What is the proper way to criticize film...

What is the proper way to criticize film? Because saying dialogue/cinematography/acting is good/bad doesn't feel like legit criticism

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=0Nz8YrCC9X8
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

redpilled/bluepilled

I liked it, it was good
I hated it, it was shit

x is y because z, there you fucking brainlet

>watching films

film making can either be dishonest or honest. Those are the only criticisms

using fancy words to say the same thing

this
everything else is overintellectualization

To me the most practical way to criticize film is to ask "Did it do what it set out do effectively?" You can't compare an action movie to a french arthouse movie honestly, because each of them set out to do different things. I feel like this was Ebert's style and I liked it and agreed with him on his recommendations.

If your wife's son liked it then it was good.
Otherwise it's shit.

>Goethe's three-point method leads you to examine the concept, the structure and the impact of the art work by answering the following questions:

>1. What has the artist tried to do?

>2. How well has he/she done it?

>3. Was it worth doing?

anything more or less is nonsense.

Well, it's more about the way you argue for those statement to be correct than it is about the claims you make on a film.
What does it mean for something to be bad? Verum factum convertuntur, Giambattista Vico wrote. To truly understand something is to understand how it is made - which kind of means that to criticize something you first have to ask yourself the reasons why you are claiming something in the first place.
Criticism is about persuading yourself first, then convincing others with the same arguments: the more thorough you are in putting your impressions and thoughts under scrutiny and inquisition, the more likely it is that by making this kind of thought process explicit to someone else you'll convince them.

Other than this, you'll only get partial methodologies that, while perhaps effective in their own "field", fail at the bigger task of structuring your analysis and critique of something.

Seashells by the seashorepheus

>Was it worth doing?
this one seems like the problem, id probably replace it with something like "were you the intended audience?" because a guy who hates capeshit for example has no business applying the first two points to a capeship movie because he doesn't buy the premise and wont like it no matter what.

also my wife's son's son liked Moana

Story and execution
Everything else second

applying these questions to capeshit really go a long way in exposing the weakness of the genre as an artform, i think.

the intended purpose was to sell a lot of tickets by doing something spectacular but not too risky with a familiar character/franchise.

how well that's done can probably be assessed compared to other capeshit films.

whether it's worth doing depends on inner metrics, as you say. we might say it contributed another needless capeshit adventure to the mountain of such works, but the person who made millions of dollars making it would disagree. the guy who paints shitty landscapes to put up in motels probably thinks it was worth doing if he got paid. the rest of us may disagree.

people genuinely enjoy capeshit though and look forward to it and stuff, so it's worth doing for that
i knew a guy who loved batman, LOVED him, he was almost 40 and had a chain on his wallet

Start by reading actually good criticisms

Andrew Sarris and Deleuze are great
Also other filmmakers are usually good at criticizing and writing/speaking about film

Who is this semen demon?

>Did it do what it set out do effectively

This type of criticism is the absolute worst. You are not qualified to say what a movie set out to do. Stop pretending you are.

A movie is not a monolithic entity with one goal in mind. The producers set out to make a movie to make money. The director has his goals, different actors have theirs, the cg department has their own goals, etc etc etc.

I'll take someone who honestly says what they like and didn't like over someone like you a million times.

Not kino

the chick from La Dolce Vita

this

The only good approach to film criticism is assessing it visually. Film is a visual medium.

Since geeks have absolutely no interest in art or history, they are the least qualified people to talk about movies in the history of the world.

In terms of actual film criticism you have to be able to explain why exactly do you think the dialogue/cinematography/acting was not executed well, but in just normal everyday terms I think it all boils down to is it worth watching or not.

Also todays rating systems make no sense, art is not quantifiable.

You critique the story only, if you want to say anything about the other superficial stuff like camera work, lighting, actors, dialogue, effects, filters or whatever they should only be in reference to the story. Cinematography is all the above, so saying the cinematography was shit or amazing is exact same thing as saying the movie was well made or wasn't.

wife's bull*

You couldn't be more wrong. Every movie has a reason why it's telling it's story, the more easily it is to identify what that is the better the movie is at telling the story.

It should be obvious what a movie is trying to do and its job is to make you care about what it is trying to do, if you don't care what it's trying to do then it failed.

