My Issue With Film Critics Today

Notice there are no tough critics that used to actually rip into the core of the picture... now its all paid comment. You are right about there is fear in the academic and status critics.

I don't mind a political or activist message in a political or activist movie.
I absolutely mind a political or activist message in a movie that isn't about those things.
When I want to see a movie about, say, feminism, a viewpoint that I mainly share, i got to a movie about feminism.
I don't go to a Marvel movie, or a Star Wars movie, or an Indiana Jones movie, to be beat over the head with feminist messaging.
And I resent it when they shove it in there.
Why do they do it?
Because they know if they inject feminism into Indiana Jones, a billion people will see their message. But if they just make a movie about feminism, then only a few million people will see their message.
So they're ruining movies that should be good for the sake of blasting out their message.
And even when I approve of the message, I absolutely approve of ruining a potentially good movie with it.

The state of film criticism today is pretty easy to explain ... somebody who does film criticism these days doesn't care about film, likely hates film, and is maybe hoping that a sports gig will open up for them.

The real film critics are gone ... Gene Shalit, Pauline Kael, Gene Siskel, Roger Ebert, Vincent Canby actually knew something and cared about film. They cared about performances, the story, the quality of direction, and they cared about the important jobs that everyone does in the making of a film. These days, the garden variety film critic is a hack, dedicated to serving the industry, in the hope that they get some sweet swag.

Critics suck 🤣😂😅

I stopped trusting critics after they slapped a “Rotten” rating on The Super Mario Bros. Movie.

Kudos and respect even when I disagree with you a lot...

What you didn't say (or maybe politely avoided to), is that a lot of these glowing reviews for a poor movie are simply paid, and a lot of critics are just so-called shills. The music industry does it, games do it, consumer products do it, it's one giant make-believe and we'd be far better trusting our intuition and common sense.

I found a similar thing with deconstructing music. If I hear a song that has something magical and I learn to break apart chords, rhythm, melody and bass then put it back together, I understand the song better but often after that the magic is gone.

To address your comment about John Wayne: in the golden age of Hollywood stars had personas - larger than life personalities which they carried with them from performance to performance - styles that you could always identify the star in the movie, such as Cary Grant, Edward G. Robinson, Jimmy Stewart - personalities that just showed up in movies, even though they give good performance. With that said, Oscars have been handed out to actors who have performed outside their 'character'. Cases to support this: James Cagney - won for playing George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy, not for playing a gangster, Humphrey Bogart - won for playing a broken down boat captain in The African Queen, not for being a hard-nosed criminal or detective, and Lee Marvin, for playing the drunk has-been gunfighter in Cat Ballou instead of yet another tough guy. These are just a few examples. John Wayne was given his because he played against his type, so I wouldn't say it was undeserving, considering the competition wasn't the best - the only performance that you could say is iconic was Dustin Hoffman's in Midnight Cowboy, but I viewed Ratso Rizzo as more a supporting role, anyway.
Sorry for the rant, just one passionate movie-guy's opinion...
I suppose you would have given the award that year to Richard Burton? Or Peter O'Toole (the man who actually deserved an Oscar for any of his performances - especially as Henry II in The Lion In Winter - that movie always devastates me how good that movie is, especially with how good he and Kate Hepburn were, together)?
Sorry, ranted again...
Always good to hear your opinions, I appreciate your honesty.

The Lester Bangs School of Criticism. You cannot make friends with the people you have to write about.

I remember in terms of personal reaction with lack of any critical ability to describe it a review of No Country For Old Men by The Coen Brothers one critic said, "I just don't like it." Sometimes all you can do is shrug for lack of words and say that because yes it's technically great and yes, it did get the Oscar, but you can still just walk away going, "I didn't like that." I remember also The New Yorker going on a blitzkrieg against the movie drafting article after article on why it wasn't the greatest movie ever. And it was a lot of fun reading those whether or not I disagreed!

Now my complaint is that critics praise stuff too much based on politics as you say- they'll overpraise anything that toes the line, they'll overpraise anything for the sake of access journalism- it's just access journalism in critical form, and they'll overpraise anything seemingly just to get people to go to the movies in general! I saw the same thing happening with books a while ago. You might see a book review section in People magazine (or any other grocery front pub) and NONE of the reviews will go under 3 stars out of four!

I worked as an intern or goombah for some 'zine or something and they gave me a book to review and I excoriated it. They told me they'd published the guy before and didn't want to publish my review because of it. I was let go a while later. That was an early taste of, "We won't condemn anything." And it's like, "Why? How can anyone expect to be informed by you if you won't be honest?"

