My thoughts on film critics & so on...

This morning I thought of another topic I can discuss: film critics.

Mum often reads out film reviews from the local newspaper, and my response is usually brief, such as 'meh' or 'whatever' if I bother with a response at all. I take nothing from film reviews in the local paper, on the basis that the critics mostly don't know what they are talking about. Do they really know film enough to gain my respect?

A recent example is as follows.. I read a review about Dollhouse a while back, can't recall the reviewer's name, but he condemed the show when he blatantly knew nothing about it. To be fair on him he had only watched the first few episodes which aren't great (blame Fox for the rewrite...). Nevertheless, he hardly gave the show chance. As an avid fan who has been following everything about the show on dollhouseforums.com months before it aired in the US, I could easily tell he hadn't even bothered to research it at all beyond watching the episodes.

I respect critics in magazines like Total Film and Empire (sometimes I find Empire a bit too up themselves) a lot more. Generally ive found Total Film's ratings and comments to be fair.

I am going to move on to how people in general sometimes rate films. I think it is interesting how people, mostly film students themselves, fall into this 'trap'; missing out one of the most inportant factors - how YOU personally feel about the film. The enjoyment you got out of it. Your gut feeling about the film. Most people are too quick to pick out the film's technical faults such as direction or editing, but forget to mention how they felt about it as a gut feeling. Somebody I know (who doesnt read my blog but ill still keep it anonymous) I find is far too uptight about films, and lets what he (yes he) thinks about the film from a technical standpoint (editing, direction, script etc. - ill call it all technical for now) get in the way of what I think he actually feels about the film. That is the main reason why I think we sometimes differ greatly in film taste.

The main point im trying to get through here, is that I sometimes let some technical 'issues' in a film slip by when I rate a film. This is because, quite frankly, 'I liked the film and I don't give a shit'. I'm not saying 'technical' factors in a film are unimportant, im saying I think some people rely on them too much sometimes when critiquing films.

I'm going to use Porco Rosso as an example here, partly cause I just watched it and I love it so much, partly cause it sitcks out as a film we both disagree on. Unamed said person doesn't give the film top marks because he doesn't like the ending, he thinks it doesnt summarise/conclude properly. My initial thoughts from a gut feeling standpoint are that I disagree. I can't argue on a techical standpoint here, but I love the ending. I think it says what it needs to say. My main arguement FROM a technical stndpoint is that its a foreign film (Japanese) and their way of storytelling is different. This could be just bullshit, but I think it makes some sense, especailly after seeing several Ghibli films. It's just the way they like to end. It is a shame, It might just be me, but I think he doesn't give the film a fair analysis because he cares to much about conformity.

So, these are just MY thoughts on all this, im not getting all elitist or anything.

Don't even get me started on music critcs and reviews... Music is more subjective than film....