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Message: <blockquote data-quote="barsoomcore" data-source="post: 1871602" data-attributes="member: 812">And, isn't it kind of the POINT of film critics to be, you know, CRITICAL of films?I mean, seriously.Actually, I think it's useful to distinguish between REVIEWERS and CRITICS. A reviewer is just somebody who says, "I liked it or didn't like it and here's why." A critic is somebody who says, "Here's a viewpoint on this film and what it means."The reviewer's job is to give appraisals of films that people come to count on -- whether they agree or not, at least you're providing them with information they feel like comes from a reliable source. Their primary statement is "I liked the film." Or the opposite.The critic's job is to provide context for films, so that audiences as they watch the film can better appreciate what is or isn't being done by the film-makers. Whether or not they LIKE the film is actually beside the point.Roger Ebert is a critic who writes reviews. He knows very very large amounts of stuff about cinema, and his website features critical commentaries on lots of films. A magazine like Sight And Sound is a critical magazine. A magazine like Entertainment Weekly is a review magazine. The former is for students of cinema who are looking for new ways to consider the medium. The latter is a guide for consumers of cinema to help them decide where to spend their money.So critics are SUPPOSED to be elitist. That's their job, and if they don't do it, they aren't contributing anything to the art. Reviewers don't have to be.Just to say pretty much whenever I see somebody say, "It's not brilliant but it's an entertaining mindless flick," I say, "It's a piece of crap, but it's the latest, shiniest piece of crap so people will go and see it."But hey, I'm an elitist. I only like GOOD films. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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