Out of Touch

[monsterofmud]

I hate it when college writers are able to write printed reviews without a proper background. The entertainment writer for the OSU paper trashes today's Black Snake Moan, despite the fact that its sitting at a 7.2/10 on the imdb. Just from reading the opening paragraphs of this review its clear that he's missing the point, and instead basing his

Comments

[anarkistsdream]

Yep... Very few of the writers actually have the appropriate backgrounds for their stories...

[monsterofmud]

On one hand its a student paper that is limited to a community of 60,000 people if you include the whole town. On the other hand its something that's archived online, that anyone in the world can find. That indicates a higher-degree of responsibility to the staff writers I should expect. Writing for the Opinion page is one thing. Writing official reviews based on opinion alone is just wrong. People automatically expect that "reviews" mean "opinion", which if its a good review, doesn't cater to opinion so much as it does to context, and is an exploration of a subjective reaction in heavy regard to that dictum.

[anarkistsdream]

Whoa whoa whoa.... Those were big words...

It's early, Damon... Don't do that to me... *grin*

I agree with what you say, however... Next year I plan on writing for the Entertainment section and I plan on actually writing about things I know about and understand... Although, if the kid that wrote it is a film major... Who knows?

[monsterofmud]

Haha!

Yeah, I was just ranting; I know you already know all that!

And he may be a film major, which is good...I just don't know why the tradition of the film wasn't addressed, instead of being a reaction against another review.

I'll love reading your entertainment reviews next year!

[techix]

Have you read any movie/music reviews in major publications lately? They have the exact same problems you describe this guy as having.

Basically, the way movie and music reviews seem to work is this:

Publication readers seek out a reviewer who generally shares the same opinion as them. After this like-minded reviewer is located, they generally see movies suggested by the reviewer and shun ones they give bad marks.

The problem is that the vast majority of the moviegoing public is going to miss the point, fail to understand the artistic characteristics, realize its a film in the tradition of some genre they have never heard of, etc. This is what the public wants, this is what sells, and this is what they get. An ivory-tower intellectual analysis researching the tradition of a film doesn't appeal to them, and as soon as Joe Public identifies a reviewer as 'one of those artsy types', he will get shipped off to New York or San Fransisco to write for the New Yorker or Guardian. You know, to write for them smart peoples.

[monsterofmud]

Yeah...sometimes I expect too much. Ultimately subjectivity does have final say when it really comes down to it, and it might not matter how well-justified, studied, or intentioned something is in premise, it is what it is, and people only have the time and energy towards the arts to say "Yea", "Neigh", or "It Was Okay". Which is why I really love rottentomatoes.com when it comes to film reviews, because it is a close approximation of that very thing. But even then its not to be trusted 100% of the time as evinced by the occasional aberration such as Hannibal Rising

[looking_askance]

I agree

[falfax]

I deleted my other post, because I hadn't read Justin's response, and my didn't make any sense after that.

yeah, that is sad.........

[dracschick]

I'd never review movies because I don't have a deep enough background in it. Plays are another thing:)