Jerry Martin19 said:Look, I’m just out here critiquing movies for myself, you know? I don't go around forcing my own standards on everyone else, even when I see other people doing exactly that. My takes aren't being pushed or spotlighted the way those "professional" critics do it, where they act like their word is law. You can take what I say, think about it, or just totally ignore it—it doesn't really matter to me. But when those big-time critics speak, most people just nod along and assume they're right, though personally, I don't see it that way at all.
P. S. I guess those criteria you just read through are mostly just my own personal thing—I mean, unless someone decides to jump in and steer the conversation somewhere else entirely—but they're really just there to make things a little easier on you every now and then. It's just that critics tend to use them for all sorts of other motives, and I think that's where the real difference lies, which is also kind of the problem, I suppose.
I mean, I mostly agree with you, though I’m not so sure about the whole idea that critics get to dictate how we feel—it kind of feels like they have to talk that way, I guess. Personally, I don't think most people are actually swayed by what some reviewer says, even if, maybe, a tiny piece of that criticism sticks in the back of our minds whether we want it to or not. They can sit there and give their ratings, praise it, hate on it, or just totally trash a movie (which, honestly, I think they do every single time without fail), but at the end of the day, they aren't ever going to ruin the experience for the actual people sitting in the theater watching the film.
I mean, look, it isn't exactly totalitarianism just because one person's opinion gets treated like it's the consensus for everyone, I guess. It’s not like one individual's take automatically defines the whole group, you know?
Man, I think I've really gotten myself stuck now... 🙂
