No Stupid Questions

There are critics, critics and critics. And snobs are generally bad but it’s all about context.

Critics are cool. Snobs are pricks.

I only read film reviews after I've already seen the movie. I like to go into a movie with as few preconceptions as possible, but I also like to hear others' takes on it afterwards to see what I missed or misinterpreted.

They help me know what I am in for before I start the movie. If the critic score is high and viewer score is low, I know this a movie I need to pay attention to enjoy. If critic low and view high, I can mindlessly enjoy this. If critic high and user high I am going to need to watch this more than once. If critic low and viewer low, I am going to need to mystery science theater this shit.

Comment.

I mean, you're asking for an opinion on people who have opinions.

Also, do you consider film critics and film "snobs" (definition required) to be the same?

Same as connoisseurs, art critics, music critics, mayo frame enthusiasts...

Just human nature to try to find importance in preference. Let 'em enjoy their passions... just with someone else please

I kind of am a bit of a snob, but long past the idea of something being good means it's allowed to be enjoyed. I'm more interested in how stories function, how things are put together etc.

It's a hobby. Not essential, but very little technically is.

We need them for diversity in the ecosystem. A world where everything is Marvel movies or whatever would be boring. And I like reading or listening to good criticism. Check out a Jacob Gellar video or a post on TARDIS Eruditorum sometime.

Snobs can go fuck themselves for all I care. Critics have their place, but it isn't to provide an aggregate score of how good or bad something is. Entertainment is extremely subjective, to the point that poorly made products can be highly valued, and "vice versa". Don't listen to the popular consensus. What you should be doing is finding critics that A) aren't flip-floppy or morally bankrupt, and B) align with your own subjective opinions as much as possible.

Once you do this, you'll be able to find true value in critics. Even so, never let someone else stop you from forming your own educated opinion.

I am one. I hate everything (mostly every mainstream bullshit, did not find GoT interesting and found The Office overall Ok but have some really great episodes for exemple)

Papers (now internet) movie critic are shit, they have been rein in by publicist at the start of the 2000s if not the 90s. They’re some good one and when I found them I start too search for their opinions on such and such

Movie snobs are bullshiter. Normally they don’t know what they’re talking about, they’re really knowledgeable on a specific time in the American cinema and they think that all cinema come from this. Some are better and aren’t as shitty but (in my experience) refuse to acknowledge everything that is not American mainstream

I like and subscribe to some of them. You just got to pick the good ones to follow, like someone who will tie in his film criticism to a season long plot arc about a talking coconut trying to gain clout or someone who will teach you what dub con hetero Omegaverse is.

I very much enjoy film, especially the weird shit. Does that make me a snob?

I stopped caring about film critics when I realized it spoils my own experience. Good or bad, I prefer discovering it myself.

Film critics are the media influencers of yesteryear and I care about their opinion about as much as the modern social media ones (as in not at all) :o

Sounds like a tough gig to watch movies you don’t like

Depends.

If they are the "Ratatouille" kind of critic, knowing what they like, or what is good and serving as a "bar", that can be a good reference if you are informed about their tastes.

But there is also a bunch of "high art film" that's just boring, so if they insist that that is art or film or cinema and something more mundane but fun isn't, because it doesn't fulfill some arbitrary condition, that's bad.

A horror movie critic after watching thousands of horror movies saying "The overall movie was meh, but that one thing about the monster or the way they did their camera work was cool and that's why the movie was worth watching and if you are just watching for entertainment, not so much". And the same person can judge a different horror movie to be "completely unoriginal and derivative".

But if it's a movie about someone watching paint dry and it's "super interesting because it reveals something deep about our human nature and our relationship with the passage of time" then that's... that's not my thing.

Also I pay zero attention to movie critics. I don't care about movies. That's just what I think about them.

I see them as ways to find content that otherwise wouldn't be on my radar. I generally don't let them "talk me out" of seeing something that interests me.

I like to read the reviews in Letterboxd now but as a teen and young adult I've read all the magazine movie critic bits I could get.

Is it important? Not for me personally.

Is is entertaining? Yes!

Mostly unnecessary. The general populous likes what it likes, regardless of what someone who doesn't like it says.

We have weekly appearences of such people both in the radio and TV morning shows.

You can safely assume: if they speak enthusiastically about a movie and give it four or even five stars, you can watch this film in Sunday morning matinees in some basement movie theatres with maybe thirty seats. But it has "interesting, colourful characters" and "beautiful scenary" or whatever.

Any movie that actually makes its production costs back will be "boring" and "overly commercial", and rate one or two stars.