I pine- PINE for the 90's when critics especially the true greats Siskel and Ebert would just DESTROY everything. You like this movie? Haha! Siskel and Ebert gave it two thumbs down- just to get that look of dismay on your face? You like the movie North with Elijah Wood? Yeah? Ebert gave it ZERO stars and for reasons almost unknown rained fire and brimstone on it. I loved that review! I don't think I hated North then and if I re-watched it I'm not sure I would hate it now but Ebert sure did. Another favorite of mine is when he gave Speed 2: Cruise Control 3 out of 4 stars breaking Rottentomatoes from giving it the 0% tomatometer score it so richly deserves. Open up his review and read it and he's trolling! Hahaha!

If being a critic were ever an artform it was when Siskel and Ebert were at the movies. They were so clear and concise as to why they thought what they did and they just lit up the screen with their enthusiasm for movies- good or bad. My mom particularly loved going after them for giving good reviews to any and all Natasha Kinski movies because they had the hots for her. Hey, Matt and Trey had the hots for Natasha Henstrich from that one movie about the hottie who's an alien. I forgot the title. Anyways, all this is to write that I just want to see good writing and good reviews again! Give it to me!

In the UK long before the BBC was corrupted and engaged in covering up for Jimmy Saville and political bias and wasting vast sums of money on garbage content there was a superb film critic called Barry Norman. He was fair and knowledgeable and was happy to say a film was fun and well made, even though it wasn’t for him. Nowadays most critics are so extreme and blinded by their own bias they are incapable of honest assessment.

Academia? More than half the so-called critics out there have no more cred than your next-door neighbor. With the rise of the internet everyone thinks they're an educated "critic" now, as opposed to just someone offering an opinion without the ability to defend it ... on the other hand I enjoy and respect your critiques, as well as someone like the Critical Drinker (despite my suspicion that our politics differ in significant ways) and others.

the way the world works: ex Wilson the "prince of peace" got the US into ww1, the fed and the income tax. see the blacks before and after LBJ. before 90% 2 parent in the home. now after Nam, drugs, the guv parent take over. about 30% 2 parent in the home. LBJ, the Bushes, Clintons, Obama made a mess of the US and much of the world.......but not China.

I’m just gonna be real critics are really out of touch!!! Most of them are living in a delusional world where they think things are good that or not and they are stuck in the past. The only people that do care about critics opinions are people that tend to be followers, as a alpha male I don’t care about any critics opinion, my opinion is the correct one :)

I appreciate her insightful reviews and I plan to return regularly. I also recommend another reviewer called the Critical Drinker.

Aren't you confusing film criticism with film reviewing? Or reviewing of any kind? I can't imagine the burden of judging a movie/book/album in the sense of recommending someone spend their money based on what I say.
Hiring a sitter and shelling out bux and time to see something is a lot different than going to a private screening/listening to or reading a reviewer's copy of a book or album. As in reviewers don't spend money or time on things they love or hate in a field they have a passion for.
On the other hand, watching a bad movie four times to get at all the reasons you don't like it when it would seem to be the sort of film you'd love feels like soul-crushing work. Because you want to tell John Doe or Mary Roe WHY they shouldn't waste time on a zombie movie, say, when you know that a lot of people LOVE zombie films. If you just say "it stinks" they deserve to know WHY you think it stinks. It's a zombie movie! I love zombie movies! Why do you say don't bother? So you have to be honest and give concrete reasons why you didn't like it and don't recommend anyone seeing it, even if it is a zombie movie with a sharp trailer.
OR...you could look at reviewing as a great opportunity to turn people on to something they would normally pass on. Like Bonnie and Clyde or The Velvet Underground or Roxy Music or Lou Reed or Bryan Ferry or Brian Eno or Absolam!Absolam! Or Faulkner in general.
But I imagine that only established reviewers have that privilege. I'd say ignorantly because I honestly don't know. Beginning reviewers probably get assigned things to judge. And a movie lover, say, would probably find that devastating.

Everybody is offended by everything and nothing is good for anybody it pisses me off

I just want movie critics to shut the fuck up

I think you're absolutely right 🎯 about keeping your distance from the industry in order to remain more objective. If I were a movie critic, I'd go out of my way to rarely, if ever, rub shoulders with them.

Ugh, so many buzz words here... "elites" said like 7 or 8 times... "identity politics"... i was praying i wasnt going to hear the word "cancelled" and yet, of course, it had to come up. It's funny to me because in the videos of yours Ive watched since discovering the channel, I've noticed a theme of lamenting "politics", but when we strip down your viewpoints on a lot of these subjects (especially here) I think ironically your politics start to become... fairly evident.

