Critics : Thu Jul 25, 2013 12:13 am  

I don't have much use of critics. My method for choosing films is to read the synopsis. If it sounds interesting I check IMDB so it's not getting 4/10. If it is getting 4 I then scan the first review and see if they disagree. I then watch it. Then it's on to the next film. I do a similar thing with books. I really like architecture. I don't need someone to tell me what I should and shouldn't like, so I don't read architecture critics. Music's for listening to. I don't read about it. So anyway, tonight I read a critics view of the Soumaya Museum in Mexico City. I've seen some pictures of the building before. It's an "interesting" building. So I found this review: http://www.blouinartinfo.com/news/story ... -buy-taste Is this what critics do? Is it part of the job to be the most spectacularly arrogant **** that they can be? I just really hate that guy. I can tolerate arrogance, if someone has earned it. But to display that type of arrogance he'd have actually had to have been an artist and created the 50 greatest pieces of art in the world. Art that is so beautiful that it made people cry. And even after creating that art, he really shouldn't exercise that right to be so arrogant. Is that guy like most critics? Is it part of the job to try and being the nastiest reviewer they can be? Or am I just over-sensitive to it because I haven't seen very much criticism? I guess critics have an audience because many fields have them. But why do people read critics? Do critics have a lot of influence?

I don't have much use of critics. My method for choosing films is to read the synopsis. If it sounds interesting I check IMDB so it's not getting 4/10. If it is getting 4 I then scan the first review and see if they disagree. I then watch it. Then it's on to the next film. I do a similar thing with books. I really like architecture. I don't need someone to tell me what I should and shouldn't like, so I don't read architecture critics. Music's for listening to. I don't read about it. So anyway, tonight I read a critics view of the Soumaya Museum in Mexico City. I've seen some pictures of the building before. It's an "interesting" building. So I found this review: http://www.blouinartinfo.com/news/story ... -buy-taste Is this what critics do? Is it part of the job to be the most spectacularly arrogant **** that they can be? I just really hate that guy. I can tolerate arrogance, if someone has earned it. But to display that type of arrogance he'd have actually had to have been an artist and created the 50 greatest pieces of art in the world. Art that is so beautiful that it made people cry. And even after creating that art, he really shouldn't exercise that right to be so arrogant. Is that guy like most critics? Is it part of the job to try and being the nastiest reviewer they can be? Or am I just over-sensitive to it because I haven't seen very much criticism? I guess critics have an audience because many fields have them. But why do people read critics? Do critics have a lot of influence?

Re: Critics : Thu Jul 25, 2013 12:22 am  

I usually think Mark Kermode is spot on with his reviews but i generally go of the trailers on TV for Cinema, everything else DVD

Opinions are opinions though, personal taste with everything in life

Re: Critics : Thu Jul 25, 2013 5:59 am  

It seems like he doesn't like the building, that he seems to think its a rip-off of the two Guggenheim buildings that he names, or maybe the John Lewis store in Birmingham's Bull Ring, or any other building that clads its exterior with mirrored glass tiles, who knows - its architecture, its difficult to come up with new concepts.

For the artwork he seems to like it but then can't help having a dig at what he believes are second-rate works by famous artists and in doing so misses the point entirely that the first rate works by those famous artists are already in public collections - but who is to say what is first rate or second rate anyway ?

One of the best art exhibitions that I have been to was at Harewood a few years ago, "Turner in the North", a collection of sketches and preparatory watercolour sketches that Turner had done during a tour of the North of England from which no great masterpiece ever emerged, but the collection of 40 or 50 works which were all 170 or so years old was fascinating to stand in front of - and you could stand right up to them, no stuffy ropes or guards to hold you back - none of these works had been on display before, none had been published until the book that accompanied the exhibition was released, but these were not second rate works of art and only a buffoon would be so shallow as to start comparing them to other more famous pieces by JMW Turner - thats not the point at all.

Re: Critics : Thu Jul 25, 2013 8:05 am  

Horatio Yed wrote:

I usually think Mark Kermode is spot on with his reviews but i generally go of the trailers on TV for Cinema, everything else DVD

Opinions are opinions though, personal taste with everything in life

I like Mark Kermode, but he is a bit of a contrarian at times. He can also be very hypocritical/sefl-contradictory, too.

No matter how many times he says otherwise, I have seen the first two Twilight films and they are indeed pants, regardless of if they are aimed at my demographic or not. And Bella is not the kind of role model I want my daughter to latch onto when she's older, and that is the target market.

