As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
Options
Everyone's a [CRITIC]
joshofalltrades
Class TraitorSmoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
Class TraitorSmoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
So, critics. Let's talk about them. What is the role of a good critic? You always hear artists say they don't create their art for the critics. Well, maybe not intentionally, but a glut of bad reviews will pretty much guarantee your art doesn't get absorbed by the audience you created it for.
I go into music threads sometimes and hear, "Oh, this critic is usually pretty good, but he's off base this time" or, "This critic is bad because they always go against popular opinion, which makes them trolls." I don't know how I feel about this sort of thing. That former critic probably just has a different interpretation of the media than you in this one case, which doesn't make him a good reviewer most of the time and a bad reviewer this time. The latter may be a bit sketchier, but a lone dissenting voice can sometimes be a good thing, even for good art. If nothing else, it gives you a sort of "Devil's Advocate" review to warn you about a particular pet peeve you might have.
And you can't always say that objectivity makes for a good review, because subjectivity is bound to creep in somewhere. One of our limitations as humans is that we are rarely completely subjective. Alignment with popular opinion can't be the lone measure, because what is popular art is not always good art (Thomas Kinkade, for a personal opinion on this). Edgar Allan Poe was never popular in his lifetime, but now you will find very few people who will openly say that his art was bad. And this brings us to another problem: some critics change their minds over time (Rolling Stone being a fucking huge offender here). So what makes a critic good or bad at their job?
Well, I think the answer is going to be different for every person. Since one of the purposes of criticism (ostensibly) is to inform consumers as to whether their purchase is warranted or not, there are two things one can do if they're determined to get others' opinions prior to obtaining said media and forming their own.
Metacritic serves the purpose of the first -- to see whether the art they are interested in is widely accepted by people whose tastes are valued by a large portion of society. Getting an overview of something in this way can be useful to see if something should be avoided like the plague (Alone in the Dark) or must be seen at least once in order to form an opinion, whether good or bad (Pan's Labyrinth). The other is to find a critic whose tastes align closely with your own and check their opinion regularly. This is more difficult than it seems, since tastes will never completely align.
In any case, this is the thread to discuss both the purpose of critics and the critics themselves. I'd personally love to discuss Pitchfork. As somebody who really can't get enough lo-fi/indie stuff, I just can't stand them. Their reviews always come off like a wine snob waxing philosophical about the oaky aftertaste and brilliant color. Also, they gave The Hazards of Love a bad review.
Side note: There's the obvious controversy around Ebert stepping outside his role as a movie critic to address a media he has no experience with or informed opinion on. But let's please not talk about that incident anymore because god it is getting old.
I go into music threads sometimes and hear, "Oh, this critic is usually pretty good, but he's off base this time" or, "This critic is bad because they always go against popular opinion, which makes them trolls." I don't know how I feel about this sort of thing. That former critic probably just has a different interpretation of the media than you in this one case, which doesn't make him a good reviewer most of the time and a bad reviewer this time. The latter may be a bit sketchier, but a lone dissenting voice can sometimes be a good thing, even for good art. If nothing else, it gives you a sort of "Devil's Advocate" review to warn you about a particular pet peeve you might have.
And you can't always say that objectivity makes for a good review, because subjectivity is bound to creep in somewhere. One of our limitations as humans is that we are rarely completely subjective. Alignment with popular opinion can't be the lone measure, because what is popular art is not always good art (Thomas Kinkade, for a personal opinion on this). Edgar Allan Poe was never popular in his lifetime, but now you will find very few people who will openly say that his art was bad. And this brings us to another problem: some critics change their minds over time (Rolling Stone being a fucking huge offender here). So what makes a critic good or bad at their job?
Well, I think the answer is going to be different for every person. Since one of the purposes of criticism (ostensibly) is to inform consumers as to whether their purchase is warranted or not, there are two things one can do if they're determined to get others' opinions prior to obtaining said media and forming their own.
Metacritic serves the purpose of the first -- to see whether the art they are interested in is widely accepted by people whose tastes are valued by a large portion of society. Getting an overview of something in this way can be useful to see if something should be avoided like the plague (Alone in the Dark) or must be seen at least once in order to form an opinion, whether good or bad (Pan's Labyrinth). The other is to find a critic whose tastes align closely with your own and check their opinion regularly. This is more difficult than it seems, since tastes will never completely align.
In any case, this is the thread to discuss both the purpose of critics and the critics themselves. I'd personally love to discuss Pitchfork. As somebody who really can't get enough lo-fi/indie stuff, I just can't stand them. Their reviews always come off like a wine snob waxing philosophical about the oaky aftertaste and brilliant color. Also, they gave The Hazards of Love a bad review.
