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Do you consider it snobbery to tell people they’re not allowed to think about other things while watching a movie?
There are critics, critics and critics. And snobs are generally bad but it’s all about context.
I only read film reviews after I’ve already seen the movie. I like to go into a movie with as few preconceptions as possible, but I also like to hear others’ takes on it afterwards to see what I missed or misinterpreted.
Same. I rarely look to critics to decide whether to see a movie, I go see whatever movies I’m interested in. I like listening to YouTube videos discussing things I’ve already seen and I can leave a comment if I disagree with something they say or have something to add. However, I tend to avoid reviews for things I really like because I don’t want to hear negativity. For example, I really like the recent live action Snow White and I think listening to negative reviews will bring me down, so I avoid them. It’s when I have mixed feelings about a film, like Disenchanted, it’s fun to listen to people talk about
We need them for diversity in the ecosystem. A world where everything is Marvel movies or whatever would be boring. And I like reading or listening to good criticism. Check out a Jacob Gellar video or a post on TARDIS Eruditorum sometime.
I like and subscribe to some of them. You just got to pick the good ones to follow, like someone who will tie in his film criticism to a season long plot arc about a talking coconut trying to gain clout or someone who will teach you what dub con hetero Omegaverse is.
Film critics are the media influencers of yesteryear and I care about their opinion about as much as the modern social media ones (as in not at all) :o
Sounds like a tough gig to watch movies you don’t like
I’m really curious how critics manage to this daily for years on end. Watching movie after movie for work has to have some negative effect on your mind at some point.
Depends.
If they are the “Ratatouille” kind of critic, knowing what they like, or what is good and serving as a “bar”, that can be a good reference if you are informed about their tastes.
But there is also a bunch of “high art film” that’s just boring, so if they insist that that is art or film or cinema and something more mundane but fun isn’t, because it doesn’t fulfill some arbitrary condition, that’s bad.
A horror movie critic after watching thousands of horror movies saying “The overall movie was meh, but that one thing about the monster or the way they did their camera work was cool and that’s why the movie was worth watching and if you are just watching for entertainment, not so much”. And the same person can judge a different horror movie to be “completely unoriginal and derivative”.
But if it’s a movie about someone watching paint dry and it’s “super interesting because it reveals something deep about our human nature and our relationship with the passage of time” then that’s… that’s not my thing.
Also I pay zero attention to movie critics. I don’t care about movies. That’s just what I think about them.
I see them as ways to find content that otherwise wouldn’t be on my radar. I generally don’t let them “talk me out” of seeing something that interests me.
Mostly unnecessary. The general populous likes what it likes, regardless of what someone who doesn’t like it says.
We have weekly appearences of such people both in the radio and TV morning shows.
You can safely assume: if they speak enthusiastically about a movie and give it four or even five stars, you can watch this film in Sunday morning matinees in some basement movie theatres with maybe thirty seats. But it has “interesting, colourful characters” and “beautiful scenary” or whatever.
Any movie that actually makes its production costs back will be “boring” and “overly commercial”, and rate one or two stars.
That’s the combo deal, a movie snob critic. That’s like the final boss of cinema!