Critics or just haters?

Ms. Norris said:When it comes to critics, I guess their name pretty much says it all—their whole job is to find flaws, and they cling to that role like a lifeline. If they actually liked everything they saw, we’d probably just call them hype men or PR experts instead.

Have you seriously never had a bad take on a movie before?

Negative??
If I had my way with language, I would be the undisputed queen of critics 😁

You have completely missed the point. From what I can observe, most critics refuse to offer an honest opinion on a film simply because being sincere isn't considered "cool" anymore.

Their primary mission is to maintain their street cred by trashing anything that has been seen by more than a thousand people and fails to meet their arbitrary standards for being avant-garde or incomprehensible.
Their goal is to project this image of themselves as unique, unassailable, and somehow intellectually superior beings.

The exact same pattern applies to music—and perhaps slightly less so to literature and painting, provided one ignores the endless pretension surrounding so-called "modern art," performance pieces, conceptualists, and those various happening events.

It’s Pavicic for me 👎 .

Norris said:I think you might be missing the point here. From where I’m sitting, it seems like most critics don't actually share their honest thoughts on a movie because they’re too afraid of not looking "cool" or being out of step with the trend.

Oh, so you just magically know what's actually going on in their heads?

That's absolutely fascinating!

😛

Michael Fox46 said:Manna is Pavicic 👎 .

I mean, honestly, Pavičić writes such intense critiques that I half expected his Witnesses to end up being some kind of new Citizen Kane

I have a real appreciation for Pavičić because he doesn't just spit venom at a film; instead, he actually discusses the work and breaks down the merits and flaws. To me, that feels like the most objective approach. I can't stand those critics who fancy themselves artists—those self-proclaimed "artists of criticism"—who vomit out a piece where they revel in their own brilliance, completely oblivious to the fact that they’re simply reacting to some deep-seated personal baggage. They feel an uncomfortable resonance with the material, spiral into a bit of hysteria, and then scribble a column thinking they've been struck by divine revelation. Honestly, that’s exactly how I felt reading the critique of Elfriede Jelinek's "Naslada" in The New York Times. It seems to me that while an author conducts actual research to write a book, a critic—who likely just studied a language or philosophy—starts lecturing everyone on why a specific detail in a novel is "this" or "that."

Anthony Harris14 said:I really appreciate Pavičić because he doesn't just tear the movie apart; instead, he actually talks about the film and breaks down what worked and what didn't. It feels like the most balanced perspective to me.

🙂

The thing is, I don't think "objective criticism" truly exists.

I realize true objectivity is a myth, but it feels like Pavičić at least makes an honest effort to be fair by actually explaining the reasoning behind what works or fails.
The absolute worst kind of reviews are those lazy star ratings paired with three sentences of nothing but superlative adjectives.

I honestly can’t wrap my head around where all these nitpicky critiques about the plot come from, people saying it should have gone this way or that way, or how a certain scene was handled...
To be perfectly blunt, you really only have three ways to look at it: either the movie is a total disaster, or it’s absolutely brilliant. If you're feeling neutral, you just say it was alright, but nothing to write home about.
And then everyone starts deep-diving into exactly which specific parts they liked or disliked...
But hey, that's just my take on things.....

Alex Perez33 said:So I was wondering what you guys all think about this...

Honestly, I hate wasting $8.25 on movie tickets, so I usually just grab a drink before the show starts... everything looks way better after a cocktail!

Richard Hernandez13 said:Do you actually know what they’re thinking?

Fascinating, isn't it?

😛

And what makes you such an expert critic?

I have no idea what they actually think; I certainly never claimed to.
However, I have observed a certain template used by most writers, and these texts are practically screaming—it isn't about what I truly believe, but rather a desperate attempt to project an image of being lofty, cool, untouchable, intellectually superior, and entirely avant-garde.

Norris said:But I’ve noticed this specific way most people write—it’s not actually what they mean, it’s just this performance where they want you to *think* they mean something profound. Like, they’re trying so hard to seem sophisticated, untouchable, or totally avant-garde, you know?

