review written by someone with enough experience and knowledge that they are able to contextualize the work. When I get advice about a movie, I want to know something about the person from whom the advice is coming–not just a guy on the corner, in a bar or on the interwebs.
I think it’s interesting that the slant of this conversation has been to treat reviews (whether by experts or the crowd) from a consumerist perspective–i.e., as a tool for deciding what movie to see, as if the only role of media is to influence consumer decisions. What about the role of media and reviews in educating consumers and expanding knowledge? I like to read reviews AFTER I’ve seen a movie or a play, or read a book. Not because I need an expert to tell me what I ought to think, but to gain another perspective and to balance my ideas about and interpretation of the work against somebody else’s–preferably someone with more insight and experience than my own.
As Dave suggests, perhaps the solution is to create a tool that encapsulates it all in an elegant way.
August 15th, 2009 at 5:28 pmSingle source critic versus communal rating? Good question. If I know I want to see a movie, I avoid all reviews until after I see it. If I just saw a movie I loved, I want to read reviews by all the critics whose views resonate with mine or who I respect. I may then seek out reviews in the blogosphere to get what John T likens to the average Joe barroom banter, because it saves me a trip to the bar and the requisite hangover. Generally collaborative filtering is a piss poor way of predicting what I will love (sorry Netflix, sorry Amazon). I often do resort to the Ask The Audience lifeline to decide whether to watch it on DVD, especially if I’m not quite sure whether it merits 2 hours of my life. Crowd consensus does not get me into the theater, although it may keep me away.
I read the professional critics mostly for entertainment, and mostly for movies I will never see. The paid critics that I like are better than average writers and have spent some time honing their craft.
August 16th, 2009 at 12:52 am[...] District 9 and the Problem With Movie Reviews in a Digital Age conversation about Willamette Week and NYT vs. aggregate review sites like RottenTomatoes and [...]
August 17th, 2009 at 4:43 pmI’m with Nick on only reading reviews after I’ve seen a movie, but I suppose that means I form my opinions from hype and trailers.
I value specific, consistent sources of information like reviewers because I’m kind of a snob and fancy myself to be a good researcher, so I wouldn’t trust the masses (ex. many people liked Crash, I thought it was crap on a stick).
Maybe the web twist on whether critics are valuable is that people who are used to creating content online are less impressed by unknown others who have done the same. Like, if you are used to blogging and commenting, you may be less impressed by opinions on blogs and comments and crowdsourced info, because you know it can take little effort.
This argument is kind of eating it’s tail, but it’s a nice slant take on the question of whether the web needs journalists.
Anyway, I’m mostly writing this comment to say that Scott’s sentence “It suggests that sometimes the only way to become fully human is to be completely alienated” gets a bad joke ba da bum drum roll.
August 18th, 2009 at 6:26 pmCan I be the first to say that I thought the movie was a piece of shit. Society has come to the point where noone can voice their opinion openly without the backlash of people who enjoy pop cultures, disintegration of moral thinking. What has society come to, when such a plot-less, stupid, brutalization gloryfying irrelevant movie gets an 88% rating by the community consensus.
I just can’t wrap my head around it.
August 18th, 2009 at 8:51 pmMy vote is for more mysterious trailers that reveal less of a film’s plot, and for reading movie reviews after seeing a film.
August 21st, 2009 at 4:12 pmI don’t think reviews are without value – sometimes they will point out something that wouldn’t have occured to me, that makes me rethink a picture. They might also turn me onto something I would never see ofterwise. But more often than not they reveal too much story, and either raise my expectations too high for something…or deflate something I am excited about.
I went and saw Cloverfield, without knowing anything about it. The marketing was done so well, that I didn’t even know what the monster looked like, if it was a monster, if Cloverfield was a code name for a new Godzilla movie – nothing. It allowed me to have a pretty enjoyable experience because I didn’t know what was going to happen.
Dave, I understand your curious musings about how the new digital era will ultimately affect the place of film critics, seeing as how RIAA’s business plan has been torn to shreds by “the internets” and the film industry is in a frantic scramble to keep up (voila hulu!).
So… “is it necessary to hire one person to give their very personal view of someone else’s art?” No, it isn’t necessary to pay any person for their contributions. Thinking of life and society in terms of monetary restrictions alone is only focusing on the individual leaves of a tree rather than investigating its roots. Beneath the rat race of bank run, crowd consumed share cropping are immutable human truths.
What is art without its terminology, the constant discussion and dissection? A specific piece communicates and simultaneously stimulates communication. (Not to downplay the process + creation, but what is a song unheard/experienced?) The opinions of those who are most immersed and educated in the particular field…the critic, the historian, are and will always be valued as long as the art form lives…regardless of some monetary peddling machine. The movie Pollock (art that sparked conversation that sparked a film that led to critics reviews…gar omg!) strongly illustrates this vortex.
You, as a critic personally judging/discussing/actively engaging in people’s art (music specifically) have gained stature enough that your article drew such attention. Aren’t you an example of the massive crowd source; the internet?
p.s.: Have not seen the movie (WAT?!) but don’t expect much because American scifi is usually just fail with a sliding scale of special effects.
August 21st, 2009 at 5:15 pmp.s.s.: Everyone should discuss Moon instead.
