Are there any review writers among us?
Are there any review writers among us?
I love writing and reading reviews. It started with film reviews. Reading Donald Clarke's scathing review movies in the Irish Times when I was younger was a formative experience. Often I find myself enjoying the critiques more than the movies! I've developed a soft spot for restaurant reviews as well.
During the pandemic I set up an Instagram page to start sharing food reviews, just for fun. They're not serious at all, I write them in a very tongue and cheek fashion and often try to incorporate what is happening in my own life in them. I love being honest about my own biases and having controversial takes about something as simple as ice cream flavour, I find it leads to some really fun discussions!
Who are your favourite critics? Do any of you here write reviews for fun or even for a living?
Before I watch a movie I prefer mostly only checking out the rating a few of my trusted critics gave it, to see if it's worth my time or ticket admission. I will glance over a review or skip through the video to catch some bits and phrases to hear what's good or bad about it. Basically I use them like enhanced imdb/letterboxd/rt scores + summary adjusted to my tastes. For that this guy https://www.youtube.com/@AustinBurke/videos is quite reliable and usually likes what I like, roughly, even though he leans a bit fanboyish and the video style is quite... youtubery (he's basically a chris stuckman replacement), but again reliable for me.
After watching a movie I like indepth discussion between different perspectives, which is where movie podcasts shine. For that I mostly have two german podcasts/shows where the different hosts have their own youtube channels and/or letterboxd profiles (behaind and Robert Hofmann are my favourites but yeah, german, so probably not a great recommendation for most). I checked out tons of english review youtubers/podcasters over the years, RLM and YMS have fun takes but often don't align with mine and don't exactly rush out their reviews.
Traditional longform written reviews tend to be too time-intensive, too subjective/niche/artsy for my taste, but I will check indiewire from time to time when I'm bored and just want to read something. I subscribed to Mark Kermode's (Guardian) reviews too and will give them a glance every now and then. I really like many indie/foreign auteur dramas, but arthouse movies are a bit iffy, so reviewers that celebrate movies I personally view as overly and unnecessarily boring or cryptic can drive me up the wall (for example Green Knight or Titane are IMO super interesting but flawed and I want those flaws to be discussed and not dismissed). But I don't like super poppy reviewers either, it can be hard to find the middle ground and to have the presentation style of the review be worth my time too.
The Guardian is a pretty good one for film critiques alright! I'm not sure if I'm very familiar with Mark Kermode's critiques in particular, I'll have to check him out! I remember not agreeing with a lot of what Peter Bradshaw wrote, I think we have wildly different outlooks on cinema haha.
In terms of youtube channels, have you ever watched Every Frame a Painting? It's wild to me that they're available for free online. The people who made the videos (it's no longer an active channel) have gone on to work in the film industry. I learned so much about staging and editing from those video essays. I highly recommend it! It gave me a lot of visual literacy and made watching and rewatching films very interesting.
Yeah unfortunately my German wouldn't be at a level where I can listen to podcasts featuring in depth discussion about films. But apart from the official The Last of Us podcast, I've never considered listening to podcasts about film/TV. Do you listen to any in English that you could recommend?