Side note: There's the obvious controversy around Ebert stepping outside his role as a movie critic to address a media he has no experience with or informed opinion on. But let's please not talk about that incident anymore because god it is getting old.
joshofalltrades on
0
Posts
An oversimplified example is that I could write that Crank is a terrible movie because I hate the mindless action. You may like mindless action but despite the fact that I hated it, you still got something out of the review.
Unfortunately some critics put their egos above their readers, and neglect this basic purpose of criticism.
David Cross: Albums to Listen to While Reading Overwrought Pitchfork Reviews
Absolutely agree with this. I know I just said not to bring up Ebert but one of the high points of his career for me is when he said that watching Aliens made him absolutely nauseous with anxiety and dread, which wasn't his cup of tea, but gave it a great score anyway because that was the purpose of the movie.
More than that, a good critic also provides feedback on how to improve the object of said criticism. Criticism is not just for the masses to decide if something is worth their time or not, it is also there to provide the creator some sort of formalized feedback, to give them a direction to work in or insight they may have missed while creating.
Actually, you may be more right than you know, given how some people are starting to review music criticism as obsolete to consumers:
however
lots of critics suck at their jobs, just as lots of people suck at all jobs. a critic is not by necessity someone who tells one what to watch
on the other hand
even really popular critics fit into this position. maybe I'm reworking the very definition of a critic here, but I'm more interested in somebody who watches a film or reads a book and then takes it apart. somebody who talks about the narrative and devices used, sees themes that lay below the surface. a critic, to me, is somebody who sees what most people don't. I don't think you can wrap that up with a convenient score.
similar to game "journalism," in that people who "read" reviews skim over it and look at the score at the bottom to decide if it's good or not. I want to see somebody do away with that altogether. It doesn't need to be standardized across the board, but a good writer can convey the overall feelings he/she has about a piece of work without having to put it directly into words.
It sounds like you should hang out at TVTropes
I like TVTropes, but it's hardly what I'm looking for
I've loved J Dilla's "Donuts" album since the first time I heard it, and consider it one of the best things ever done in hip-hop, period. But even as a musician and someone who studied art history in college, I couldn't really place my finger on what made it great. After a dozen reviews, someone casually mentioned how Dilla leaves the artifacts of the work process visible in the final tracks, and has the sense of confidence and well-honed craftsmanship to let that kind of openness function as a successful style.
And I slapped my palm to my forehead and went, "Duh! Yes! Of course!"
Also I had read Achewood for literally several years before someone explaining it mentioned that it was "about masculinity" and I went palm->forehead and had another "Duh! Of course!" and had to totally reassess the entire series, and came away liking it on another level.
Bad criticism can just be a bad read or an axe to grind or can slight a worthy piece of culture, for sure. But good criticism is almost like the work of a good translator, bringing you something written but unintelligible and giving you a gift. Maybe the ability to comprehend its inner, formal beauty in a way that wasn't clear to your sense, or placing it in a social context that you would never be able to know firsthand. The additional channel of communication around the work sweetens the very act of reception like a kind of social sugar.
This. This is what I'm trying to get at here, I suppose. Somebody who looks much deeper into the work than the average person and has the skill to show it to the layman.
This is so true.
A critic is supposed to be a different set of eyes, or ears, on something. I don't think a good critic will just tell you how they liked a work. They'll tell you things about the work and you'll be able to make a decision.
Meta-criticsm is only somewhat useful. I think it leads to a bit of an echo-chamber. And it assumes that a work should be judged based on how it affects "most" people. Just a number leaves a lot of things out.
Critics are just adding to the conversation about works of art. Which is awesome and we should have more of it. Even lazy critics, more is better.
After all, critics are not necessarily negative. Similarly, often what gets you pegged as a critic is if you look more closely at something that someone else simply enjoys for whatever reason. It's easy to slag on something, but it's much more difficult to form an argument as to why you dislike something. And, in some ways, it's even more difficult to explain why you really like something without lapsing into hyperbole.
For example, I occasionally review albums on Amazon. I don't just write "This is great, buy it" or "this is terrible," I explain the general style of music and include some comparisons, talk about the mood or feeling of a lot of the songs, and point out particularly strong tracks. I typically mention whether the album is cohesive or not, whether it's worth listening to the samples first, or if it's just good to buy the tracks that you think sound good.
For online reviews, I don't really care much about the history behind an artist/movie/[media] because that information is typically easy to find. What I do care about is the end result. I care more about how good an actor is *in a movie* than about the actor himself. And when something is strong in the beginning and end but drags in the middle, that's important information to pass on.
