I come home, turn on the computer, and check rottontomatoes.com (a site that compiles all published critic reviews for movies) just to see what the score was. 19%.

The critics are entired to their opinion...but their opinion is definitely not a majority. Movies like 300, Rush Hour, and Pirates of the Caribbean(2 and 3 anyway) did not fare too well with the critics, but went on to be huge successes.

Now, I know my argument has been focused on movies thus far, but I think the same can be applied to books, television, or any other sort of entertainment.

I guess my question is...do you think critics have lost touch with the general public?

I learned in a photo club I was in, that when you are judging something, you end up with a different opinion than if just looking at it. In the club, you were given five catagories to judge, so you were anylizing it. Only one catagory was how well you liked it. when viewing, did you like it, was the only catagory. A lot of things I really liked, did poorly in the other catagories.
I think that when viewing films, critics run into the same thing. HOw was the acting? how was the script, What did the camera angles do for you? How was the background?
I know those are not the real catagories they use, but when you look at a film on those classifications, you get a different picture than you get from curling up with some popcorn, letting your cares go away for a while and having fun, where your only classification is "did it work?"

Back in the 1980s, when I spent a lot of time watching late night movies on TV, I developed a theory that the critics were playing a joke. They developed a scale where one was the best films, and five was the worst, but then got their jollies by telling the public that one was the worst and five was the best. I developed that theory because some of the best films I ever saw were one and zero star movies...

When it comes to being a book critic, one is also judging the book on sentance structure, syntax, vocabulary, word useage, style, language, discriptions, and a whole bunch of other technical rules. Do poorly in those and the book is at least on the verge of being panned.
A reader is simply looking for a well told story and will ignore a lot of the above if the story is really good and told well. Readers usually do not study the book. They read through it once and go to the next book.

So, the difference between the critics and the audience, is that the critics have to study the piece, while the audience simply aborbs the entertainment.

BTW, when Ciscal and Ebert were together (I have not seen any of the following pairings), I loved their critic show. They discribed the films as a fan would discribe them. I seldom agreed with their decisions, but I know what the film was about and knew whether it was something I might want to go to. Other critics never really told me anything I needed to know.

One of the frustrations I have with my decision to try my hand at writing is that it's lead to my doing a lot of critiquing. The critiquing bleeds over into my pleasure reading and I find myself enjoying stories less than I would if I was simply out to be entertained.

Once I realized this I changed my approach to critiquing. I force myself to block out my internal crit-tick and gain an impression as a plain reader. This is the first thing I try to address in my critiques. Once that's done, then I go through for technical things with my reader's impression in mind.

But some of the overall tone seemed disturbing. Several reviews led with comments along the lines of "I've never heard of this cultural phenomenon," and proceded to condemn it on that basis. But every one of the things he hadn't heard of was something I knew of---and I got to wondering whether he was the right guy to be reviewing that sort of movie, bad or good, no matter what.

I've said [extensively] that I've written Internet Fan Fiction. I also critiqued a bunch of their rough drafts. Fairly often, I got handed something that crossed over with some other pop phenomenon, something I wasn't familiar with. (This kind of literary cross-pollination is big among Internet Fan Fiction.) I made the effort to take the stories apart as stories, admitting my ignorance. I often enjoyed the results despite my ignorance---a couple of times I got "turned on" to something I found I liked.

And if I can make the effort, why can't Roger Ebert?

(Possibly I may be misjudging him---the book, after all, consisted entirely of negative reviews---so perhaps I should look and see if he ever wrote something like "I never heard of this before, but I enjoyed the movie without knowing what it's based on.")

[revised to change the faux quote above---on a second glance, it looked like gibberish]

The other thing, though, in fairness to the critics on the never-ceasing stream of sequels, is that they are probably looking for the same thing I am -- originality. IMHO, the movie industry has stagnated in recent years. New movies seem to be either sequels, remakes of old movies, or based on popular novels (or more than one of the above). Now, I admit to being a bit out of the loop on movies since I had my baby and movies started costing me $8 an hour in baby-sitting, but then again that give me an even greater drive to want to be more than entertained at a movie...I want to be amazed and spellbound.

He does have a leaning towards the academic side of movie, like the literary elite tend to dismiss King, Rowling, et al. I think he is dismayed more by the lowering of standards in entertainment that comes out of Hollywood. Far too many young artists struggle to be heard in the busy entertainment landscape for crap like Deuce Bigelow (one or two) to be made, but... well, they are made.

I remember reading a comment he made once; that when he reviews a movie and gives it a score - out of four stars - he relates it to other movies of the same type. When a person looks for a review on the new Spiderman movie, they don't want to know how it compares to Cries and Whispers or Citizen Kane, but how it compared to the most recent Superman movie. However, as with all reviews that have a score - the numerical score is for the most part meaningless. Read a review to get the total feel for how the reviewer felt.

I think it's incumbent to rely on critics we have a tendency to agree with. And I, for one, normally agree with Roger Ebert. Maybe it's just me.

Jayson Merryfield

I'm a little bit in the same boat. I've read so much sf that I really don't want to read about another battle with laser swords that decides the fate of the galaxy, while a new reader may be thoroughly entertained.

We expect them to by cynical. Even sites like RottenTomatoes expect the to be cynical. That's why anything over 60% is considered "Fresh" or worth seeing. (Thus, the movie 300 was considered good by their standards. I thought it was okay, I would have given it a 6 out of 10 myself. I felt it certainly could have been much better.)

However, the site is useful. I can read the comments and get a feel for what the critics didn't like about a movie. If they say it dragged on and sagged in the middle, I think I'd avoid the movie. I've learned that I don't like such movies. If they say the plot was simple and formulaic, I'd probably still see it. There's a reason formulaic plots tend to work. There's a reason so many writers focus on the ancient three-act formula--it can still work. (That part isn't my opinion, I can cite articles and books if needed.) And that's just it--everyone has different tastes. It's not always about if critics liked it or hated, but why they formed that opinion.

Certain critics will always be hard on action movies. Others will always be hard on "chic movies." Some critics are very educated and favor "artistic" movies, while others like very commercial movies. If you're looking for critical advice on movies, look for one or two that tend to agree with your preferences.

I also look at a critic's comments as being something from a completely different frame of reference than mine. The critic has (or SHOULD have) some education, experience, expertise in whatever it is he's doing critiques on. As a professional sculptor, I look at sculpture much differently than the average person does. A fine mechanic looks at cars much differently than the average person does. And so, to, does the critic look at films and books much differently than those who simply enjoy the films or books. We may not agree with the "expert's" opinion, but those who are more educated, experienced and expert in that field will recognize if that so-called "expert" really has the expertise he claims to have. But what it will all boil down to is how entertaining he is in presenting his critiques, if he's a media critic of books or films. If he's pedantic, no matter how "right" he is, he won't last long, I suspect. If he's flamboyant, funny, or outrageous, I expect his columns will be widely read even by those who disagree with his opinion.

quote:

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The trouble with a professional critic is that they have seen it all so many times they become jaded, and any hint of originality -- like if it's in Polish with Lithuanian subtitles, in grainy black and white and run backwards -- is such a relief that they praise it to the skies.

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I'm inclined to agree. I've seen too many negative reviews of movies I've really enjoyed, to take the professional critic seriously.