>good/bad doesn't feel like legit criticism
It is legit criticism, but it has to do with the viewers values, which they should explain first. So you are just wasting your time. But sometimes you realize you are talking to someone that hasn't seen as many movies as you, or they have a huge collection of Reddit movies, or they only watch one type. They're stupid. You can judge someone by what type of movies they like. So you get a terrible bias on most reviews. There are some people that are obsessed with realism in film, or they watch only things that make them sad. Terrible!

This is wrong on so many levels.

By that logic, a football team doesn't "aim to get in field goal range", rather, we must evaluate each individual football player as if their acts were separate from a coordinated whole?
learn to hypothetical intentionalism you fucking pleb.

>You critique the story only
you must be baiting

Cinematography AND editing, you mean, surely?

I wanted to start a thread similar to this, but it will probably get good traction in here, hopefully. Similar question:

Is the BEST movie you've ever seen also your FAVORITE movie you've ever seen?

My favorite is a new hope, but the best movie I've seen I would probably say is one of the LOTR movies

How can you argue about something objectively by using emotions or opinions? The only things you could say are "It is this long" and "It stars these people". There's always personal opinions in movie criticism. The Thing was ridiculed for being nothing but a gorefest with no brain when others would argue that it's not about that. Even pleb shit like how some people like Wonder Woman's theme in BvS whereas I think it's some of the worst music put to screen in quite a while. Different people are willing to overlook certain things and harp on others.

(5-1)u

Is give her 8 1/2 if you catch my drift

1.
If we go beyond the money goal, capeshit artists goal is basically escapism, or dream fantasy fulfillment, right?
2.
Ironman was good at it, as you could immerse into the sarcastic, intelligent good looking guy, while soundly defeating his enemies in a adventurous ride and getting the girl + warm ending (fantasy day dream)
....
DC superhero movies work differently, no real fulfillment, but some promises, no real 'eascape' but grim realism?
3.
Is escapism worth doing? I'd say yes, but if escapism dominates the entire industry and artistry, other stuff becomes worth doing, like asking the questions what the fuck is going on with the audience and the world?

Nothing is ever good criticism unless you can explain why something is the way it is. That's why this board is worse than camel diarrhea.

a movie is a story told through a visual medium, like books, plays etc. I don't know where you have been but if you think my post was some kind weird foreign new idea maybe you need to get your head out of your ass and realize the main point of a movie. Every aspect of a film is to support the story and its goal. The story is the one thing you aren't allowed to get wrong because then that means all the other superficial aspects of the film are supporting a bad story.

I could tell you my favorite film from various genres but I couldnt give you my overall favorite, it really depends on what I have been watching recently

So is it fair to say that there aren't really any "best" movies, just ones that people enjoy and don't enjoy?

That's an interesting question, I've thought the same thing. I think the idea of a "Best Movie" is what you think others is a perfect or closest to perfect movie and what you think is a perfect or close to perfect movie is your favorite. "Best" needs active thought, like you think "This is the best cinematography I've ever seen" but "favorite" implies more comfort. Jurassic Park is one of my favorite movies but it's nowhere close to the best movie ever, it's just fun to watch again and again

That's because dcflicks weren't set out to do what marvelflicks were set out to do.
MCU tries to do exactly what you said, an enjoyable escapist dream.
DCEU tries to make you think about the implications of superheros in the real world. Basically they're trying to be Watchmen again and failing miserably.

WHATS INSIDE THE BOXX?

>if you catch my drift
i don't get it. god, she's so fucking absurdly hot in that movie.

all good things to consider! i like your last point about how a change of pace may be more worthwhile than doing a normally-worthwhile thing. unrionically, a good post. :)

Best movie I've ever seen is certainly Kobayashi's The Human Condition. I would rather re-watch Scott Pilgrim when I am trying to have fun, though.

That's how I feel. The best movie by definition should be your favorite, it succeeds at what it's doing the best, but it's not. To me, someone's favorite movie defines them much more than the movie they think is the best

>My favorite is a new hope, but the best movie I've seen I would probably say is one of the LOTR
How is it possible to be this pleb? Have you seen only a few sparse Hollywood films and nothing else? I doubt you could even articulate in detail what makes LOTR "best".

No, favorite and best are completely different.