It’s my policy to be very vague about the story lines of the films I review on my site. I have always hated reading movie reviews that tell to much about a film. Entering a theater already having preconceived notions about the plot and / or the outcome of the film in the past have ruined the viewing experience for me,so this is why these reviews are written that way. I liked District 9 I gave it a good review, It was engaging and it was better than the G.I. Joe movie and Terminator Salvation rolled together. Critics have opinions id i don’t like something I try to give reasons why… Like this “In my review of last month’s release of Night at the Museum :Battle of the Smithsonian, I commented that Hank Azaria’s character Kahmunrah ” had some great lines that would have been very funny if he wasn’t delivering them” well Will Ferrell could have been fantastic in that role and it’s not a stretch to see Hank Azaria as Dr. Rick Marshall it would have worked…”
August 21st, 2009 at 6:34 pmmatt
Raquel,
I get what you’re saying, yet the leveling of the playing field is the important part for me. The stand alone critic or the historian is now but one cog in the machine. If I met you leaving the cinema, having seen what I was about to enter and see, your opinion would carry greater weight to me than any review/preview that I may read. Look at what’s going on around Tarantino’s latest movie – the critics are all over the place! I’m sticking to the idea of crowdsourced info as I believe that from that vast ocean of input there will rise a different way of covering art/movie/literature criticism by the new participants, or even the New Communicators.. Thanks for jumping into the fray…
August 22nd, 2009 at 11:31 pmI had expected DISTRICT 9 to be one of my favorite movies this summer. And although it had an interesting premise, I discovered that I didn’t like the movie very much. I don’t know. I supposed that it could be that I found it questionable that the mother ship would remain hovering over Johannesburg for at least two decades or more, without any fuel or its command module. I’m still wondering how the aliens (who were ailing when the South Africans first discovered them) managed to get their hands on enough weaponry to trade with the Nigerians.
I found the movie’s portrayal of the Nigerians rather repulsive. Mind you, the South Africans were not portrayed in a positive light, including the main character. But the Nigerians were portrayed in such a one-dimensional and negative way that . . . well, it repelled me. And if the aliens are supposed to be metaphors of the black South Africans during apartheid, does that mean sleeping with them was supposed to be regarded with revulsion? Apparently, we’re supposed to regard Nigerian prostitutes having sex with aliens with revulsion. And could someone please explain why the Nigerians would refer to its shaman (or whatever) with a Southern African word, instead of a word in Yoruba, Hausa or Igbo. And are we really supposed to believe that all Africans who practice in paganism, indulge in cannibalism?
And why couldn’t Blomkamp have told the story with one of the aliens as the main character?
Also, there is one scene that featured the main character losing some of his teeth after being affected by the alien liquid. Yet, a scene or two later, he is smiling at the camera with all of his teeth showing. Hmmm? Also, the last half hour was an exercise in excessive action scenes that didn’t mesh very well with the rest of the film.
Yeah . . . DISTRICT 9 disappointed me.
August 26th, 2009 at 9:33 pmThe film was a great disappointment.
I expected a lot but it only turned out to be an irritating camera-shaking videogame. The plot-line was ridiculous and had great holes.
The biggest crap in 2009!!!
It’s time writers should read more traditional literature to create strong storylines. Not silly, mindless violent cinematic video-games.
August 28th, 2009 at 5:51 amI think the problem with film reviews is shown in this very blog discussion…every person has a different opinion. I personally liked District 9. I won’t bore anyone with why or how.
*Spoiler alert*
August 31st, 2009 at 1:58 amRosie – the Nigerian people in District 9 were indeed one-dimensional and negative; they were crazy murderous gangsters, you are meant to be repelled by them! The main character becomes alien and yet you choose to be annoyed by the lack of consistency regarding teeth?! You have no problems with his DNA changing over the course of a few days? The teeth in question were molars pulled from the back of his mouth, unless you are smiling like a maniac there is little chance of seeing them, or any lack of them. I too was a little curious as to how the alien ship remained suspended over the city for 20 years but I just shrugged my shoulders and got over it. And yes, sleeping with a Black person probably was seen with revulsion by white people at the time of aparthied. And no, not all African Pagans practice cannibalism(I doubt if any do), also I can’t remember seeing any Pagan characters. In short it’s a movie, not a documentary about African life. You are inferring too much.
I have never had the urge to leave a cinema quicker! Totally unbelievable cat food eating, prawns who have forgotten how to operate their own guns and ship and all so we can have an annoying commentary on racism! For crying out loud why must we be bombarded with such low energy nonsense! There should be an apology made for the harmful impact this film makes on the consciousness of all humanity!
September 1st, 2009 at 2:02 pmif you were stranded on a planet you would have no bias towards “cat food”. i agree that its unlikely that they get stranded….but that goes to the imagination of who they are. its a reflection of fucked situations that we choose to ignore.
September 2nd, 2009 at 12:50 amDave–I didn’t see the whole article (maybe the snipped portion reveals something here but I’m too lazy to go look) It doesn’t read as though the first critic actually SAW the movie. It reads to me like he read a synopsis and made up his mind by other means. “Hey Jerry, did this movie suck?”
September 4th, 2009 at 5:27 amA) Wow — slow news days recently at The Week, eh? It’s like their whole paper rolled their chairs over to one desk to jump your shit.
B) People who critique things should accept criticism of themselves with more dignity.
C) Inexperienced critics seem to think they MUST be negative in their reviews — if you read around, you’ll see that it’s an industry blight — if they don’t hate eveything, they don’t feel like they’re “talking smart.”
I saw your point and agree with what you were saying. It would be of more use to see what the audience as a collective brain thought than to rely on the word of one kid at a weekly who wants so badly to matter that he googles himself after every review.
I also think the critic needs to read that quote he’s clinging to one more time — he doesn’t seem to understand it.
And, for the record, the editor should be taken to task for coming on here and jumping in the fray. He should have better things to do. We’re all a little touchy about the future of newspapers right now, but this just makes us all look bad.
The writer is entirely entitled to his opinion. And so are you. By jumping in here like a kid with hurt feelings, he showed he doesn’t think before he writes. And that’s exactly why it’s best not to take just one guy’s opinion about movies (or anything else?).
September 12th, 2009 at 8:47 pm