Criticism

 

As time passes and the culture has changed (maybe devolved), film criticism seems less and less relevant.  This form of journalism was for years restricted to professionals, or at least someone who was printed in the newspaper or town crier. I grew up watching Siskel and Ebert, and reading the likes of Vincent Canby, Sheila Benson, Archer Winsten, Kenneth Turan, Richard Schickel, and Pauline Kael. Real writers with informed opinions. Now any shlub with an Internet connection (that includes yours truly) can publish their thoughts on cinema.  It has really cheapened this brand of writing and thinking.  Who are the front line critics these days? Richard Roeper? 

People have always wondered if critics were necessary.  Feeling that they could form their own opinions without being influenced by these ivory tower pundits.  And that "it's all subjective".  Well, how one feels about a film, song, book etc. is subjective.  But whether something is culturally significant, or if that something is well crafted by the (sometimes broad) metrics of Art Quality, is not.  You may dislike THE GODFATHER, but you have to back your opinion up.  Maybe it's "too violent", or "I don't like Mob stories."  Those things don't change that it is a quality movie, objectively.

Most entries in this blog are devoted to film reviews.  I have been a huge fan since I was seven.  A few years later I began imitating the capsule reviews in Leonard Maltin's annual almanac.  My Trapper Keeper had pages and pages of notebook paper devoted to brief missives.  Often cheeky.  I wrote my first full length reviews for a class in college.  By 2008, the second year I wrote for this blog, I was writing reviews every week.  Still important to me.  Really helps keep a film alive, if in no other way than going back to a review to observe my thoughts at a particular stage of my life.  Plot details that had escaped my brain.  I don't remember 'em like I once did.  For that, the reviews are, well, critical.

My blog is one of many.  You can read amateur takes in many places online.  On Letterboxd.  Many are disposable, content to be snarky and incoherent; that's a sign of the times as well.  Some are as good as something say, Janet Maslin wrote long ago.  Others are long winded and obsessive about all the hidden themes to the detriment of the film.  People often miss the movie itself.  If they feel there is no subtext, they dismiss it.

I will keep writing my thoughts on a wide variety of films.  Even if high level, respected criticism is long dead, replaced by Rotten Tomatoes ratings, I will plug away.  I've never been tethered to the zeitgeist, you may have noticed.