The Do's and Don'ts of Movie Criticism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wVPMVxATqM
In this special video, I share my personal critical ideologies and what I think are the right and wrong ways to criticize a movie.share
I can't argue with any of that. It kinda boils down to "discuss the movie; leave the ad-hominem crap out of it". I really don't take any critics very seriously. I prefer to see movies, then decide entirely for myself whether I liked them or not. When I read critics, it's usually just for entertainment. The snarky ones can actually be the most fun, but I agree they're not really contributing anything. And even Siskel and Ebert, whom you had on-screen while you were mentioning good critics, could be real smart-asses occasionally about film makers' work. Ebert even published a book called "Your Movie Sucks". The most scathing critics seem to be more interested in hearing themselves be cleverly malicious than they are in serious film analysis.
All of that being said, I have to admit I am sometimes guilty of dumping on film makers and their audiences. It's hard to resist. If I were a kinder, more mature person I'd try to remember that, even if they failed, writers and directors tried hard to make something good, and at least some of the people who watched it were made happy.
I used to love Siskel and Elbert. Often their choice of movie clips made me go see some films that I would have overlooked.
They had many interesting things to say and really loved the cinema. But I did not rely on their opinions or take them as gospel. Gene Siskel for example, simply did not like action adventure movies and often gave them crap reviews.
The pair were fun to listen to when they argued over who was right. In the end, I am not such a great judge is what is good cinema. I am one of the few people who actually liked Ishtar!