What are we looking for in film? Can it make us feel anything to improve our condition? The history of our short interaction with film seems to make a difference in some individual perception. My dad took myself and my older brother to see The GodFather when I was 12, and it had an impact especially in the context of growing up. Also 2001 and other Kubirick films were serious. Are there any real classics if film is "only" 125 years old, Metropolis, Citizen Kane, Godfather, Elf (which was a really a family Holiday go-to BTW). Happy birthday, you have figured everything out. Film can be about life and use drama and comedy, but results are as mixed as the media. Maybe some people who make movies try to prove too much, about which they have production skills and are eyeing revenue. Many younger and teen offerings look cartoonish to me, which is a legitimate audience. Mature-Adult viewers may be looking at saturation (I gravitate to documentaries for some reason} . There could be an avenue for creativity with a less gimicky and contrived result, if only there was some fundamental common connection between people of different backgrounds.

I find myself defending critics a lot but it's just because I hate when people seek validation for their own opinions and when critics fail to give it, they treat them as worthless. It's insecure and childish. I disagree with someone like Pauline Kael constantly but I love reading her stuff. That doesn't mean there aren't vexing trends critics have fallen victim to, but I feel so alienated from other audience members and the kinds of movies they flock to.

Oh man, the amount of times I heard “well, the message is important, so it shouldn’t have to be subtle” makes my head want to explode. I heard a lot of complaints about The Menu for not being explicit enough about its message, as if subtlety and nuance is something to frown upon.

This is I feel an important upload by you.

The beginning when you discuss gut reactions and audience vs critic takes, it reminds me how I've changed, especially after revisiting a movie I really loved as a kid for how it made me feel, vs now that feeling having worn off, and having viewed the movie enough times, I focus so much on the flaws that it's difficult to even sit through it. That movie is Vegas Vacation, btw.

I'll posit this, and it's something you may have thought about and covered - but I cannot recall seeing you cover it, and that is how movies can and often do serve more of a transient purpose, rather than something that's meant to be rewatched forever.

Good music we both agree is a superior art form to all else, and yet we're both into the film arts. Why? I ask myself, since we know music is better yet are more compelled ourselves to pursue the inferior 'visual aid' in our own expressions...

I'll answer for me, personally, at almost 37 years old I'm just coming to realize the answer to that question is just because something is lesser, doesn't mean it doesn't serve a greater purpose in the scheme of everything.

We're artists, we could have gone the music route hypothetically, we have the artistic propensities that would allow us to venture in almost any artistic direction. Yet, the visual expression and analyzing story lines is where we best fit. My artistic edits I feel are timeless expressions that will only foster more recognition in time, if that is, the digital format is maintained in the next couple decades. I seriously question whether it will be, but ultimately it does not matter to me, because the point itself was to splice together something that's never been paired, and in such a way that serves to compliment and exalt the music artists I love.

I feel we are very much in service of those we adore, who we know are of a higher tier in their musical artistry than us, however we're here to bridge the gap between them and visual audiences. Well, I can at least say that about myself. Maybe you do not feel this way.

I was considered a sketch artist savant when I was a kid, and I fell out of it, redirected it to other things - editing early on with the PS1 Driver video game director's feature, then writing, then both writing and editing, now am sketching again. Full circle.

Sorry for freaking out on you in the past, I was going through a lot, homelessness for one... Just bouncing around doing work exchanges for a place to live and eat. I don't know if you know this, but work exchange networks like Workaway and WWOOF is basically legal slavery / human labor trafficking. It's absolute madness to have to rely on, I ended up just living out of my vehicle for awhile. I'm still mentally recovering now but am in much better circumstances.

Thank you for everything you do 🙏❤️

Chris Stuckmann

Dead right!
Scary how so many people can view the world through a single, narrow minded ( ''woke'') lens. As you say condecending and manipulating.

You’re the best film critic today

Hey dude! What's up? I like your channel I'm Steve. Big film dude. Stand up sometimes. Lol. I'm interested in your art

It's interesting to me how movies that get all the critical acclaim and Oscar buzz are quickly forgotten about in five years. I think back to alot of the movies that Miramax made in the 90's that critics were creaming themselves about. Alot of them have disappeared into oblivion. Not all of them but a good chunk of them. I mean, who the fuck is watching Shine? Anyone watch The English Patient lately? The movies that really stand the test of time are too alien at the time of their release to be understood. And so what gets all the praise is whatever is the most easily digestible and non-threatening. Maybe film criticism is a futile endeavor. Maybe a film should only be reviewed ten years later.

The main thing I've learned from you is that I no longer care about whether somebody likes something or not; I'm now looking for skill in articulating and dissecting their own personal emotional response to the film. It's a rare skill, but if somebody can do that, then there's high chance I will learn something no matter what the actual opinion happens to be. Thank you.

Great Analysis I feel the same way. I’m 23 and movies don’t feel the same way they used to feel when I was younger. I look at Pixar in the early 2000s and the Disney Renaissance. Something about those movies compared to animation today feels a bit more inspired and soulful.

The best films--and the best critics--ask the same question: What is the shape of the beating heart?