Re: Critics : Thu Jul 25, 2013 9:52 am  

Lord God Jose Mourinho wrote: I don't have much use of critics. My method for choosing films is to read the synopsis. If it sounds interesting I check IMDB so it's not getting 4/10. If it is getting 4 I then scan the first review and see if they disagree. I then watch it. Then it's on to the next film. I do a similar thing with books. I really like architecture. I don't need someone to tell me what I should and shouldn't like, so I don't read architecture critics. Music's for listening to. I don't read about it. So anyway, tonight I read a critics view of the Soumaya Museum in Mexico City. I've seen some pictures of the building before. It's an "interesting" building. So I found this review: http://www.blouinartinfo.com/news/story ... -buy-taste Is this what critics do? Is it part of the job to be the most spectacularly arrogant **** that they can be? I just really hate that guy. I can tolerate arrogance, if someone has earned it. But to display that type of arrogance he'd have actually had to have been an artist and created the 50 greatest pieces of art in the world. Art that is so beautiful that it made people cry. And even after creating that art, he really shouldn't exercise that right to be so arrogant. Is that guy like most critics? Is it part of the job to try and being the nastiest reviewer they can be? Or am I just over-sensitive to it because I haven't seen very much criticism? I guess critics have an audience because many fields have them. But why do people read critics? Do critics have a lot of influence? The review of the Soumaya Museum seems pretty innocuous to me, it is just one critic's personal assessment of the place, and while I'm unlikely ever to go see for myself, they all read like valid criticisms to me. I really don't see the arrogance you seem to. I don't believe anyone who reads books and listens to music etc yet claims they have "no time for reviews", simply because there is such a mammoth volume of books published and music released that you don't have any hope in hell of ever reading or listening to even 1% of it, and you don't have access to even a list of everything that is published or released, and you couldn't possibly read everything or listen to everything - or even more than the tiniest percentage of everything). Unless you read something, somewhere, to alert you to the existence of a book, then how would you even know it exists? Ditto music, with the exception that you will of course hear pieces of music new to your ears on media such as radio or internet - but they are only being played because somebody - who loosely is acting as a critic- has pre-filtered and selected those pieces of music. Next, some of the best music and literature I know - lots of it - I wouldn't have liked much, or at all, without critics. Classical pieces such as Rachmaninov, or Wagner, spring to mind, or the plays of Shakespeare, or one of what became my all time favourites, the Canterbury Tales. What you often need, or if not "need" then what is extremely helpful, is someone who knows and understands - who is thus acting as a critic - to explain to you why this has merit. And the more you learn, the more you might understand, and the more you might appreciate. I could go on. I could point to wonderful series like the recent Waldemar Januszczak programmes, which gave you startling insights and history and background into art of the Dark Ages" which, short of studying the subject yourself, would have completely passed me by, and I am infinitely better informed, and much more appreciative of the subject art, entirely down to an art critic. In a less highbrow context, a year or so ago somebody tipped me the wink about a new series on Watch! by a young magician from Bradford called Dynamo. I watched and think it's great. That person was acting, informally, as a critic and reviewer, and I was benefiting from their critique. Finally, I disagree entirely that to offer a meaningful critique you need to have created world class art yourself. My English Lit teacher, who instilled in me a love of Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer etc., had never written a book or a poem in his life, but was both wonderfully knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and - critically - able to communicate all that to his students.

Lord God Jose Mourinho wrote: I don't have much use of critics. My method for choosing films is to read the synopsis. If it sounds interesting I check IMDB so it's not getting 4/10. If it is getting 4 I then scan the first review and see if they disagree. I then watch it. Then it's on to the next film. I do a similar thing with books. I really like architecture. I don't need someone to tell me what I should and shouldn't like, so I don't read architecture critics. Music's for listening to. I don't read about it. So anyway, tonight I read a critics view of the Soumaya Museum in Mexico City. I've seen some pictures of the building before. It's an "interesting" building. So I found this review: http://www.blouinartinfo.com/news/story ... -buy-taste Is this what critics do? Is it part of the job to be the most spectacularly arrogant **** that they can be? I just really hate that guy. I can tolerate arrogance, if someone has earned it. But to display that type of arrogance he'd have actually had to have been an artist and created the 50 greatest pieces of art in the world. Art that is so beautiful that it made people cry. And even after creating that art, he really shouldn't exercise that right to be so arrogant. Is that guy like most critics? Is it part of the job to try and being the nastiest reviewer they can be? Or am I just over-sensitive to it because I haven't seen very much criticism? I guess critics have an audience because many fields have them. But why do people read critics? Do critics have a lot of influence? The review of the Soumaya Museum seems pretty innocuous to me, it is just one critic's personal assessment of the place, and while I'm unlikely ever to go see for myself, they all read like valid criticisms to me. I really don't see the arrogance you seem to. I don't believe anyone who reads books and listens to music etc yet claims they have "no time for reviews", simply because there is such a mammoth volume of books published and music released that you don't have any hope in hell of ever reading or listening to even 1% of it, and you don't have access to even a list of everything that is published or released, and you couldn't possibly read everything or listen to everything - or even more than the tiniest percentage of everything). Unless you read something, somewhere, to alert you to the existence of a book, then how would you even know it exists? Ditto music, with the exception that you will of course hear pieces of music new to your ears on media such as radio or internet - but they are only being played because somebody - who loosely is acting as a critic- has pre-filtered and selected those pieces of music. Next, some of the best music and literature I know - lots of it - I wouldn't have liked much, or at all, without critics. Classical pieces such as Rachmaninov, or Wagner, spring to mind, or the plays of Shakespeare, or one of what became my all time favourites, the Canterbury Tales. What you often need, or if not "need" then what is extremely helpful, is someone who knows and understands - who is thus acting as a critic - to explain to you why this has merit. And the more you learn, the more you might understand, and the more you might appreciate. I could go on. I could point to wonderful series like the recent Waldemar Januszczak programmes, which gave you startling insights and history and background into art of the Dark Ages" which, short of studying the subject yourself, would have completely passed me by, and I am infinitely better informed, and much more appreciative of the subject art, entirely down to an art critic. In a less highbrow context, a year or so ago somebody tipped me the wink about a new series on Watch! by a young magician from Bradford called Dynamo. I watched and think it's great. That person was acting, informally, as a critic and reviewer, and I was benefiting from their critique. Finally, I disagree entirely that to offer a meaningful critique you need to have created world class art yourself. My English Lit teacher, who instilled in me a love of Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer etc., had never written a book or a poem in his life, but was both wonderfully knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and - critically - able to communicate all that to his students.