I think the thing about criticism is that it tends to make someone appreciate their interests that much more. If you like Almodóvar films, great. If you like them because of the cinematography, writing, and unique stories, better. If you like Volver because the story is cohesive, involves a humorous subplot that hints at supernatural influence but is really just a misunderstanding, effectively uses its sets and sets the different "parts" of the story in a way that you can understand it visually as much as aurally, and conveys a series of emotionally tough circumstances with grace, that's even better. And it's even better if you can say that you prefer it to Broken Embraces which lacks the connection to the characters and involves a story that's essentially plain (but fussed up in a way to make it seem more complex than it actually is), because now you can explain why you prefer one thing to another in a way that makes sense.
The opinion itself doesn't ultimately matter, because a good critic will convey the opinion in a way that makes it clear how you could disagree with her. The Ebert quote about aliens above is a great example.
I think the other thing a good critic conveys is how much they appreciate whatever it is they're writing/talking about. You can definitely get a sense from a good critic that they know the history or styles of what they're discussing, and this is especially true in reviews where they *don't* go in-depth about the history or styles. A good critic can talk about how a new band has a "definite shoegaze vibe, which I've always been drawn to," and the audience will either understand it immediately or think "Hmm, shoegaze, what is that?" and then look it up. Or simply listen to the album/tracks in question to hear "ah, shoegaze vibe, OK." That's a much more informative critique than "Elements of shoegaze are prevalent, as the fuzzy guitars and slow rhythms mesh with semi-coherent vocals that are mixed low." Yes, thanks, you just made me read 15 words that described shoegaze.
Of course, a good critic often won't even be apparent to many readers that they are, in fact, a "critic." Their audience may simply call them a "reviewer" or "someone who really knows their stuff."
Shitty things I don't want in my reviews: scores, lists of bullet-pointed good and bad aspects of the piece, bloodless plot-recapping, shrugs of 'ok if you like that sort of thing', attempts to create movie-poster quotes, reviewers congratulating their mates on their latest creation (particularly bad in the British literary scene).
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
I mean, I suppose this could apply to movie critics as well if say, they expect every Cohen brothers film to have some similar themes and maybe they totally change it up and the reviewer did not get what they expected.
Dream Theater's album Octavarium is regarded as one of their weaker releases by the fans because it definitely has a different vibe than earlier works. For me, though, it was amazing. I like their earlier stuff as well, but this one really did it for me. But it's too late. It now has the stigma of "if you wanna listen to this band, only listen to these first few albums" which is bullshit as what if they're like me and something later is their taste?
I dunno. I don't think this adds much but I felt like ranting a bit.
The Life Pursuit is my favorite Belle and Sebastian album.
Me and most indie lovers/critics don't get along very well.
This one bugs me in particular, because it's intellectually incurious. For example, I don't like horror or gore films, which doesn't mean I dislike horror/gore in movies but that I dislike those genres. I wouldn't review a horror/gore film because I wouldn't watch it. If I was being paid to watch it, I would at least write about the things that viscerally disturbed me, similar to what Ebert mentioned above, because, you know, paycheck. But I would also evaluate the things I do watch movies for, such as plot, characters, cinematography, etc., because somewhere out there might be someone who likes horror films but wants them to be GOOD horror films.
My only exception is the "so bad it's good" genre, which I can't enjoy at all.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
I'm in this camp also. If a critic has similar tastes as me then their recommendation carries a good amount of weight. Adam Sessler's game reviews matter more to me than Famitsu's.
I thought that was more focused on internet trolls.
Also, I usually read criticism after I see a movie, play a game, or listen to an album just to see if there was something I missed. For example in Children of Men, the scene where Clive Owen is running through the apartment building while it's being blow up is all done in one shot. I had no idea of this until I read a review praising the cinematography.
I have to stress that critics who just sum up their entire critcism with "see it" or "don't see it" are being bad critics. Scores or ultimatums shouldn't be in criticism, it just defeats the entire purpose of a criticism.
As for the purpose of criticism today, there is always going to be a need for someone to pass judgement on something. People are going to want to read what an expert in the field, which what critics should be, thinks about something.
Man, what? I bet I could find a hundred reviews of new albums where bands are praised for taking their sound in a new direction, and a hundred more where they're called stale and stagnant for not doing that.
In fact, I can think of albums off the top of my head that would fit, like the last few by the RHCP (for examples of stagnation), the last New Pornos album, and the last Yeah Yeah Yeahs album (for bands being universally praised for doing something new). Read a review of any Danny Boyle movie and you'll see the same thing happen for movies.
I love reading reviews. It's the first place I go to in most magazines or papers. I like restaurant reviews best of all. I find it fascinating how some people eat, and I'll read reviews of places that I would never want to go to myself.
