[Cerberus]

A viewer can't really know whether a movie is shit or gold, unless they've been involved in the making of a film before. (ie: writing, directing, producing . . )
They can say whether they liked it or not, but I can like the taste of shit too, right? I don't, but it's possible that some people enjoy the taste?

Sorry man that statement is really bad, you do realise the amount of professional critics out there for both film and game have never worked in the industry, by your logic they should have no right to comment on anything, I know what films are good and bad and that was long before I became involved in making them.......

This post has been edited by Cerberus: 27 March 2008 - 07:31 PM

[Game Over]

Anyone remember these guys?

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=rmnYCSwt2Js

[FFreak3]

Sorry man that statement is really bad, you do realise the amount of professional critics out there for both film and game have never worked in the industry, by your logic they should have no right to comment on anything,

Precisely. As it happens, my favourite film critic has always been Harlan Ellison. As a screen writer, his ideas were often relevant to both film and prose, and his bemoaning over the use of certain cliches and originality were always well directed, and sometimes his logic did actually manage to change my mind about a movie or story. Unlike him, most of the professional critics seem to pick their stance before they view the art.
Maybe it isn't clear with the language they use, but if i call a painting alive, and another person calls it dead, this is the same as calling the same sheep black and white. It ISN'T a matter of opinion, a painting is either dead or alive, a film is either vibrant or laborious, a book is either cliched or fresh.

Obviously, most of the critics out there have to be bull shitting, or idiots with no right to judge. If two critics say contradictory things about a work, one of them is wrong. (This does not include conclusions, like whether a film is good or bad, since those are obviously subjective).

I know what films are good and bad and that was long before I became involved in making them.......

Oh? So what IS good or bad? Until you starting making films, you had no idea whether your idea of good or bad was correct! What if it hadn't been? What about your standards of judgement? Your ideas of good or bad may not have changed, but I'll wager that the reasons you give for a movie being good or bad are different now that you've been involved in the process.

This post has been edited by FFreak3: 28 March 2008 - 06:43 AM

[Cerberus]

Nope my opinions have remained the same, but it depends on what level your asking me, on a personal level then it have to be the strength of the screenplay and the actors ect that make the film good or not, on a professional level they havent changed either, A film can still be badly made but a success and a excellent film, Le Vien Rose would be a good example of a badly made film that was very successful

And as you have missed my first point I will just explain again, Most of the "Professional and well respected" critics have never worked in the industry.

[FFreak3]

I didn't miss the point, i addressed it.

As critics often contradict each other on non-subjective components of the film, it is clear that most of them are idiots with no right to judge. I don't have direct evidence that these critics are also the ones that haven't made films before, but it was implied that was my opinion.

And i don't care whether or not they've worked in the industry before, I care whether they've worked with the medium before. If they at least studied film in college or something, then they have a base to work from. if they actually made a few amateur films, then, depending on the reasoning shown in the reviews, I might put them on the same level as someone who's worked in the industry.

Also note that I don't say that you are automatically good because you worked in the industry. You can still be an absolute idiot, but at least you have a base for your opinions.

[Cerberus]

So your saying that if someone hasnt worked in the indusrty, lets take for example PC Gamer most of they review panel have never worked in the games industry, so by your logic they shouldnt have a professional opinion of games??

Or Yahtzee shouldnt have an opinion of CAD because he does not have his own successful online webcomic??

[FFreak3]

And i don't care whether or not they've worked in the industry before, I care whether they've worked with the medium before. If they at least studied film in college or something, then they have a base to work from. if they actually made a few amateur films, then, depending on the reasoning shown in the reviews, I might put them on the same level as someone who's worked in the industry.

I believe that covers your post.

[Cerberus]

Well then thats just silly I am afriad I will continue to listen and read the reviews of highly respected people that have never worked in the industry to get a good honest and non bias review, in your world my friend Jeff Gerstmann would never have gotten sacked for speaking the truth, because he wouldnt have been there in the first place..........

This post has been edited by Cerberus: 28 March 2008 - 07:34 AM

[FFreak3]

Perhaps you'd change your opinion if you didn't skim over my posts. If I need to elucidate on any sentences that you find confusing, just ask.

[Cerberus]

Perhaps you'd change your opinion if you didn't skim over my posts. If I need to elucidate on any sentences that you find confusing, just ask.

No my friend you are talking nonsense, for a start every critic is right as long as they have a valid point to make and can back it up with fact, not subjective name calling like Ellison

My other point about bias reviews, Ellison has changed his mind so many times and has back track his opinions in the past, By your logic he has no right to comment about any other film but science fiction as that was his speciality

You also said If two critics say contradictory things about a work, then obviously one of them is wrong, Ellison reason for liking china town were compeltely different from other better critics who said the film deserved better than it got, so who is wrong because in terms of box office success the film flopped??

He also critised Gene Roddenberry over how much he changed one of his scripts that he had written for the show and still to this day thinks he was right, But the episode in question won many awards, So who again was right?

As well Ellison hated Star Wars, but as any intelligent film minded person will tell you modern cinema has a lot to thank Star Wars for, So was his opinion wrong there??

And why would you take his criticisms seriously as his career barely and I mean just barely brushed outside of TV, so what right does he have to comment on cinema??

This post has been edited by Cerberus: 28 March 2008 - 09:03 AM

[Deano2099]

I can look at a painting and say it's bad or not because it doesn't appeal to me. I can also say "I hate that movie" if I hated it because i've seen enough movies to know if it's shit or gold.