For example, I understand all the underlying themes and ideas behind 2001 and I see why it's called one of the best films of all time, but I would lie if I said I enjoyed it.
Also, I absolutely love and enjoyed Manchester by the Sea and I would certainly call it one of my favorites, but I am aware of the flaws like the sometimes jarring editing, bad sound design in the bar fights and would prefer the police department scene without the overused Adagio in g minor. So I can't consider it as an "objectively" best movie, but I absolutely love it for all the other elements

>jack-nicholson-975119702.jpg
wint @dril

No, film as a medium exists in an objective space outside of viewer interpretation. "Enjoying" a film happens inside your head, and is thus a baseless critique, as you're describing not the film itself but your emotional response to it. Some with "boring" - baseless criticism of oneself, and not the film.
>"my favorite movie is x, because I like it, and I like it because it's fun, and it's fun because it's good, and it's good because I like it"
That all "favorite" amounts to if one is unable to differentiate between inherent emotional response to a film and actual valid critique.

So you don't like movies where "nothing happens"? The Tree of Life for example

...

Then how would someone make a critique of a film without relying on any emotion?

>Story
>Everything else second

Just go back to Sup Forums already

Kind of
Stalker is the best movie I've ever seen and I also consider it my favorite, but I definitely don't rewatch it often

No he's right

Describe in detail how various elements of the film attribute themselves to your given emotional response. Don't state the emotional response as if it were by itself relevant. To accomplish this, you have learn to appreciate and view film as art instead of gross entertainment. Once you do so, you'll realize that "boring" and "fun" are surface level critiques of the most baseless kind, as they suggest that a given film and its director have to pander to a largely arbitrary definition of "fun" or "entertaining", when in reality an auteur has no such obligation.

Formulate a reading, dude. You need to have a foundation for your arguments. Inspecting the filmic qualities is pointless if you can't think of a reason for them to exist the way they are.

They give me an emotional response because the film, through their own style and craft, showed me that its protagonist was in a way like me and so I cared about whether or not they would achieve their goal. But this was not enough, the movie kept keeping their protagonist from a achieving their goal until they broke, and the more they did this the more and more I wanted to see what happens next. Until finally the character was broken so bad they had to realize something or give something up that was keeping them from achieving their ultimate goal, something that I might to be holding on to that's hard for me to give up as well or something I know someone else is holding on to. Finally the tension is reached the climax in a way that gives some sort of truth about me or the human condition, it doesn't have to be deep or lofty either, it could be something as simple as don't hold a grudge or it may consume you, etc.

A movie is not a sport, with a built-in confict and goal.

It's art, you fucking idiot. Communal art. There are so many divergent and conflicting goals. Comparing it to football like it has such a simplistic bottom line shows what a pleb you are

>movies aren't sports

That's the only thing you got right.

You can compare movies to sports because the main protagonists, like sports, has a goal and the movie uses conflict as form of the protagonist achieving that goal, but that's were the analogy ends. The movie has to have a reason for achieving their goal other than to win.

Movies can be deep and have meaning that relates to you more than others, but they all have a simplistic bottom line of "do I care about the story being told to me?"

Saying movies can't be compared to sports becuase movies are art isn't really saying anything at all about movies and just makes you sound pretentious because no one can agree what art is and doubt some random user would know its definitive meaning if it even had one

>protagonist
Not him but he's right

There isn't a proper way to criticize a film. Either you liked it or you didn't. At best you can criticize the philosophy of the film or nitpick technical details (even these aren't necessarily negatives), but there's no way you're gonna ever convince a child through logical argument that Minions aren't the best shit ever.

Damn margot robbie looks like THAT?

>
Not him but he's right

Anita Ekberg!

this

damn...

I love La Dolce Vita

That being said, adult humans are similar enough that they can agree that certain things are pleasing and others aren't. This is why there are so few films consisting of visual noise and the sound of babies crying.

I think most differences in taste are simply differences in IQ. I love Raimis Spiderman but I've noticed that I tune out during they action scenes. I have to make an effort to pay attention to them, as if my brain is shutting out unnecessary noise. Its the interactions between characters and the dialogue that really keep my interest (in Spiderman at least).

For this reason I suspect that people who have to give verbose explanations for liking "intellectual" films are just a different kind of pleb. They cant appreciate the film the a normal person does, so they tell themselves "AH it must have been the themes/symbolism/x/y/z that made it so good!", always operating under the premise that the presence of these things is always good and always improves the film.

