Remember the good old days, when reviews were something you found in the back of the newspaper? Written by someone you could confidently name-drop, printed in good old black in white, you could trust that the movie, play, or restaurant you were going to had been adequately reviewed by an expert. It's been said before(but it bears repeating): the internet has altogether changed the nature of what an expert is, and just as importantly, the nature of what can be reviewed. Looking for a hotel room? You can see if the bedbugs bite. Looking to meet people on an online dating service? Read Mr. Right's reviews. This hour, we're reviewing the reviews: if everyone with a laptop can comment on everything, are we becoming a society of irritable whiners, or simply more democratic? Go ahead an lay your critique on us.
Blog Of The Nation
It's just too bad that critics are afraid of the blogosphere, perhaps it's time to take their over educated-new york centered world a little less importantly and listen to what people really think. Any rational person takes critiques on movies and books with a big grain of salt. I remember one movie where a "professional" critic in Time magazine, mistook an air-craft carrier for a submarine. When someone makes a mistake like that, how can you take them seriously? Since critics don't often seem to be held accountable for fact checking, I'm wondering why we need them anyway.
Scariest of all is the proliferation of "Rate My ..." sites, and especially "Rate My Professor" where college students can, as the name says, rate their professors. Give a student a well-deserved "D" and risk getting a nasty rating. Ah, the democracy of the Internet ...
Regarding positive vs. negative press, someone once said, "The only bad press is an obituary."
I am a choreographer and I have had the experience of having my work skewered two separate times by the same critic. What I took offense at was the personal tone of the negative review. The review was not a critical analysis, but instead had the taint of a personal attack on me which also included my collaborators. What responsibility does a critic have for the content of their review and how much must they support their view with critical analysis as opposed to merely saying that they hated the work?
Keep in mind, reviews are just opinions!
Whether in print, on air, or online, anyones critical review, whether positive or negative are just their OPINION, and they are allowed to express it, and anyone is allowed to read it, believe it or not!
I think it should be taken with "a grain of salt" so to speak.
Thanks
It's important to keep everything in proper perspective. When you have movie critics reviewing Hollywood's latest production that most of these critics have seen everything. Everything! They're comparing this movie to every other movie, and probably several Broadway plays, foreign productions, et cetera. They're not looking for the same things in a movie that your normal movie-goer looks for. I've always taken movie critics' reviews with a grain of salt.
And the internet? Pshaw. Being someone who has lived online since 1995, I can say that most of the people on the internet are stupid. They hide behind pseudonyms, they attack those who they know will have no recourse, and they certainly don't think about how their words will affect someone else. They don't care. But when it comes down to it, everyone's entitled to their opinion, and you just have to accept that fact too.
We're in a transitional time now, between print & internet. We are bombarded w/ noise, and we're still trying to filter. That there is tons of opining doesn't mean that the level of intelligent opining has increased.
A problem w/ the internet is that people are too impatient and much, much, MUCH too glib. Too many internetters are just looking for a concise put-down rather than considered critique.
Eventually, this will work its way out, and we'll learn how to deal w/ this level of constant criticism.
My partner, a new-music composer, depends on this sort of online reviewing. The audience for his compositions is so narrow, all reviews are useful -- good and bad. Most in this crowd know each other, so a bad review reflects as much on the reviewer as the product.
It seems to me that contemporary criticism is focused solely on discussing whether a work of art is good or bad. Quality criticism, however, not only rates the material under study, but it also provides an informative gloss of it, thereby unlocking deeper aspects of the work that the viewer, listener, or reader may not have been able to recognize initially. Amateur internet criticism, to my observation, seems to miss this aspect of criticism entirely.
Given the rise of criticisms everywhere, hearing this show all I can think of is the song "Has Been" by William Shatner
very appropriate.
With so many online critics reviewing movies, food, and even the latest chewing gum it's hard to figure out whose opinion you want to listen to or agree with - who has a similar "taste" to your own. When Joe Blogger writes a bad review about a movie or a restaurant it's meaningless, because I may or may not like the same films or food he does. Stop listening to/reading about all the reviews and get out and try the product for yourself.
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