Ella Enchanted preview out

[Fellfrosch]

How can you say, as a regular contributor to a review (ie, critic) site, that you don't like critics?

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I am full of self-loathing.

I've just never seen a review of a movie by a professional critic that had much bearing on whether the movie was really good.

Also, naturally, I can do it because i want free stuff.

[Mistress of Darkness]

Well--it's got a 46 on rt so far.

My problem with movie reviews is that they are mostly just a summary of the movie's plot. How's that supposed to help me know if the movie's good or not?

[Fellfrosch]

You must be reading the wrong ones, MoD. I read every review Ebert writes, regardless of whether I actually care about the movie, simply because he's a very good writer. I tend to disagree with him in a lot of areas, but I know what those areas so I filter as I read, and I end up knowing exactly what I need to know.

[42]

It is the responsiblity of the film critic to go over the basic plot of the film. It's what most people are looking for in a review to help them decide if they want to see the film or not. Then the critic should add their opinion of the film on top of that.

Personally, I glean a lot about how a critic feels about a film by how they describe the film. I can usually tell if a critic is in a good mood or not when they saw the film and wether or not they went into the film with a bias.

Also, Ella Enchanted came in at number 9 at the box-office. So it sounds as though the film-makers just made a bad film despite having good source material.

[stacer]

Definitely the source material is good. The book won a Newbery Honor and is one of the most original Cinderella stories I've read that still allows her to get the prince at the end. I can't remember, but I think it came out in the early to mid-90s, so it came out before all the other retellings in book or movie (like Ever After).

[Mistress of Darkness]

I don't like Ever After. Sorry, I feel the need to say that.

Thanks for the tip Fell. I've wanted to start writing movie reviews, but hadn't found a good example. Anyone else know of a critic who writes useful reviews?

[Tage]

To tell the truth, I like Eric Snider's movie reviews. He's a local Utah reviewer, for those non-utahns among us. Like Ebert, I don't always agree with his opinions, but he's very descriptive about why he does or doesn't like a movie, and he's consistent. So I can generally tell whether I'm going to like a movie based on his review.

[fuzzyoctopus]

Ditto on everything Tage just said.

His reviews are a very good judge of whether or not I'll like a movie.

[Fellfrosch]

That's the trick with reviewers--you know you're not going to agree with anyone 1005, so you have to find one you enjoy stylistically and then get to know them. You'll almost always come away from each review with a good idea of whether or not you'll like it, and why.

[Sharm]

<sigh>  I was really hopeing that this would be a good movie, I loved the book so much.  But from the reviews and what I've seen of it, it's going to be horrific.

Yet another reason I wanted to make my own movies as a child.  Too bad I grew out of it...