See, if instead of saying the way most people write, we said the way most people live,

we might actually get a real definition of a human being. 😛

quietdriver3 said:If we were to swap out the phrase how the majority writes for something like how the majority actually lives,

we might finally arrive at a true definition of humanity, wouldn't we? 😛

To be fair, isn't it true that we all harbor this little delusion that we are somehow more refined than we truly are?

It is why you offer a polite nod to your neighbor instead of telling them exactly what you think of them; it is why you show up to the office in a tailored suit rather than sweats; and it is why you would never admit to flipping through a tabloid like Cosmopolitan when you could claim to be deep in the pages of Kafka.

For some people, these pretenses stay within acceptable social boundaries, but for others, well... they don't.

Personally, I found Spider-Man a bit silly because of those metallic arms—they just seem evil without any real motivation or logical explanation. Honestly, I would have been perfectly content if they had provided even the most ridiculous justification for why they were acting out.

For instance, they could have simply claimed the arms turned malicious because they were forged from steel at temperatures exceeding a thousand degrees, and once that iron somehow gained a spark of intelligence, it decided to lash out at humanity; after all, who wouldn't be cranky after being blasted at a thousand degrees just to be shaped into something huge?

As for critics in general, I think the best explanation comes from that classic episode of The Simpsons (I believe it aired on ABC this past weekend) where Homer becomes a restaurant critic for the local paper. At first, he’s absolutely loving life because he gets free meals and only writes glowing reviews. But then his editor tells him he can't work like that and needs to be a bit sharper, so he starts tearing chefs apart, eventually getting such a kick out of it that he begins relishing the chance to leave terrible reviews for everyone in sight.👍

Oh my goodness, I’ve finally crossed the milestone of 100 posts!!! And if you can believe it, it took me just under two years to get here! 😁

I suppose I wouldn't call myself fast, but then again, I've always been a bit of a slow and steady type of person.

Norris said:I find it works best to watch a movie without any prior context or hype.

For instance, about 14 or 15 years ago when Society of Dead Poets was a massive hit and every girl in my class was obsessed with it... I went to see it, and honestly? It was total garbage.

Maybe the movie isn't actually that special, but if I hadn't gone in expecting a life-changing masterpiece, I probably would have found it decent enough.

On the flip side, I once went to see Spy starring Nicole Kidman without knowing a single thing—not the title, the cast, the genre, or the plot—and I absolutely loved it. Plus, it terrified me.

As for critics, their name says it all: their job is to criticize. They cling to that identity like a lifeline; otherwise, they’d just be called hype men or PR agents.
The issue is that American society is conditioned to hunt for flaws. The more you tear something down, the more sophisticated and intelligent you appear.
No critic with any self-respect is going to praise something actually watchable just because it happens to be a commercial success.

They only feel permitted to praise things like Citizen Kane, Death in Venice, or those obscure indie flicks nobody has ever heard of—movies with convoluted plots or no plot at all, essentially the cinematic version of stream-of-consciousness novels.

To them, the "depth" of their critique is measured by how many incomprehensible, complex sentences they can string together using words that most people don't even know.
The goal is often to make it so the reader doesn't even grasp what the writer is saying. That way, everyone assumes they're brilliant, and no one can challenge them because they can't understand the argument anyway.
In the end, the critic probably doesn't even know what they meant themselves, but does that really matter?

It's obvious you have no clue what you're talking about. And calling Society of Dead Poets garbage? It isn't.🙄

Alex Perez33 said:As far as those critics go, I honestly think the best way to wrap your head around them is that one classic Simpsons episode—I think it aired on ABC just this past weekend—where Homer gets a job as a restaurant critic for the local paper. At first, he’s absolutely loving life because he gets all this free food and just writes glowing reviews for everyone... but then his editor steps in and tells him he can't be so soft, that he needs to have a bit more bite to his writing. So, he starts tearing chefs apart, and before you know it, he's totally hooked on the rush of being a professional hater and just blasting everyone in sight.👍

That is such a perfect example of how it works... the moment someone hits that level of influence, everyone starts sucking up to them. And sure, you'll see a critic tear everything down, though they'll occasionally throw in a random compliment here and there just so they don't look completely incompetent, usually about some obscure indie movie that nobody has ever heard of or even seen before.....