Reviews.

movie: a form of entertainment that enacts a story by sound and a sequence of images giving the illusion of continuous movement.

Perhaps I am being too base here, but continuous movement, we get that, story, we get that, and sound, we definitely get that, except for the deaf people.

One of my all time favorite hobbies is to search up any movie/television show/album on either IMDb/metacritic and to read the worst reviews of said search item. Many will make me angry, many will bemuse me.

Quite often, they will anger me due to how senseless they sound, but sometimes, they are so true as to be uncanny, and that aggravates me even more. But I really think we need a check on everything, kick it back a gear. I think reviewing of media these days has become a bit trivial. I think with the whole freedom of speech deal, reviewing has been reduced from it's definition: "the classification of someone or something with respect to its worth" to something that could be perhaps better described as an opinion: "a personal belief or judgment that is not founded on proof or certainty".

And to me, that's all reviewing has become these days. And people will argue, and people will tell me, that everyone has a right to review something. Don't get me wrong, freedom of speech is a beautiful thing, but only when done right.

But the problem with freedom of speech is exactly that it allows anyone to say anything. It allows people to claim authority in fields where they lack experience and knowledge. It allows the majority of people uneducated in the field to sound educated, to boast some sort of ego in deciding upon matters. "This is my opinion, and I am entitled to it". Certainly, I don't deny that one is entitled to their opinion, but to pass it off as a review seems like a whole new stretch.

And with the coming of the digital age (which seems to already be here) I blame the internet and ever so increasing notion of anonymity for the almost certain and inevitable death of the art of reviewing. And it is only in a world like ours where people can sculpt beauty, intricateness, and art, only to have it taken down by the mob, the mob who boast an arrogance that stands so tall as to look down upon the fine work of the talented minority. The mob who seem to bring everything down to their level, so that they are able to comprehend it. The mob who seem to attack that which they cannot fathom. That is the nature of the mob, and this is the vicious cyclic reality upon which we live. The mob "reviewers" often have the problem of failing to capture the objective nature of the review (and form opinions using objectivity as a basis), but rather, they begin with their subjectivity, and try to form objective reasoning as to support their ill ridden account.

Reviewers should be people who have authority in the field; people who have experienced the medium, and are able to manipulate words in such a way that we are able to fathom what they are saying, they should be able to set aside personal opinion in the true spirit of what is objective of the film. Truth is more important than opinion.

But my main beef with reviewing these days is that it seems reviews are reducing films down to a checklist, judging it on what expectations are there in a typical film. It is wrong to judge a film on any merit that goes beyond that of entertainment. "how anyone can find this funny/scary/stupid/smart/witty/emotional is beyond me" is bullshit, so you didn't get down with the vibe, that's your opinion, that's not your review, that's not a review at all. I dare say that this is almost a classic example of "Argument from Personal Incredulity", where one will proclaim: "I cannot explain or understand this, therefore it cannot be true". Creationists are fond of arguing that they cannot imagine the complexity of life resulting from blind evolution, but that doesn't mean that life did not evolve. Likewise with films, just because you didn't understand something, doesn't mean that a "negative review" is merited. Your failure to comprehend the humor, wit, horror, emotion in a film is not the film's fault, it's your fault.

Furthermore, it's really the reviews upon the plot that really bugs me. Aside from the obvious "Argument from Personal Incredulity", and the false dichotomy people often feel obliged to review under, there really are more problems in the way people "evaluate" mediums. Take inconsistency for example. This is really the root of the problem of setting a false dichotomy of films/music/art/literature. There is no correct way to create and experience such mediums, thus, how can one even begin to compare films/music/art/literature of the same genre? It sets up a redundant expectation upon the medium, an expectation that contends itself as the truth so long as mindless sheep are feeding its ego. Films/art/music/literature are intended for the purpose of entertainment, and that's all that can be said. However, what people find entertaining vary - and that seems to be what people have lost sight of.

If one doesn't find a medium entertaining, don't give it a bad review, that's just childish.

I believe there is a right way to do reviews, a way that's reserved for the elite in the command of a given language, reserved for the impartially elite, and reserved for those who allow themselves to set themselves apart from the film and evaluate it from objective grounds.

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An apology if this doesn't make sense. I'm not thinking straight.