I think modern professional film critics lack depth. It seems to be lacking in knowledge behind the history and creation of a film and its narrative dynamics and themes. For all intent and purposes, it lacks discussion of the more technical aspects of a film.

good video

chris stuckman

Just switch from rotten tomatoes to letterboxd. much cooler community

Honestly The Batman got a really high CRITIC score. I hated it. Boring, very long, cringe, bland

Please enjoy Intriguism Moving Pictures’ “Curse of the Swine-Beast” -- a comedy satire of Ed Wood, William Castle and Roger Corman films and review. Thanks.

Great video

Never trus RT and Metacritics. Most of their "bomb" movie is much better than expected, and some "veteran critics" that said movie is rotten sometimes biased to their own old stale taste. Some movies is much better nowadays and their bomb is bcs they too ahead of its time or didn't fit to current trends/landscape at the time of their release. But some high rated glorified movies even games was trash and should belong to bombs list

"Things are too political these days!"
1915: "Birth of a Nation"

It's interesting hearing you talk about the divide between critics and audience because yeah I definitely fall somewhere in the middle which I think a lot of people do. I'll go for a movie like Sin City whereas all the Marvel movies kinda disgust me. I'm almost certain a critic somewhere has published an article titled "We Need to Talk About the Hypermasculinity of Sin City" or something like that, you know? Like there's that level of cultural critique that im just not that interested in (of course i would say that, being a white male hetero).

I definitely love a lot of films that might generally be considered 'Oscar bait'. I loved The Artist, Selma, The Limits of Control, There Will Be Blood, Drive and all those 'important' or edgy films. I was also deeply affected by Last Days even though it felt arduously long (despite only running for an hour and a half) because barely anything 'happens' in a cinematic sense, up to and including the suicide. I do have some appreciation for the sense that when you stop doing so much on camera, it gives the audience space to reflect or pay attention to smaller details.

I haven't seen a good movie at the cinema in yonkers. I really do find it hard to embrace superhero flicks. I remember I saw one such movie with a group and one of the guys in the group was like "well that had everything I wanted to see", which is just baffling to me. Like, people really go to a movie with a checklist of things they want out of it? But then I think maybe I have that same checklist, but subconsciously. Like I want to be moved and affected, I just don't have a preconceived idea of how I want to be affected. And I can't say that my way of enjoying movies is any better to that guy, but I do feel kind of alienated by the current market which as far as I can see is geared towards three groups/types:
1) MCU/DC stuff
2) kids/family
3) retirees (we have ageing populations in the west so that shouldn't surprise)

What all these three groups seem to have in common is that most of them expect a specific KIND of experience from the movies they see. I've realised though in writing this that I also expect a certain kind of experience from movies, it's just that my expectation is looser. I know this because there are lot of REALLY edgy, arthouse flicks that I don't enjoy. 'Enjoy' is an odd word because I don't go to movies expecting to enjoy myself. But yeah I still have expectations even if they are not in a checklist form. But also 'edgy' doesn't really apply to so-called arthouse films because like with Last Days or The Limits of Control for instance they have an edge to them but compared to a mainstream film the contrast of watching them is very much muted, intentionally quiet and undramatic. It's still edgy because it is subverting your expectations, but doing it by being almost uneventful in comparison to mainstream cinema.

I liked this video a lot. This is a question I have been thinking a lot about too because its easy to go too far in one direction or another. On the political question I agree, art can definitely reflect politics and culture from the time. Sometimes that even makes it particularly salient (Dirty Harry leaps to mind as an example: the original film; Rosemary's Baby would be another that gets into cultural and political themes relevant to the time, Platoon is very political but also feels like it is more than just a political movie). I think it is about the priority and whether the political element adds anything important to the movie. I also like your point about critics not focusing as much on that initial emotional or gut reaction. I think with art, for me at least, much of the goal is to be moved in some way by it. If you are moved by a movie then you are more interested in following up with deeper thought and analysis of it. I am no film critic (just do some movie podcast discussions), and didn't go to film school (I was a history major) but I like thinking about movies after I see them (and the best movies keep me thinking for years). The other side of it is propaganda. Which I think is the darker side, even if its for a good cause, of how film can be used to manipulate (I remember having to read an essay called Writing History with Lighting when I was a history student about Woodrow Wilson's rumored reaction to a screening of Birth of a Nation, and that always stuck with me as a counterbalance when I feel like a movie is moving me too much or being manipulative. I think there is also a kind of sneering at audiences that some critics do, which I find a little off putting (audiences watch a lot of movies too, and think and talk about movies a lot too, but they aren't as focused on the academic discourse around it).

They are so fussy and why can’t they just like the movie

I think a critic should be able to tell us who will enjoy a movie, not just whether or not they enjoyed it.

Great video. I just discovered your channel very recently and I'm really enjoying it. Very refreshing and a very different feel to the usual.