Your opinion of the critics

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Django, Apr 6, 2015.

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  1. Maggie

    Maggie like a walking, talking art show

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    It is arguable that the more you know about an art form, the more equipped you are to interpret it, and thus, yes, the more capable of rendering a justifiable opinion as to whether a given work is successful or not at what it sets out to do.

    The question is, what kind of knowledge is relevant in assessing an artwork? You mention the critical drubbings that some prog rock has taken over the years. Wouldn't people who know a lot about prog rock because they love it be better equipped to render an opinion of it than critics who don't like it? Well, first, you're assuming that a critic that doesn't like prog rock necessarily understands it less than a lover of the genre might. Furthermore, is knowledge of prog rock alone all that's needed to assess prog rock when it typically aspires to be more than just "rock"? Prog rock fans may know a lot about prog rock, but they are seldom very knowledgeable about the classical traditions that so much prog rock aspires to emulate.
     
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  2. mj_patrick

    mj_patrick Senior Member

    Location:
    Elkhart, IN, USA
    Ebert was articulate and highly intelligent. While I didn't agree with his opinions all the time, I did often. Reading his reviews taught me more about film in general, as well as what makes for a good one.

    That often gets extended to reviews by members here. What I don't do well with is "This film sucks" with little explanation as to why...
     
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  3. Monosterio

    Monosterio Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Florida
    I love critics -- Robert Christgau and the late Pauline Kael in particular.
     
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  4. guy incognito

    guy incognito Senior Member

    Location:
    Mee-chigan
    “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

    ― Theodore Roosevelt
     
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  5. profholt82

    profholt82 Resident Blowhard

    Location:
    West Michigan
    Hello, my name is Guy Incognito.
    [​IMG]

    Great screen name, @guy incognito. :righton:
     
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  6. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Exactly. If they have an informed opinion, told in an entertaining way, particularly from the context of somebody who understands the length and breadth of film history, then it has an impact. There are critics out there that I don't necessarily agree with 100%, but I enjoy their opinions and their point of view. Having good abilities as writers and journalists also scores extra points with me.
     
  7. peter fuller

    peter fuller Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vermont
    See my post #15 above. I beat you to it.

    I swear I am not criticizing critics though. Just questioning whether one person's opinion on art is more valid than any body else's. I tell ya, I am regretting responding to begin with. Next time I will keep my opinion to myself. :hide:
     
  8. peter fuller

    peter fuller Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vermont
    Not to belabor this but how am I am "metacritic"? I'll be honest, I had to look up the word and found this definition from several sources.

    Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows, DVDs, and formerly, books. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. It was created and founded by Jason Dietz, Marc Doyle, and Julie Doyle Roberts.

    So how am I this?
     
    Last edited: Apr 6, 2015
  9. Bryan

    Bryan Starman Jr.

    Location:
    Berkeley, CA
    I use the opinions of professional critics (informed by their expertise) to guide the use of my finite time and money.

    I'm not made of money, so I'm not going to drop $12 on a movie ticket going into it completely blind, just so I can act morally superior by ignoring "the critics."
     
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  10. ralphb

    ralphb "First they came for..."

    Location:
    Brooklyn, New York
    Why? It's a good topic. A lot of folks on this forum dislike critics, and a thread where we hash out just whats makes their opinions more (or less) relevant than ours is a good idea.
     
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  11. peter fuller

    peter fuller Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vermont
    Oh I'm mostly kidding. I am enjoying the conversation. I just seemed to have elicited quite a response to my initial post. For the record, I don't dislike the critics themselves, just the concept of artistic criticism. Well maybe a few.... :D
     
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  12. guidedbyvoices

    guidedbyvoices Old Dan's Records

    Location:
    Alpine, TX
    Nah don't keep it to yourself. It's an interesting conversation.

    A critics opinion isn't any more valid than mine. A million film nerds say Tokyo Story is one of the all time greats but I found it a slog. But a good critic like ebert can explain what makes it so great. I may disagree but a good critic can add layers to understanding
     
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  13. darkmass

    darkmass Forum Resident

    It seems you found a website. However, the prefix "meta" existed before websites. :)

    This gets there in one fashion:

    "meta
    A term, especially in art, used to characterize something that is characteristically self-referential." From here.

    So if you are criticizing critics, you have become self-referential. Now don't take me as being antagonistic towards you, I'm not, I'm just having a bit of fun with the logic of the situation.

