Comments on: Reviews contain opinions, and yours might be different!

By: David Manning

David Manning — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 05:31:22 +0000

Whome and David:

I do not have to see “Wild Hogs,” “Little Man,” “Epic Movie,” or “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 17″ to know that they suck. I mean, come on.

By: Maxo

Maxo — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 20:53:19 +0000

I’m not sure if the internet age caused your problem, but it has brought you the solution. Just have Jeff code your site so that it prefixes “IMHO, ” onto every review or post automatically. Normal people like me despise overused messageboard phrases like this and read right over them. Hopefully it will cause the annoying ones to shut up.

By: whome

whome — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 20:14:51 +0000

There are many movies I will simply never go see, and I feel I have a right to object strongly to their promotion to the public (torture porn, for example). I don’t have to put myself through the torture of watching it to have very strong opinions about it. I don’t have to say “well, it’s probably not good for children, but since I haven’t taken my kids to it, I don’t really know yet”. Rather I say that taking a child to a torture-porn movie is a form of child abuse, and I feel completely justified in my opinion.

By: David

David — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 18:59:43 +0000

Whome, having an opinion like “that movie looks like it’s probably bad” or “I don’t think I would enjoy that movie” is not the same as saying, categorically, “that movie sucks” when you haven’t actually seen it. it’s stupid to say definitely that a movie is bad (or good) if you haven’t seen it.

By: whome

whome — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 18:51:56 +0000

I don’t see what’s wrong with insulting the audience. If something is really stupid yet people cheer it on, I think it is fair game for comments from a reviewer. And please, enough with this “if you haven’t seen it, you are not allowed an opinion” nonsense. By that reasoning, all films _must_ be box office successes, because you _must_ see it so you can have an opinion. How are we to vote with our dollars if we have to vote positive to have a negative opinion?

By: Kyralessa

Kyralessa — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 03:12:35 +0000

I don’t mind the opinions. Of course you have an opinion. You just saw a movie. Either you liked it or you didn’t.

What bothers me is when the reviewer gives the impression of having formed his opinion well before seeing the movie: “This is a movie by Michael Bay. It was thus foreordained that it would suck. Sure enough, it does!” That’s just unprofessional. It doesn’t matter how many sucky movies you think a director has produced. If you go in assuming his next one will suck without having seen it, you should hang up your movie-reviewer hat. (Ideally you wouldn’t even know who directed a movie before seeing it, though I don’t see that happening in real life any time soon.)

And no, I haven’t seen Transformers and therefore don’t have an opinion about how good it is or isn’t. I’m just disgusted by the number of critics who seem to have based their opinions about the movie on who its director was rather than on the merits of the movie itself.

(Incidentally, I did see _The Island_ and thought it was entertaining, which is what a movie is supposed to be. Not everything has to win an Oscar. I haven’t seen any other Michael Bay stuff, though.)

By: David Manning

David Manning — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 01:33:29 +0000

What I want to know is what Eric was doing on Kotaku. He’s on record for saying adult males shouldn’t still be playing videogames once they’ve reached the age of 30. (I jest, of course. I’m sure he Googled his way there.)

And for the way people feel about not being able to share their opinions the way a film/music/art critic can, Eric hit the nail on the head. I feel like that *almost every* time I read one of Eric’s masterfully-written reviews. As a hardcore (see: nerdy) film buff who loves nothing more, it is Eric’s writing that makes me aspire to be a film critic.

By: Fritz Stephey

Fritz Stephey — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 00:28:27 +0000

I often review wrestling shows (The Weekly TV Shows…rating their story-line use, believability, and how the matches play out)…but that’s the breaks when you give your opinion on anything…you undoubtedly are going to piss someone off because they are so insecure that someone (Someone behind a FRICKIN’ computer screen) disagrees with them.

By: card

card — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 23:17:40 +0000

IMHO, I think that this blog is a pile of dung. /sarcasm

This reminds me of a time when a guy started yelling at me because I always state my opinions as if I thought they were true. Um… if I didn’t believe my own opinion, then it wouldn’t be my opinion!

By: Turkey

Turkey — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 22:54:17 +0000

I hope you beat her repeatedly. And let the others watch.

And I agree that making fun of film viewers simply because they have crappy taste in movies probably shouldn’t be part of a film reviewer’s review. If you state enough times that the film sucked, the point should get across well enough that those who saw it and enjoyed it saw and enjoyed a sucky film.