The Critic for the daily has to cover all aspects of entertainment in the county so he only seems to personally review one film a month. Therefore the paper runs reviews off of the wire services. The paper is owned by the New York Times but never runs the reviews for the New York Times. This irritates us because sometimes the New York Times review is good for one of our films. They mostly run Roger Ebert or some guy in Seattle who hates everything. The daily ran a review for the film East-West under the headline “Un-Watchable.” As a result our business for the film was terrible. However the New York Times review was very good.

This week they gave a lukewarm review for Hamlet, as a result, no one showed up for our 4:00 PM show. Our critic didn’t watch this film; they just pulled something off the wire.

In the last three weeks we have had a film in each week that they don’t review. At first I was pissed, but these films have done well, in spite of the lack of coverage.

We have a few here who occasionally trash us in print because we are a first run theatre and do not run independent or "art" films.

As near as I can tell, the qualifications for the job are basically "who" you know rather than "what" you know.

They like to hang around with kindred minds and recite words they have read in Film Journal, like "avant-guard" and "risque".

I doubt they know what the words mean, but hey! They sound very chic when they recite them.

Please note that I am trashing the critics, not the films. I rather enjoy the occasional flick that has not been computer animated and digitally mastered to death.

I think that you will find that even when they write the reviews themselves, all the big words were read by them somewhere else.

Time Code played here and a review was written, but I don't recall ever seeing the local gurus in the boxoffice line.

But, it is not our place to question their wisdom. You see, they are very refined, and we are just theatre pond scum out to make a buck.

Until we attain that level, we should be thankful that we have them to spoon feed our opinnions to us.

*Okay, I have to go vomit now*

Ian, just don't "publicly" attack their qualifications. It's not worth the hassle.

Russ

Milwaukee also has several alternative free papers, the best being the Shepherd Express Metro. The independent papers actually take the time to review a film and point out it's good and bad points, instead of just trashing a film overall because of one or two weak areas. Also, the Black Community Journal has a good critic who not only reviews films at my theatre, but writes articles about us when we upgrade sound systems or renovate the theatre. In my opinion, the free papers influence the younger college crowd a lot more than the mainstream publications.

There are plenty of times when I see him comming to the theatre to review the movie and I'll make sure that everything's 100%. (Not that it isn't 100% all the time but I like to double check for him.) When he leaves he'll often give me a subtle nod if he liked it. (It's rather uncool for him to talk about his review in depth until it comes out in the papaer. -- Or at least until he's submitted the final draft.) Generally I agree with his reviews. Once in a while we disagree and it's fun to "argue'" wit h him.

As far as whether a review can make or break a film... My 2nd job at Mercyhurst college depends about 90% on those reviews. The college will usually request a "screener" tape of the movie so it can be reviewed. If the movie gets a good review the business can shoot up to almost double the usual number. For End of the Affair, we had a record number of people simply on the basis of the review. The Cinemark dollar theatre even picked up the print for almost a month simply based on the response from OUR showing! On the other hand a review won't kill our business unless it's a REALLY bad one.

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Critics have a large impact, but not the national ones.. the local ones are who people trust. Our local reviewers are mormon and catholic depending on what paper you read. SO they never agree on anything. That means you either get all the mormons showing up or you get all the catholics showing up. where the hell are all the jewish reviewers anyway???

Oh yeah... shalit...

and my rant is over

dave

Central New Jersey gets all the New York dailies plus most of the Manhattan-based weeklies (The Village Voice, Time Out New York, The New Yorker, New York). For New Jersey dailies there are two Gannett papers and a statewide paper.

One Gannett paper runs only reviews from the Gannett wire service. Plot summary with no context, written with pullquotes in mind. The headline always telegraphs the review. The paper's policy is selfish: Two reviews on Evolution, side by side, yet nothing on Memento. And Memento played in the theater I usually go to!

The other Gannett paper has a moralistic prude who hates everything. Her paper has banned reviews AND ads for movies that played in local theaters (Memento is the most recent example). At the same time, this prude writes glowing stories about film festivals at Rutgers University -- without telling readers that the newspaper is a sponsor of those festivals.