I wouldn't say IQ but perspectives, people who are more into science than history would probably like sci fi more than sword and sandal movies for example.

But the way to criticize a movie would be to determine whether or not it transcends its genre or simply relies on the tropes of its genre to achieve its goal.

You always here it when a movie is objectively good, "man don't usually like X genre movies but movie Y was amazing".

When someone has a predisposition to a certain subject any movie that can win them over outside that subject did so through a a compelling.

An objectively good movie is one that satisfies us on the most primal level and could be understood by anybody. It doesn't matter that the characters are shooting laser guns or they are fighting with rapiers, or arguing Ina court room, when you care about the characters.

* a compelling tory

Tips fedora

>it doesn't matter that the characters are shooting laser guns or they are fighting with rapiers, or arguing Ina court room, when you care about the characters.

No one that watches a lot of movies sticks to just one genre. But differences in movies go way beyond laser guns and swords, and there are good and bad movies in every genre. Movies don't even necessarily need characters or a coherent plot. Most film sticks to the formula created in the days of the stage play. Its simply easier to manipulate emotion through language, action, and characters, then through raw visuals and sound. That separation between movies that manipulate you visually/aurally and movies that do it through action/straight forward dialogue/sexuality is what marks the difference between pleb and patrician.

I agree that good art should have universal qualities, which is why Apocalypto is one of the greatest movies ever made IMO.

Yeah that's my line of thinking too. JP is another favorite, and it's got great music and decent acting (Laura Dern was lit af) but aside from Malcolm's musings, it wasn't really "deep" or anything like that.

Bleh bleh bleh.

Ok, the best is Andre Rublev. I'm done trying to impress Fuchs like you like it's my first day in film class 101.

Jackson was Absolutely on fire with the LOTR trilogy,and just because it was widely popular doesn't mean it's any less good.

So (I'm seriously asking here) is there a somewhat universally agreed upon standard or metric or rubric as to what makes a movie "Good"?

Example, I didn't really enjoy citizen Kane, and I don't understand why it's consistently #1on the best of lists. It was OK, but why is it considered great?.

There isn't one answer to these questions, user. Your interpretations and critiques will be a whole lot better if you stop trying to reduce. The goal of a film isn't X.

Jurassic Park had a big debate in it. Remember the lunch scene? Not to mention Alan Grant's whole arc.

Compare JP to Jurassic World, which one had bigger questions?

>youtube.com/watch?v=0Nz8YrCC9X8

how many jew cocks do you think she jacked off between her huge tits?

Yeah, absolutely agree...That was the musings I was referring to. I guess you could make an argument that aJP was deep in that sense. The book is definitely more so along those lines, but the movie translated the chaos and human reaching pretty well

Good thread lads

You're on Sup Forums

Just say DUH ENDING SUKED about literally every movie and you will be "patrician" in no time here.

6 million

What I think is great about the debate in JP is that both sides are genuinely valid. Guys like Dodgson and Nedry are jerks, sure, but ethically they're pretty much right there with Hammond. Is anyone really a bad guy, or are they just unlucky?

The other Jurassic movies never come close to that kind of a debate.

Synergy is what I look for. When a movie/script has a theme or idea that is supported by every other aspect (acting, mood, lighting, camera work, directions, editing, blah blah).

Sometimes it's also important to NOT think so much. Hitchcock believed a film's technical details should only be subconsciously understood, and only by unpackagging it like a snob so you realize why it's good.

My post never said people only watch one genre, I was merely using an example. Here is another one, someone who let's say has been cheated on by a significant other might gravitate towards movies where that happens to the protagonist and they get revenge or they find someone else who is more faithful. Or maybe some one likes building rockets so they might gravitate towards movies about nasa. This could be the same person as the former, giving to what you said about people liking different genres and having an eclectic taste.

My point is to say that you know a good movie is good when you don't have to be into rockets to like the movie about nasa or you don't have to exactly have had the experience to have been cheated on to like the story where the hero was cheated on. Objectively good movies aren't inclusive. You don't have to "get it" for a movie to be good objectively.

You didn't have to be into dinosaurs to love Jurassic Park. You don't have to be into archaeology to like Indiana Jones. But people have "guilty pleasures" where they like a movie they know is bad or not well received by many and its because they liked something superficial about the movie, the subject, the style or genre.

