{"id":734,"date":"2015-04-15T22:17:13","date_gmt":"2015-04-16T03:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.westhoffpws.com\/jeffreywesthoff\/2015\/04\/15\/questions-for-an-ex-film-critic\/"},"modified":"2015-12-10T13:06:36","modified_gmt":"2015-12-10T18:06:36","slug":"questions-for-an-ex-film-critic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westhoffpws.com\/jeffreywesthoff\/2015\/04\/15\/questions-for-an-ex-film-critic\/","title":{"rendered":"Questions for an ex film critic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several weeks ago I received an email from the features editor at the Kane County Chronicle, which is one of the newspapers that ran my movie reviews, telling me a local student was doing a class project on film criticism and wanted to interview me. I wrote back asking if the boy knew I hadn\u2019t been a practicing film critic (outside of this blog) for nearly two years? The editor said the student was aware of this, so I said,\u00a0\u201cOK, pass along my contact information.\u201d Of course, I was happy and surprised anyone, especially a middle school student, remembered me.<\/em><\/p>\n

The student, an eighth-grader named Ryan (I won\u2019t disclose his last name for privacy\u2019s sake), decided to email me a list of questions. Once I was done writing my responses, I thought the exchange would make a decent blog post. Having received Ryan\u2019s permission, I now present an interview with a former film critic:<\/em><\/p>\n

1. What\u00a0kind of education does it take to be a film critic?<\/h2>\n

The most important education is to watch lots of movies of a\u00a0wide variety. Watch them and think about them. Why do you like this one but\u00a0dislike that one? Were there things you didn\u2019t like about a favorite movie or\u00a0things you admired in a movie you otherwise hated? Who is your favorite actor\u00a0or actress? Why? What does he or she do that appeals to you? The more movies\u00a0you watch, the more you learn. All movies draw from earlier movies. You should\u00a0be able to recognize those earlier movies.<\/p>\n

The second important task is to read film reviews. Lots of them\u00a0by many different critics, not the critics you always agree with. Rotten\u00a0Tomatoes and similar websites make it easy to read hundreds of reviews every\u00a0week. Find a few critics you admire and study their writing. How do they make\u00a0their points? What words caught your fancy? What percentage of the review is\u00a0recapping the plot and what percentage is analysis? What made you laugh? What\u00a0made you think? What made you think while laughing?<\/p>\n

You can take your education a step further and study film in\u00a0college. That\u2019s not necessary. I reckon most working film critics are\u00a0self-taught in terms of film studies. Yet film classes can only deepen your\u00a0knowledge. I went to Marquette University, which didn\u2019t have a film major and\u00a0offered only a few film studies classes. I took the few I could and benefited\u00a0from them. One was called \u201cLiterature into Film\u201d and I wrote my final paper on\u00a0Carol Reed\u2019s The Fallen Idol <\/i>(based on a Graham Greene novella), which is still one of my favorite movies.<\/p>\n

Even if you don\u2019t take any formal film studies, you should\u00a0read books about film to learn its history and how films are made. A book I\u00a0recommend is Making Movies Work: Thinking Like a Filmmaker<\/a><\/i> by Jon Boorstin<\/a>. The\u00a0copy I have is under its original (better) title: The Hollywood Eye<\/i>. This is\u00a0a brief but comprehensive introduction to the elements of film: cinematography,\u00a0frame composition, editing, screenwriting, etc. I like it in spite of\u00a0Boorstin\u2019s cheap knocks on the James Bond movies.<\/p>\n

One important but sadly overlooked aspect in the education of\u00a0a film critic is you must know how to write well. You are a communicator who\u00a0wants to share your thoughts, which are often complicated, with an audience.\u00a0You need to know how to put those thoughts into words and how to build coherent\u00a0and compelling sentences and paragraphs with those words. I studied journalism,\u00a0so I learned how to write for the masses. Even if you plan to review movies on\u00a0YouTube, you should write your reviews beforehand and practice your delivery.\u00a0Unless you are an excellent extemporaneous speaker, winging it in front of a\u00a0camera will come across as amateurish. Distinguish yourself from the thousands\u00a0of other movie fans with YouTube accounts and viewers will watch you again and\u00a0again.<\/p>\n

