The Critics Don't Know You

What do critics know? Well they know how to influence you to see a movie or not. Say you are on the fence about a particular film and you want to see what the reviewers say. You go on over to Rotten Tomatoes or iMDB or wherever else you check out your reviews. You look for number grades, letter grades or keywords. If there is a low score, you will probably skip it. High score? You might give it a chance. The only curve ball in the mix is how does a critic know what you like and what you don’t like?

 

There are arguments that critics give unbiased reviews and just present the facts for you to make an informed decision. Right. Just like Fox News just presents the news and lets you make an informed decision. It’s just not the case.

 

Critics are people to, they have their own likes and dislikes, they have their own life experiences and happenings and ultimately isn’t that what steers us to like certain films and not like others?

 

Case and point: one of my favorite films is the movie Modern Problems with Chevy Chase. On Rotten Tomatoes it was panned by the critics. Who cares though? I like and enjoy it. It just happened to be a movie I saw when I was a little kid and would watch it over and over again without getting bored. I am sure you have the same type of movies.

 

My point is you cannot always rely on the critics to tell you what you will enjoy on film or for that matter anything. Maybe the reviewer of Modern Problems hates Chevy Chase and therefore was turned off from the film before ever sitting down to watch the movie. Maybe the popcorn was stale or maybe people were talking throughout the entire screening. Who knows? That is why I rarely ever pay attention to other people’s reviews.

 

I cannot tell you how many times people say to me “you’re going to see that movie? Well, it got bad reviews.” Okay, that’s fine, but I also cannot tell you how many times I have gone to see these ‘bad’ films only to like them. That is because, as they say, ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It is ultimately up to the viewer and how they perceive what they are seeing.

 

I, of course, am also a critic, but I try to convey how much I like or dislike a film and why and maybe that will help spur discussion amongst people who agree or disagree with me. I am in no way trying to tell people what is good or bad, but, since this is my website, I get to tell my readers what I think, plain and simple J However, I am very open to other people’s reviews and ideas for the sake of discussion, which I always find fun.

 

Give my theory a try. The next time you are on the fence about a film and you see a bad review for it or a bad score for it, go see it any way, you might just wind up liking something that was panned by critics or you may wind up agreeing, either way, it would be your own critique and no one else’s.