Here more proof that criticism of story is the only method for criticism of film. You have all these other Jurassic Park movies, but why is the first one loved and respected more than the others? They all are about dinosaurs killing people which is entertaining, but the first one had a theme and dynamic characters with depth. All story elements

First of all you need to see if the characters are well constructed and what type of dimension does it have, is the character a 1st dimension character, a 2nd dimension character? Or a 3rd dimension character? After that, you need to see the character´s goal, and his extra goals that appear with the story´s development, let me put an example for this, in "Shrek", the main character has his goal: Get his swamp back to normal, but then, another goal appears, he loves Fiona, and now the new goal is to get her. The film doesn´t always need to have a complete different goal from the first one, the character can complete some goals, all the goals or he or she can´t do it at all, but we may have a lesson with it.

The characters need to have an introduction, who is he or her? What does he or she likes? What does he or she dislikes? Does he or she has low, or high self-esteem? Why is he or she like that? And, again, what does he or she want?

Then, character dfevelopment needs to occur, let´s put an example with the same film, Shrek is not the same after all the events he experiences, he starts being a lonely guy, who doesn´t have a lot of trust because they are afraid of him, and because of that, he is angry too, but, in the end, he can trust, and he´s not lonely anymore, he changed, by the way, a character doesn´t have to change his hole personality, they would change some of its ideas and the way he or she acts, but not all it´s features.

Then, you need to see if the situation has sense, and I don´t mean they have to be all humans or that they can´t have powers, I mean that you need to see if their actions and the story have logic, and by the way, if the film takes place in a different world, the film needs to show and explain some of that world and how does it work (See the Lord of the Rings trilogy as an example).

I can´t put all the elements here since Sup Forums doesn´t let me write a longer comment, but I will in another comment if you want to

Agreed
Even in "thinking" films, paying attention to fluidity and theme on an emotional and intuitive level is more important.

Is context something to be considered when one talks about a movie?
For example Birth of a Nation deals with a touchy subject for most people now, and they can't get pass that particular point, but if you consider the time it was made and the shots achieved (the massive images of the battles) and what they tried to do but were held back by the technology of the time (the burning house looks iffy as fuck by today's standars). I personally like the movie but I feel like if I say I like it people will call me a racist or a pretentious fuck for looking at a movie and consider the time it was made.

Completely agree, the only thing I would add, is that the story needs to do something to make you care about the character and whether or not they complete their goal.

A good story is timeless, that is why stories like heroes journey type of stories get retold.

So I don't think context should be considered, if the movie doesn't hold up then it obviously was only relevant to the time right?

But if story is all there is, then where does something like Mad Max: Fury Road stand?

The first one was effective film making and the cinematic method to approach story telling; the editing and framing are very, very good in that film. Scenes like the T Rex in the rain are cinematically genius and harrowing in a really exciting way

Story wise it's actually pretty shit, and the second half is almost mediocre in most regards

The problem with thinking films is that if it detracts from the story and not about the story itself it tends to be boring, you shouldn't have to think about a "thinking" film if the ideas presented are through characters and their actions. In this fashion you merely need to watch it to understand it.

If you can tell a deep philosophical ethical idea through a story even a caveman(exaggerating) would understand and get them to thinking about new ideas, isn't that more successful.

If highly respected director makes a really "intellectual" film and it completely goes over the head of someone who isn't familiar with the subject or someone who doesn't tend to watch "intellectual" films and they say it was boring. If your argument is "you didn't get it" you already lost, because you are so supposed to get it with it having to be explained.

It's like a joke, if you have to explain why it is funny than it isn't

But those elements are all used to help tell the story, so by saying the story is shit, you are then saying that all that other cool stuff is shit as well.

This is pretty stupid
Regular, average movie depth goes over peoples heads all the time. Like no country for old men. It's is the problem of stupid people for not paying attention to the film; everything needed to understand the film is within the work itself, but it requires explanation for idiots

Wrong. Those help create an experience. The scenes are interesting and the characters relationships are interesting. These combine to create a worthwhile experience that includes connecting to characters in an interesting situation
There is little fulfillment to the details of the beginning, middle, and end. Anything good about that movie comes from the cinematic methods used to create it

>saying dialogue/cinematography/acting is good/bad doesn't feel like legit criticism
Fucking what?

>technical aspects to the film
>are superficial
>this is a television and film board
KEK okay, retard.