2. How did you break into\u00a0movie reviews? Did you have any jobs prior to this?<\/b><\/h2>\n

The simple answer is I asked. And I did it twice. I wrote movie\u00a0reviews for my high school paper and one day the editor for the entertainment\u00a0section of our local newspaper, The Erie Times-News, gave a career day speech.\u00a0He said, \u201cIf you want to do something, you have to prove you can do it.\u201d At the\u00a0end of his presentation, I went up to him and asked if I could write movie\u00a0reviews for the Times-News. He looked over what I had written for the high\u00a0school paper and apparently thought I was good enough, because he gave me a few\u00a0assignments. My first professionally published review was for Trail of the\u00a0Pink Panther<\/i>. I still remember the headline: \u201cPink Panther \u2018Trail\u2019 leads to\u00a0laughs, snores.\u201d<\/p>\n

When I went to Marquette I continued to write reviews for the\u00a0student newspaper (this is probably still the best training ground for aspiring\u00a0movie critics). I had a job as a reporter at a paper in Wabash, Ind., after graduating, but I didn’t see a role for a film critic in town that had one\u00a0theater that showed movies a month after they opened. When I got to the\u00a0Northwest Herald I started as a copy editor but wanted to write movie reviews\u00a0on the side. I asked editors and they said they\u2019d think about it. So finally\u00a0one day I figured I had to show them what I could do. I wrote a review of the new\u00a0Brian DePalma film, Casualties of War<\/i>. I told an editor, \u201cI wrote a review of Casualties of War<\/i> if you want to take a look at it.\u201d He said, \u201cGreat, we\u2019ll\u00a0run it next Friday.\u201d I continued to write reviews for the Herald for about 25\u00a0years.<\/p>\n

3. What elements make a\u00a0good movie for you? Do you focus on any specific parts or elements? Does it\u00a0depend based on the genre?<\/b><\/h2>\n

I don\u2019t break movies down into elements as I watch them. I prefer\u00a0to have the whole experience wash over me then go back and figure how the\u00a0elements combined to make the movie work or how the elements smacked into each\u00a0other as the movie failed. Even great movies have elements that don\u2019t work (I\u2019m\u00a0not among those who consider Raiders of the Lost Ark <\/i>a great film, but did\u00a0you ever notice if you took Indiana Jones out of the story, the movie would end\u00a0the same way?)<\/p>\n

I suppose because I\u2019m a writer I pay the most attention to the screenplay. How\u00a0is the story told? What are the gaps in logic? If everything else works, I\u2019m\u00a0willing to forgive even a weak story. For example, I love the Bond movie Skyfall <\/i>even though the plot doesn\u2019t make a lick of sense.<\/p>\n

4. What advice would you\u00a0give to an aspiring film critic\/filmmaker?<\/b><\/h2>\n

There\u2019s so much to say, but I think I\u2019ll keep this answer short. I\u00a0believe the most important part of being a film critic is honesty. You have to\u00a0be honest to the film, honest to your readers and honest to yourself. Sometimes\u00a0the last one is the hardest.<\/p>\n

5. Is there such thing as\u00a0objective film criticism?<\/b><\/h2>\n

No. Your reaction to a film is based upon everything that has made\u00a0you a person: your upbringing, your background, your religion, your philosophy,\u00a0your politics, your tastes. Everyone has a different read on a film, even two\u00a0people who largely agree on why they like a movie. The differences should be\u00a0celebrated. This is why Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert were an unbeatable team.<\/p>\n

6. How did you write your\u00a0reviews? Would you actively take notes or focus on certain scenes?<\/b><\/h2>\n

I took notes. And if I was lucky I could read them afterward.\u00a0Writing legibly in the dark is a skill I never quite mastered. I didn’t have a\u00a0checklist or chart of things I was looking for. This goes back to my belief in\u00a0experiencing the movie as it happens. I would jot down things that struck me as\u00a0either smart or stupid. I also tried to get the basic who, where, when, why\u00a0stuff. Where is the movie set? During what era? Some movies don\u2019t make it\u00a0obvious, believe it or not.<\/p>\n

I would also try to write down lines of dialogue that I liked or\u00a0disliked. You should have a few lines of dialogue to use as concrete examples\u00a0in the review. This goes back to basic reporting: Be specific. It is too easy\u00a0to slip into vague opinions while writing reviews. \u201cThe dialogue was lousy.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>What made it lousy? Give an example of a lousy line of dialogue so the reader\u00a0<\/span>knows what you mean. You can also do this with descriptions of scenes or an\u00a0<\/span>actor\u2019s mannerisms. Taking notes allows you to remember specific pieces of a\u00a0<\/span>movie to share with your readers.<\/span><\/p>\n