Re: Critics : Thu Jul 25, 2013 12:23 pm  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

The review of the Soumaya Museum seems pretty innocuous to me, it is just one critic's personal assessment of the place, and while I'm unlikely ever to go see for myself, they all read like valid criticisms to me. I really don't see the arrogance you seem to.

Like I said, maybe I am hyper sensitive because I don't read too much criticism. It just seemed like he never missed the opportunity to stick the knife in. It didn't seem like he was going in to enjoy the experience, it seemed like he was going in to see how it didn't meet his standards.

I don't believe anyone who reads books and listens to music etc yet claims they have "no time for reviews", simply because there is such a mammoth volume of books published and music released that you don't have any hope in hell of ever reading or listening to even 1% of it, and you don't have access to even a list of everything that is published or released, and you couldn't possibly read everything or listen to everything - or even more than the tiniest percentage of everything). Unless you read something, somewhere, to alert you to the existence of a book, then how would you even know it exists? Ditto music, with the exception that you will of course hear pieces of music new to your ears on media such as radio or internet - but they are only being played because somebody - who loosely is acting as a critic- has pre-filtered and selected those pieces of music.

I gave a quick outline of my use of the rating systems to make sure the film isn't getting a 4, which in my experience is generally a good guide to it sucking. But generally that's as deep as I go.

Music. The bands I like are: Tears For Fears, Third Eye Blind, Depeche Mode, Placebo, IAMX, Linkin Park, Blink 182, Imagine Dragons, The Killers, plus maybe some others that aren't coming to me right now. I don't read about music. I don't think I've ever read reviews of any of the bands. I'd struggle to name people involved in most of the bands. I don't read interviews from them.

I'm not saying my choices aren't influenced by critics at all. Obviously a DJ or TV producer heard Hot Fuss, thought it was worthy of airplay and I then heard it and thought it was worth investigating. But it wasn't through reading criticism of the band.

From what I've seen of the press of The Arctic Monkeys they supposedly have some merit. From the clips of the couple of songs I've partly heard I'm just not interested. The Beatles and Rolling Stones are two of the biggest bands on the planet. I've never actually heard anything of there's that has spoken to me enough for me to bother to figure out whether I like them.

Next, some of the best music and literature I know - lots of it - I wouldn't have liked much, or at all, without critics. Classical pieces such as Rachmaninov, or Wagner, spring to mind, or the plays of Shakespeare, or one of what became my all time favourites, the Canterbury Tales. What you often need, or if not "need" then what is extremely helpful, is someone who knows and understands - who is thus acting as a critic - to explain to you why this has merit. And the more you learn, the more you might understand, and the more you might appreciate.

But I'd say that all these are regarded as masterpieces that have stood the test of time. They have gained popularity. I'd also question whether there weren't critics at the time saying what a pile of crap they'd done and they needed to get off the stage for someone better.

Is your favourite Shakespeare work the one that gave you most pleasure, or the one that critics said was the best? If you love Hamlet and think Macbeth is slightly dull, but the world's leading authority says the opposite are you wrong or were you just different people liking different things?