My all-time favourite is a movie review where the reviewer gave a movie 3 stars, but explained in the review that he thought it was a 1 star movie, but he didn't want anyone to see it, so he decided a mediocre movie next to a bunch of good movies would be worse off than a terrible movie that people might try and see just because it was supposed to be so terrible.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
I may be a rare breed, but I actually click through to the full reviews from Metacritic. Why is this movie, that looks terrible, getting a good review from this guy? Ah, he's a big fan of the genre and claims it is excellent mindless entertainment. But this movie that seems to me really good, why does it have these few negative reviews? Oh, they were expecting something different, or are faulting it for standard conventions of the genre ("This movie, while stylistically film noir, has too many sharp shadows and dark scenes."). I personally like scores because it gives me a nice comparison between similar films. Again, Roger Ebert:
That's why I like scores. For example, "Crazy Heart" received very good reviews, won multiple awards, etc. But it's a musical drama about a middle-aged guy who sings country. I have absolutely no interest in that. If it weren't for the actual *content* of the reviews, I might've have accidentally seen it.
However I am all about the internet video reviews.
Also here and here and here.
However I generally don't watch reviews of things I haven't seen, instead things I have seen and want to see what other people thought. I guess this might be unusual.
Also, I'm increasingly fascinated by the internet reviewer phenomena, for lack of a better term. By aggregating a bunch of people with different specialties and interests, TheGuywithTheGlasses has become almost like a review network. With rather profitable results from what I've seen.
It also seems like a lot of the people involved are film majors, or have film as a hobby, and are increasingly stretching their creative muscles with special effects and increasingly high production values. Kickassia was basically an independent film done by a bunch of internet reviewers and it had better acting than The Last Airbender. Not exactly a high benchmark, mind you, but still.
Given what I know of film history, these sorts of environments often serve as a breeding ground for real talent, so maybe the next generations Lucas (the young version before he went completely insane) or Spielberg will come out of a group like this.
There are still a small handful of people and sites that I'll hit up, but never until after I see a film. Far too many critics either spoil things indiscriminately or focus my thinking into a preordained mindset which doesn't give a film a fair shot, so really my use of critics is relegated to being a barometer of how the respected critical community is accepting a film.
And still, even good critics get things very very wrong sometimes, and view films positively or negatively based on things that the film is not responsible for. Take one of the better internet critics working today, Devin Faraci. The guy can be hyperbolic, but his knowledge is encyclopedic and his arguments are always presented in an academic context. Unless it's Harry Potter film, wherein he loses all objectivity. He honestly said that Half-Blood Prince should have been nominated for an Academy Award, and that's pant-on-head retarded.
Similarly, he took Ridley Scott's Robin Hood to task for not being the film he wanted it to be. Now, Robin Hood has plenty of flaws, but Faraci slammed the film for not presenting the classic Robin Hood archetypes and not being a swashbuckling barnburner like Errol Flynn made. Anyone who has seen the movie, regardless of opinion on it, can tell you that's not at all what the film was attempting, so berating the film for being something it's not at all trying to be is kind of like berating an instruction manual for not being Tolstoy.
As well, the award community has become increasingly perverted and valueless, as widening fields and rewarding popular favorites in hopes of raising viewership and ad revenue completely subverts the process and renders it invalid. Many a nomination (and a handful of actual awards) have been given out for objectively awful films and performances because of some kind of cultural buzz surrounding them, be it gay rights or civil rights or the holocaust or whatever hot-button issue is circulating at that given moment.
However, good, intelligent criticism serves one big function: providing context for a film's place along the line of history, and concordantly reappraising that value at intervals in the future. Many very good and great films foundered and failed until enlightened critics pressed their case long enough for the film to be revived in picture houses or home video. Iconic films like It's A Wonderful Life and Fight Club would have fallen by the wayside if intelligent viewership hadn't held on and repeated the case for these films to an indifferent public.
I find that the two video game critics I listen to most often are Yahtzee and GameTrailers.
For some reason GameTrailers reviews are just the right mix of objective and subjective. They talk about what there is in the game and why they love or hate it and they back it up with clips and a thorough explanation.
For movies it still seems like Ebert's the only one who I tend to listen to even though I disagree with him about half the time.
twitch.tv/Taramoor
@TaramoorPlays
Taramoor on Youtube
I think that's largely because for popular games, we only hear about the positives. Many game reviews talk about mechanics, like menu systems or cover, the length of play, and the variety in multiplayer. We read about technical details.
So for someone to come out and say "This game that everyone is saying is good actually has a really stupid plot, the weapons are pretty stupid to the point where you basically just hunt for the same type of gun over and over again -- which, by the way, is impossible because for some reason the bad guys stop using certain weapons -- and this next part would be a spoiler except you see it coming from within the first 5 minutes of playing."
In a lot of ways it's like reading negative reviews of, say, The Godfather. Even if the movie is still fantastic, the negative reviews can draw attention to aspects that may often be overlooked.
yeah. he prefaced bioshock with saying it was his contender for his goty, and he likes GTA4 as well, but he has some legitimate complaints. the game reviews industry could use some cajones these days