7. What is the worst part of\u00a0the job? (besides watching a bad movie)<\/b><\/h2>\n

During my last few years with the Herald the paper cut back on the\u00a0number of reviews until it was just one a week. Because I was writing for a\u00a0suburban paper with a general readership, this meant I had to concentrate on\u00a0Hollywood genre stuff and try to pick the biggest movie each week (I didn\u2019t\u00a0always get this right). I felt this reduced my effectiveness as a film critic.\u00a0It was like standing outside a Baskin-Robbins 31 Flavors and someone asks me\u00a0about the new mango sorbet. \u201cI\u2019m afraid I haven\u2019t tried that,\u201d I would have to\u00a0say, \u201cbut I could tell you everything you want to know about the vanilla and\u00a0the chocolate.\u201d<\/p>\n

The worst thing about reviewing only the big movies, and this\u00a0happened over the last 10 years, is that they were always screened at night,\u00a0usually the Tuesday before the movie opened. In previous years most movies,\u00a0even the big ones, were shown during the day in a screening room in the Loop,\u00a0usually three in a row. People used to ask me how I could watch three movies in\u00a0one day, but I would say I would rather go downtown (I usually took the train)\u00a0and watch three movies at once and get it over with than spend three hours on a\u00a0train, round trip, to watch a single two-hour movie. But that\u2019s what the last\u00a0few years of the job became, and increasingly movies were screened at a theater\u00a0I hated because it was difficult to catch a cab after the movie. It became\u00a0exhausting, and I often didn’t get home until around midnight. Critics who\u00a0don\u2019t commute from the suburbs don\u2019t have this problem, but a lot of late\u00a0nights can wear you down, particularly when it\u2019s all for bad movie.<\/p>\n

8. Are there any movies\u00a0that you have changed your opinion on? (drastically such as \u2018bad to good\u2019 or\u00a0‘good to bad\u2019)<\/b><\/h2>\n

Certainly, but mostly from \u201cgood to bad,\u201d and a lot of that comes with\u00a0time. Naturally there are the movies you loved as a kid that you look at years\u00a0later and say, \u201cWow, this is terrible.\u201d Classic example for me is Moonraker<\/a><\/i>. I saw it on opening day when I was 13 and thought it was the greatest thing\u00a0ever and cemented my Bond fandom. Now I regard it as one of the weakest James\u00a0Bond movies (it\u2019s not the worst, though). However, I think The Man With the\u00a0Golden Gun<\/i>, bizarrely, has improved with age. Most of the Roger Moore movies look\u00a0better through the haze of the Pierce Brosnan era.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t think of many examples of movies that I dismissed when I\u00a0first saw them but grew to admire. I saw Terms of Endearment<\/i> when it first\u00a0came out and I was in high school but I didn\u2019t like it because I couldn\u2019t\u00a0relate to the characters. I couldn\u2019t believe intelligent people would be so\u00a0dishonest with each other. When I watched it again as an adult, I understood\u00a0it. Even intelligent people can have difficulty telling the truth.<\/p>\n

9. Were you ever criticized\u00a0for your review of a movie?<\/b><\/h2>\n

Oh, sure. It goes with the territory. I always figured a critic\u00a0who can\u2019t take criticism is in the wrong line of work.<\/p>\n

However, it bugs me to no end that the charge most often leveled\u00a0against film critics is that, if we dare to call a Transformers movie is crap,\u00a0we\u2019re elitists who need to learn to lighten up. Having a broad knowledge of\u00a0film is something that is held against us. I can\u2019t think of another profession\u00a0where the practitioners are treated with contempt for taking their jobs\u00a0seriously. If these people were taken to the emergency room, would they tell\u00a0the surgeon, \u201cI hope you\u2019re not one of those elitist doctors who keeps up to\u00a0date with the medical journals\u201d?<\/p>\n

10. When doing a review for\u00a0a movie not aimed at your demographic (such as a ‘kids\u2019 movie) would you review\u00a0it like any other movie or be a little less harsh on the film?<\/b><\/h2>\n

No. It\u2019s a dangerous thing to write a review assuming another\u00a0demographic\u2019s point of view. As I said before, your reaction to a movie is\u00a0formed by everything you have experienced in your lifetime. Saying, \u201cIt\u2019s good\u00a0enough for kids,\u201d is lazy film criticism and dishonest.<\/p>\n

Moreover, I never understood the belief that movies aimed at kids\u00a0should be held to a lower standard. If anything, they should be held to a\u00a0higher standard. Kids aren’t stupid. They can be engaged by material that is\u00a0more than a string of fart jokes. Yes, I know most children will laugh\u00a0uproariously at a cavalcade of fart jokes, but most children would want to eat\u00a0at McDonald\u2019s every day. I don\u2019t understand why parents would feed their\u00a0children to a steady diet of cinematic junk food. Well, I guess bad movies\u00a0won\u2019t make their kids fat, and maybe children hit a point when they recognize\u00a0not all computer animated films are as good as Pixar\u2019s and begin to wonder why.<\/p>\n