The statewide paper has two New York-based critics. The paper's policy is to run the review when the movie opens in New York -- NOT when the movie opens in New Jersey. Last week About Adam opened in New Jersey as did Atlantis -- but there were no reviews in the statewide paper. This week New Jersey gets The Anniversary Party, Dr. Dolittle 2, The Fast and the Furious, Himalaya and Sexy Beast. Guess which movies the statewide paper will review? Also, the reviews are plot summary with no context, accompanied by a headline that telegraphs everything. (Himalaya opens in New Jersey day-and-date with Manhattan.)

If newspapers would run reviews of the presentation quality of the movies as well as reviews of the movies, I think it would help clean up a lot of the theatres with sloppy presentation.

Does anyone but me review presentation quality at theatres and compile and post the results? I thought of calling myself (and the title of my site) "The Movie Theatre Critic" when I started, but the scope of my site quickly went beyond presentation quality reviews.

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Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Info Site

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The Miami Herald now routinely pans films. The decent critic they had, Bob Cosford, died a few years back and no one was able to fill his shoes. It is common for me to see a Miami Herald review pan a film and yet give it three stars or more, or for a film with a great review to end up with two stars. Go figure.

A lot of the problem with today's mainstream films is that the films being reviewed often don't deserve the time spent reviewing them. How does one review yet another action/special effects movie? How does one review "Freddie: Part 17" with a straight face? One might as well review individual McDonald's hamburgers. These films are "product" as pure and simple as the next beef patty on the greasy grill of Hollywood.

What one gets out of a film is often a very personal experience and related to a person's own values and views. This is why it is important to find a reviewer who's tastes are similar to your own.

Another part of watching film is understanding it in context, or understanding the historical significance of older films.

For example: Alan Greenspan is arguably one of the most influential men in the world today, and understanding what makes him tick is more important than any of the sport scores or trivia most people call important. Few people know that he was closely affiliated with Ayn Rand, the self-proclaimed capitalist "philosopher", early on in his career or that he espoused and expanded on her radical views.

There is a movie called "The Passion of Ayn Rand" which is a tedious retelling of Rand's life that can give some insight into Rand. However, if one knows Rand more deeply, there is a rarely seen film that undoubtedly shaped some of her personality and world views and is a fascinating glimpse into Rand's naked psyche, "Queen Christina" (1933) with Greta Garbo, directed by Rouben Mamoulian.

Rand emmigrated from Russia to the U.S. in 1926 and had not yet written any of her major works in 1933. The lifting of the Garbo heroine character becomes obvious in her later writings, as does her affectations of some of Garbo's traits.

The actual person Queen Christina (Kristina Wasa) is an interesting historical figure who was badly used by Mamoulian to tell a trite story with little relation to fact. For a full experience of movie watching for depth, see "Passion of Ayn Rand", then see "The Fountainhead", then see "Queen Christina", then check the IMDB site for viewer's comments, then check this website for a timeline biography of the real Queen Christina, then check out a biography of Ayn Rand here. The process will take two or three days of watching film and looking at websites, more if you decide to go deeper.

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A Critic's review has been and always will be one man/woman's opinion.

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AMEN, and I've found that my opinion of a movie is often different than the reviewers. I've seen several movies that only got "two star" ratings (and occasionally a "one star") that I really enjoyed and had fun watching. I've been to some that had "three star" and "four star" ratings that I found dull and boring. Of course, if I wrote the reviews, most people would disagree with me. Anyway, it's just something that makes life interesting. If everyone's opinion of a movie was the same, everyone would just read a review in the paper and not see it if it didn't get at least three stars. I find "one star" movies interesting, just to see why they only got "one star" from many people, and sometimes find such movies interesting and hilarious just because they're so bad, which makes them good (sometimes).

The sad thing is that negative reviews printed in the newspaper and shown on the news can really hurt the business of a movie that deserved larger audiences. It hurts both the studios and the theatres themselves.