    Let me give you another take on "meta", this time from a wiki. The second definition on the page reads, "Pertaining to a level above or beyond. For example, metadata is data that describes data, metalanguage is language that describes language, etc." There ya go. A critic that describes critics.
     
  14. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    Critics aren't about telling you what to like - critics are about discussing what they think is good/bad about something.

    Like others have said, a good critic will teach you something about the movie/album/book/whatever. It's not just a simple "I like it" or "I don't like it" thing.

    I feel too many people classify critics as telling people what to think/like but those people miss the point,,,
     
  15. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    A lot of people here think that hating critics makes them "independent thinkers" - like they can never take advice from anyone else.

    That doesn't make them "independent thinkers" - it makes them close-minded and stubborn...
     
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  16. peter fuller

    peter fuller Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vermont
    Ummm I never said I hated critics OK. Nor am I particularly stubborn or closed minded. What I said was.... Oh never mind.
     
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  17. O Don Piano

    O Don Piano Senior Member

    No there's a lot of OPINIONS on this forum, and many, many of these opinions have absolutely nothing behind these criticism other than they hate it or love it. It's much more interesting when there's a semblance of wit or wisdom when criticizing something.
     
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  18. John54

    John54 Senior Member

    Location:
    Burlington, ON
    I'm not a movies person, but I sometimes like to read reviews just for the review itself. Chris Knight in the National Post, for one, is often extremely amusing and a great read. And I bought a book by the late great Jay Scott even having seen almost none of the movies he wrote about.
     
  19. Solaris

    Solaris a bullet in flight

    Location:
    New Orleans, LA
    I used to think I wanted to be a music critic and music journalist, but after about a year of it I decided it wasn't a profession I wanted to be involved in. This is partly because I started questioning the whole critical "establishment" and wondering what the ultimate goal was. I've since realized that you can determine what kind of "critic" you want to be, depending on your market, and write with that goal in mind.

    I grew up reading -- a lot -- and took in quite a large chunk of literary, music, art and film criticism. The best writing about any art form doesn't try to tell you what to think or impose an opinion on you, but educates you about where that work fits into the world, how it reflects the world, and sometimes helps a piece find its audience. This is, to me at least, the most worthwhile thing that critical writing can do. I would even go so far as to say that what I'm drawn to isn't exactly "criticism" so much as thoughtful writing. You can, after all, learn as much from "bad" art as "good" art, if you have enough context to connect the dots.

    Ultimately, most modern criticism consists of underinformed opinions composed by so-called writers of very little depth. It's easy to distinguish a good writer from a bad one, so judge the merit of their critiques accordingly.
     
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  20. Purple Jim

    Purple Jim Senior Member

    Location:
    Bretagne
    Me too. I hate dumb blockbusters but I like great blockbuster - "X-men, Days Of Future Past" for example, was excellent (as the critics agreed).
     
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  21. Spaghettiows

    Spaghettiows Forum Resident

    Location:
    Silver Creek, NY
    I enjoy reading film and TV critics. Music critics, usually not.

    Most of the published music critics seem to subtly enforce a kind of groupthink on each other that revolves around lingering disdain of the types of people that they didn't get along with in high school. The music that was generally enjoyed by those cliques that for some reason most music critics didn't connect with as teenagers is dismissed. Music critics don't objectively hate prog, metal or corporate rock bands. They associate bands from Rush to Boston to Judas Priest with those longhairs/jocks/whomever they resented all those years ago, so those bands are ignored or disparaged and their successes unacknowledged.
     
  22. Freedom Rider

    Freedom Rider Senior Member

    Location:
    Russia
    I agree with Walter Kirn who said “The best critic needn't be right, just interesting.”
     
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  23. Monosterio

    Monosterio Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Florida
    That critic had better be batting more than 67% if he or she wants to be my critic. :D
     
  24. audiomixer

    audiomixer As Bald As The Beatles

    Guaranteed payola for some...
     
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  25. guidedbyvoices

    guidedbyvoices Old Dan's Records

    Location:
    Alpine, TX
    I think how i approach music critics is that there are certain sites and writers with tastes aligned to mine. A negative review won't affect me, but if they get REALLY EXCITED about something, then I'll mark it in the back of my mind and try to check it out. And if I see that same thing mentioned multiple places with high marks, then it raises its priority to me. Aside from ebert there's no one place or reviewer that influences me, it's all of it in total.
     
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