11. Do you have any\u00a0memories when you were an active film critic? (meeting an actor or contacted by\u00a0one, riffing a bad movie at its showing, etc.)<\/b><\/h2>\n

Too many to go into. I used to enjoy the interviews with actors\u00a0and directors. Pierce Brosnan once wished me a happy birthday, so that was a\u00a0thrill for me.<\/p>\n

When I reviewed a dismal serial killer movie called Suspect Zero<\/i> I wrote something along the lines of it had the smell of a movie whose director\u00a0superimposed his own ideas on the script until the story became obliterated by\u00a0his ego. A few weeks later I got an email from the screenwriter, Zak Penn<\/a>, who\u00a0said, \u201cYou\u2019re my new best friend,\u201d and then detailed how the director ruined\u00a0his script. The original script did sound much better.<\/p>\n

My most famous interaction with a filmmaker was the hate letter\u00a0Michael Bay sent after my review of Transformers<\/i> (which I gave two stars. I\u00a0wonder how he would have reacted if I had given it one star). To my delight, Roger\u00a0Ebert came to my defense in his Movie Answer Man column. You can read it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

12. What are some of your\u00a0favorite and least favorite movies?<\/b><\/h2>\n

On Her Majesty\u2019s Secret Service<\/a><\/i> is my favorite movie. As I\u00a0said, I\u2019m a Bond fan. And, yes, that is the one with George Lazenby.<\/p>\n

Other\u00a0favorites are It\u2019s a Wonderful Life<\/i>, Gregory\u2019s Girl<\/a><\/i>, Heaven Can Wait <\/i>(1978, the one with Warren Beatty), Monty Python and the Holy Grail<\/i>, Citizen\u00a0Kane<\/i>, Bringing Up Baby<\/i>, The Incredibles<\/i>, The Spy Who Loved Me<\/a><\/i>, American\u00a0Graffiti<\/i>, Star Wars<\/a><\/i>, Harold and Maude<\/i>, Lawrence of Arabia<\/i>, The\u00a0Godfather<\/i>, Jaws<\/i>, The Bad News Bears<\/i>, Buster Keaton\u2019s\u2019 The General<\/i>, Sunrise<\/i>, Groundhog Day<\/i>, A Matter of Life and Death\/Stairway to Heaven<\/i>, Spider-Man 2,<\/i>\u00a0Pinocchio<\/i>, Aladdin<\/a><\/i>, Top Hat<\/i>, Babe<\/i>, Rashomon<\/i>, From\u00a0Russia With Love<\/a><\/i>, A Little Romance<\/i>, Rushmore.\u00a0<\/i>I could go on and on.<\/p>\n

Least favorite movies? I\u2019ll narrow it down to one. It\u2019s a Michael Bay\u00a0movie, Bad Boys II<\/i>. Not only is the story ludicrous \u2013 in the final act, two\u00a0Miami cops invade Cuba<\/i> \u2013 but I count\u00a0it as the worst film I ever reviewed because it is so hateful, misanthropic,\u00a0misogynistic, sadistic and sickening. At one point Martin Lawrence gropes a\u00a0well-endowed woman\u2019s corpse. The movie is mean-spirited to the core.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several weeks ago I received an email from the features editor at the Kane County Chronicle, which is one of the newspapers that ran my movie reviews, telling me a local student was doing a class project on film criticism and wanted to interview me. I wrote back asking if the boy knew I hadn\u2019t…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[461,334,349],"tags":[452,458,459,454,455,190,191,460,193,449,450,457,166,451,187,456,453],"class_list":["post-734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film-criticism","category-films","category-personal-ramblings","tag-advice","tag-class-project","tag-education","tag-favorite-films","tag-favorite-movies","tag-film","tag-film-criticism","tag-film-studies","tag-gene-siskel","tag-interview","tag-jon-boorstin","tag-least-favorite-movie","tag-michael-bay","tag-movies","tag-roger-ebert","tag-worst-movies","tag-zak-penn"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5foza-bQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westhoffpws.com\/jeffreywesthoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westhoffpws.com\/jeffreywesthoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westhoffpws.com\/jeffreywesthoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westhoffpws.com\/jeffreywesthoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westhoffpws.com\/jeffreywesthoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=734"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.westhoffpws.com\/jeffreywesthoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1347,"href":"https:\/\/www.westhoffpws.com\/jeffreywesthoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734\/revisions\/1347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westhoffpws.com\/jeffreywesthoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westhoffpws.com\/jeffreywesthoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westhoffpws.com\/jeffreywesthoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}