Respectfully, that doesn't make you a critic, just someone offering an opinion. To be a critic generally requires a background in the field. Now a 'background' doesn't mean 'has worked as a creator', though that is an option. But in my opinion it just comes down to 'has experienced enough to place it into context and provide an informed opinion'. If I'd never seen a film before I could watch one and give an opinion on if it was any good, but that opinion, while perfectly valid, wouldn't be much use. Addtionally when it comes to written criticism, there's a certain vocabulary that you can only build up through reading other critics and indulging in the medium itself.

The creator as critic thing does often lead to hippocracy, but though we sling the word hippocrit around as a perjorative, in this case it doesn't really matter, assuming the creator at least recognises thier flaws. For example, I semi-regulary write stand-up comedy criticism. I also semi-regulary perform. I'm aware that while my writing is decent my performance and stage craft need work, but that needs practice. Were I reviewing myself, I'd be quite critical of this, and criticise bad stagecraft in other performers. Simply knowing what is good and bad doesn't necessarily mean you can incorporate the good and avoid the bad in your own projects. Likewise not knowing the technicalities of what works and what doesn't prevent you from making something good, but does make it less likely.

[FFreak3]

No my friend you are talking nonsense, for a start every critic is right as long as they have a valid point to make and can back it up with fact, not subjective name calling like Ellison

My other point about bias reviews, Ellison has changed his mind so many times and has back track his opinions in the past, By your logic he has no right to comment about any other film but science fiction as that was his speciality

You also said If two critics say contradictory things about a work, then obviously one of them is wrong, Ellison reason for liking china town were compeltely different from other better critics who said the film deserved better than it got, so who is wrong because in terms of box office success the film flopped??

He also critised Gene Roddenberry over how much he changed one of his scripts that he had written for the show and still to this day thinks he was right, But the episode in question won many awards, So who again was right?

As well Ellison hated Star Wars, but as any intelligent film minded person will tell you modern cinema has a lot to thank Star Wars for, So was his opinion wrong there??

And why would you take his criticisms seriously as his career barely and I mean just barely brushed outside of TV, so what right does he have to comment on cinema??

You obviously haven't read/understood my posts fully. (in the case of the second, it's probably my fault)
In my posts, I address, among other things,
1) That critics contradict each other on objective matters, while subjective conclusions are fair game for contradiction.
2) The extent to which an author requires work in a medium to be able to judge

Which covers pretty much your entire post.

[civilian_number_two]

This business of "one must have worked in the medium in order to be a reasonable and correct commentator on it" is bull-hockey. What if my background in video games is simply that I have played every game on the market, and that I have read popular magazines on gaming, and I have attended game conventions, and I have lived and breathed gaming my whole life? What if also I have watched tens of thousands of films and read fantasy novels and comic books, and can bring to bear an outside eye on the sources of many gaming cliches, without even having to lean on my background in gaming? What if given that, my reviews on games come to be known to be more essays on pop culture and the game's place in it than on the technical considerations required to make the game? What if I am able intelligently to compare and contrast technical achievements and the use of cutting-edge styles and techniques, even if I don't know the code or the programs required to create them? According to your criteria, my opinion wouldn't be as valid as a fellow's who had no real interest in games, but who had studied computer science in high school and who had worked one summer on debugging some code as part of his internship.

Harlan Ellison was a hack, by the way, and his award-winning Star Trek episode is full of sci-fi cliches. I like "A Boy and His Dog," but is it art? The other notion, that say a painting is either OBJECTIVELY "alive" or "dead," and that if two people disagree then one must be wrong ... that's a joke, right? Because ... paintings aren't alive, and so that is by definition a SUBJECTIVE critique. Both reviewers would be OBJECTIVELY incorrect in their assessment, in that they were using terms that shouldn't apply to an inanimate medium. You're coming off a little pretentious with that tactic; you might want to tone it down or redirect it.

I like to mention Pauline Kael in comments on this topic. She never wrote a screenplay, and she never worked on a film set.

http://imdb.com/name/nm0434461/

However she was an avid reader and lover of art and she grew up with the movies. She brought to her New Yorker film reviews a discipline of literature and of art and of poetry and of movies and of movies and of movies. Her reviews were and still remain the best in the business, and yes they were her opinions, but my did she have the itelligence and the street cred to back them up. She didn't just compare movies with other movies, and she didn't try to win the Appeal to Authority by claiming to a right based on some college night class she might have taken one time. Like my fictional game reviewer in the first paragraph, she had a right to review the genre because she knew it, she understood it, and she could speak lucidly about it.

The standard of criteria for whether a person can be said to have an informed opinion about something should not be whether he has worked with it, but whether he knows it. One can know a lot about Shakespeare without ever formally studying him or ever working in the theatre. If you're looking for some ad-hoc dismissal, then yeah, you can toss about barbs like "what do you know? Where's YOUR screenplay?" and maybe within a certain social group there will be those who will snicker and agree. But the real challenge to those resorting to such craven retorts is actually to read the review and see there whether the writer knows what he's talking about. Because as the saying goes, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, not in the recipe.

[DreamerM]

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations, the new needs friends.

--Anton Ego,
Ratatouille

[Thaluikhain]

This business of "one must have worked in the medium in order to be a reasonable and correct commentator on it" is bull-hockey.

No it isn't...and you can't criticise me for saying that, because you aren't whatever it is that I am.



As an aside, what parts of art are objective? I mean, yes, you could discuss how accurately something was depicted, but if it wasn't intended to be an accurate depiction, which art often is not, then it doesn't really matter.