My love of movies started very young. If a movie moved me, then I would pick it apart and look for what other people said. This was long before the internet. But legitimate movie reviewers were ubiquitous.
There were at least a couple of movie reviewers who were active in my local newspaper, The Daily Oklahoman. I watched Siskel and Ebert, and the other people who tried their own versions of that format. Later, I found good reviewers in the New York Times or The Wall Street Journal when I subscribed to those periodicals.
I almost never agreed with Siskel. Last week I saw an old segment where they reviewed “Alien” and he missed the point of the movie, and the fact it was fucking brilliant. He just couldn’t get past the fact that it was science fiction. He liked family drama movies and period pieces that win Oscars and are summarily forgotten. But Ebert respected genre movies. He gave all movies a shot. Was it good or bad? His reviews have stood the test of time. He didn’t always get it right, but he was better than most of his contemporaries… and he’s 400 million light years better than what we have NOW.
Modern Reviewers
So, now I’m going to get on my soapbox and scream at you for a minute about what kind of movie reviewers we have today.
I’m going to lump them into several categories, but most cut across several of these categories.
- The Political Reviewer-This person looks at every movie and rates it based on whether it conforms to their political ideals or their pet causes. If it doesn’t match their politics, or some other grievance, then it’s a “terrible movie” that no one should see. And this type of reviewer comes from every political spectrum. You have conservative voices that decry a movie because they don’t like the morality in a movie, or it’s too woke. Then you have liberal voices that don’t think there’s enough diversity in a movie, or it’s not woke enough. Also, you have people who have one cause that is more important than anything else, and if the movie doesn’t align with that cause, then you shouldn’t see it. This is a sign of the times, where everything must be political, and it’s the death of honest creative reviews (not just movies, but books, video games, comics, and that frozen yogurt place down the street).
- The Head Cannon Reviewer–Simply put, this person doesn’t review the movie as is; they tell you how they would have made a better movie by doing it their own way. This is just insanely stupid. Almost without fail, people who talk about how they would make it better are humorously ill-equipped to make judgements or have the chops to be a storyteller, OR THEY WOULD JUST CREATE THEIR OWN WORK. I’m seeing many people criticize the Christopher Nolan film “The Odyssey” before it’s out (which is another issue). I can assure you, with 100% certainty, that Christopher Nolan knows more about making quality movies than they do. How many times has the guy shown that he’s a top-tier filmmaker? Can we at least allow him to release his movie and go see it before we remake the movie in our own minds?
- The Influencer with a Cause Reviewer–The internet has created this special monster, and YouTube and TikTok require a mention for aiding them in their horseshit. I see so many people out there who have made their career by shitting on particular movie studios or specific franchises. They hate Marvel movies, or Star Wars, or DC movies by Zack Snyder, or now by James Gunn, or Doctor Who, or Star Trek, or anything by Disney, Sony, Amazon, Netflix, or whatever the current flavor of the month is. Okay, fine. Some of those studios or franchises have lost their way. And they deserve to be called out for producing shoddy work. But the nature of the algorithm and chasing after numbers means the influencer must find fault in everything, often when they haven’t even seen it, or their audience diminishes. If everything they review is negative, then they are not doing legitimate reviews… they’re pandering to viewers.
- The Everyman Reviewer–Anyone who has no background in storytelling, the study of film, or in creating films, should be put in the everyman category. Now, let me be clear. Anyone who sees a film can determine if they liked a movie or not, and their opinion is correct and valid for them. What I’m talking about is someone who knows nothing about the history of film, has zero context on how or why it was created, doesn’t understand the aspects of filmmaking like production design, screenwriting, editing, cinematography, acting, directing, or what a gaffer is, and then puts out ignorant and indignant posts about things they don’t understand. There’s a whole industry of reaction videos, which is fine if you want to see people be surprised by the dining scene in “Alien” but there’s not any insight there. 99% of that crowd is giving you exactly what you get from audience ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. If Steven Speilberg was doing reaction videos it would be one of the most fascinating pieces of content ever, but that’s not who is doing those. I’m not being a snob. I’m saying that anyone can give their opinions on a movie, but a real film reviewer knows shit about past movies and how movies are created to give you some insight that a casual reviewer can’t. A legitimate reviewer has seen movies that were made before they were born, they understand what elements make a great movie, and they can evaluate if those elements are present in a non-biased manner.
- The Bought and Paid For Corporate Shills Reviewer–If you get an audience these days, then it won’t take long for the movie studios to start “hooking you up.” And if you have big numbers, you’ll start getting invites to movie premieres, maybe even get to sit down and interview stars, or get sweet swag. Absolutely nothing wrong with any of that… unless you set aside your critical eye, in fear of losing all those perks. I’ve seen a lot of small reviewers who hit the big time and suddenly they love everything that’s coming out. They become cheerleaders and leave the critical analysis behind.
There are plenty of other goofballs reviewing films that have no authority. Movie reviewers have lost their way. And I’m not just picking on influencers; I subscribe to The Washington Post, which is a major, long-running, Pulitzer-Prize winning periodical, and all their current movie reviewers… EVERY SINGLE ONE… are trash. They are the reason I’m writing this. If we can’t get legitimate reviewers in major newspapers, then what hope is there?
Before I go on, I want to acknowledge that there are some brilliant, insightful reviewers out there. They exist. I’ve seen YouTube videos where they dig so deep into movies and bring up such great points, they will change the way you see movies forever. They are out there. But they are not as popular and are hard to find. The signal is being drowned out by the noise. That’s not their fault, it’s the fault of the public who love hot takes, and drama, and clickbait.
It’s my hope that bad reviewers will read this and do better. Or that the public will try harder to find reviewers that are experienced, insightful, unbiased, and honest.
My Own Reviews
Even as a young boy, I didn’t just consume movies and go play with toys. If I loved them or hated them, I picked them apart to find out why. And as I got older, my catalog of movies grew, and my ability to discuss the craft of movie-making grew along with it. I ended up taking six years of film studies in college and writing my own reviews. I’ve been writing and drawing comics, and writing books for 30 years, which means I understand storytelling as a creator. And recently, I began doing re-writes on short film screenplays and doing cinematography for extremely low-budget movies.
Does that make me a better film reviewer than Roger Ebert? Absolutely not. That guy was gifted (and he had a background in creating films too). And it doesn’t make me better than the handful of wonderful critics that are out there right now either. You just have to look harder to find them.
But, it makes a fuckton better than anyone who reviews movies for The Washington Post, most other major newspapers, most major media outlets, almost every influencer, and all the little ankle-biters on X, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and social media.
If you look around on my blog, you’ll see about ten years of movie reviews. I have more on Quora, and I’ll move them over here too, so it will be a complete record of my reviews of movies, television series, comics, books, and much more.
You will most-likely not agree with everything I put out on here, but I promise you I’ll give everything I review a sincere chance, I’ll use my knowledge of movie history, filmmaking, and storytelling, to bring more insight, and you can be sure I’ll keep my journalistic integrity, even if I’m not working for a Pulitzer-prize-winning periodical, just like everyone else who reviews movies (or anything else) should.