I could go on. I could point to wonderful series like the recent Waldemar Januszczak programmes, which gave you startling insights and history and background into art of the Dark Ages" which, short of studying the subject yourself, would have completely passed me by, and I am infinitely better informed, and much more appreciative of the subject art, entirely down to an art critic.

But that seems to be a series of programmes produced with the intent of educating and spreading the enjoyment of that art. I don't see any relation between that and the slashing that I linked to.

In a less highbrow context, a year or so ago somebody tipped me the wink about a new series on Watch! by a young magician from Bradford called Dynamo. I watched and think it's great. That person was acting, informally, as a critic and reviewer, and I was benefiting from their critique.

To me he was saying, "I like this, I think you might too." You watched it, and you did.

To go back to the link. Say someone spent the day at that museum and had a great day. They don't know art, but they enjoyed it and they want to return many times to slowly learn more. They later read that article and they respond to it like I did. Are they then going to see the work by Dali and appreciate it, or is it going to be in their minds that the work is "second rate".

Finally, I disagree entirely that to offer a meaningful critique you need to have created world class art yourself. My English Lit teacher, who instilled in me a love of Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer etc., had never written a book or a poem in his life, but was both wonderfully knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and - critically - able to communicate all that to his students.

That's not what I meant at all. I said that to display that level of arrogance, you'd have needed to have been the greatest artist ever, and even then you shouldn't. I think great talent and success gives someone some licence for arrogance. I don't see how a critic can ever earn the right to be that arrogant. I suspect that from that article that critics gain readership just by being outrageously mean.

Your English teacher was there to teach you a love of English literature. He seems to have succeeded to a very high degree. But it doesn't seem to me to be the role of the critic. The teacher gives you appreciation. The critic seems to be telling you that the work in front of you is junk.

Re: Critics : Thu Jul 25, 2013 12:33 pm  

carl_spackler wrote:

I like Mark Kermode, but he is a bit of a contrarian at times. He can also be very hypocritical/sefl-contradictory, too.

As I first wrote, I usually watch a film, enjoy it or not. Then watch something else. Unless it's a film like the one about the fast food restaurant where the staff were prank called and there's an interesting back story worth reading about, the film is over when it's ended.

I don't get into film debates with friends, I don't remember and quote famous movie lines.

But the last Transformers film was so awful that I had to check with an outside source whether it was as bad as I thought. So I was perfectly accepting of his review of bashing his head against walls and heavy objects.

Re: Critics : Thu Jul 25, 2013 12:39 pm  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote: I could point to wonderful series like the recent Waldemar Januszczak programmes, Hoaxed by artist Jamie Shovlin, Januszczak later that year 'revealed' in his paper how the 1970s glam rock band Lustfaust had "cocked a notorious snook at the music industry in the late 1970s by giving away their music on blank cassettes and getting their fans to design their own covers".[6] The band had never existed outside Shovlin's fiction.[7] Januszczak replied that Shovlin should be applauded for his capacity to remind us of the crucial place of the artist in today's society as he made clear that "Reality simply cannot be trusted any more". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldemar_J ... ite_note-8

Ferocious Aardvark wrote: I could point to wonderful series like the recent Waldemar Januszczak programmes, Hoaxed by artist Jamie Shovlin, Januszczak later that year 'revealed' in his paper how the 1970s glam rock band Lustfaust had "cocked a notorious snook at the music industry in the late 1970s by giving away their music on blank cassettes and getting their fans to design their own covers".[6] The band had never existed outside Shovlin's fiction.[7] Januszczak replied that Shovlin should be applauded for his capacity to remind us of the crucial place of the artist in today's society as he made clear that "Reality simply cannot be trusted any more". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldemar_J ... ite_note-8

Re: Critics : Thu Jul 25, 2013 1:10 pm  

Lord God Jose Mourinho wrote:

...

Your English teacher was there to teach you a love of English literature. He seems to have succeeded to a very high degree. But it doesn't seem to me to be the role of the critic. The teacher gives you appreciation. The critic seems to be telling you that the work in front of you is junk.

Ah, I see where you're going wrong, you mistakenly think critic=negative. It's not. It's from the Latin criticus, which is from the Greek kritikos, meaning "able to discern or judge".

A critic whose professional job it is to produce such reviews is meant to be able to judge something, from a position of knowledge. It could equally be a favourable judgement as an unfavourable one.

Re: Critics : Thu Jul 25, 2013 1:16 pm  

Lord God Jose Mourinho wrote: :lol: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldemar_J ... ite_note-8 Not sure what's funny. Brief comments by Januszczak here. Seems very reasonable. Even less sure what it has to do with the thread.

Lord God Jose Mourinho wrote: :lol: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldemar_J ... ite_note-8 Not sure what's funny. Brief comments by Januszczak here. Seems very reasonable. Even less sure what it has to do with the thread.