Comments on: ‘SATC’ commenters: Maybe not as dumb as they seem

By: Keryn

Keryn — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 14:46:41 +0000

It’s true, Eric, I do come to your site (for movie reviews) because I know that you generally review just about every movie I’ve heard about, and many I haven’t. And although I haven’t been to a movie in the theater for more than two years (little kids will do that to you), I read every single review. Mostly because I want to be current with popular culture, and I think you are hilarious.

I come to your site for humor because, well, see above. You are a very good, very awesome, very funny writer. I’ve been a fan since Daily Universe days, when the Monday paper (with Snide Remarks) and the Friday paper (with Police Beat) were the best of the week.

By: who me

who me — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 05:10:22 +0000

#3 Steve, Eric used to be one of the primary critics at a smaller city paper, and so should probably count as a professional, even if he’s only part-time now. And I agree, it wouldn’t make much difference to me since I trust him more than other critics. But I do consider him more than just a blogger critic beause of his background.

By: Lindsay

Lindsay — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 03:17:15 +0000

I’ve been reading Eric’s stuff since 1997 and I think that his level of crotchetiness has definitely increased over the years. Whether this is the result of overexposure to stupidity or a simple byproduct of the aging process I can’t say.

By: yay for the uninformed angry person!

yay for the uninformed angry person! — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:04:34 +0000

Personally, I love the fact that people get so angered with Eric because it provides Eric with insight he wouldn’t otherwise have (or at least be able to remark upon) . I believe that angry letters and upset people have allowed him to become a better social critic (Snide Remarks, I think, often reflects that). So kudos for angry weirdos for allowing a person to get insight into the human condition. Eric peers inside the mind of others and what do we get? Hmm…spiders? hornet’s nest? Cheese whiz? Anyone?

Of course, I wonder if it sometimes causes an excess of crotchety for poor Eric, kinda like how working customer service causes you to hate all humanity.

Discuss.

By: Jake

Jake — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:52:27 +0000

Great comment, Steve Zimmerman. Well written!

By: Eric D. Snider

Eric D. Snider — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:44:18 +0000

Steve: Good point about the ambiguity of it all. I do get paid for the Film.com and Cinematical reviews, of course. No one pays me for the ones that only appear at EricDSnider.com, at least not directly. But the site itself produces income through the ads (click away, folks; click away!) and Amazon commissions, so it behooves me to review as many films as I can in the interest of being complete, thorough, and reliable, and thus attractive to Internet users. I’m sure I wouldn’t have nearly as many regular readers as I do if it weren’t for the fact that they can usually count on me to have reviewed whatever new film it is they’re looking for. So even if nobody pays me to see SATC specifically, there are long-run, big-picture financial benefits to reviewing it.

So am I any different from just a regular ol’ blogger? I dunno. I am on the press lists and get invited to screenings, which a lot of bloggers aren’t. Then again, some are. Some of my reviews appear in legitimate professional enterprises such as Salt Lake City Weekly, so maybe that makes me legit. As has been pointed out, the Internet has leveled the playing field. It doesn’t really matter who does it for a living and who does it for fun. What’s important is whether they’re good at it.

By: Danno Ferrin

Danno Ferrin — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:26:45 +0000

Perhaps you should remind them (those who left comment on your SATC review) of what you really think of Titanic. Looks like it’s the same crowd, just with HBO subscriptions.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:02:08 +0000

It seems that you (Eric) have fallen victim to the internet. Before the widespread use of the internet for multi purposes movie critics and any person whose profession is to critique or give an educated evaluation based on opinion or education or both were held in another class. This forced people to purchase or seek more difficult means in which to read your publications, now thet can get on the internet and read it and they don’t know that you are a professional. When it comes to those who don’t like your opinion, embrace that because at least they are visiting the site and you are getting people there, and they will be back, probably just to hear the negative things you may say about their next movie, and as expected they will write a negative comment to you and think that they have made a difference. Lastly, if I have learned one thing it is that difference of opinion creates debate and produces results.

By: Randy Tayler

Randy Tayler — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:59:31 +0000

No, I want “Eric D. Snider: Film Critic Writer Yes!”

By: Steve Zimmerman

Steve Zimmerman — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:36:55 +0000

Eric, what I found very interesting about your comments is that even though I’ve been reading your stuff for a long time, I was not entirely clear as to whether or not writing movie reviews is now your full time job or even if you get paid for any of the reviews that don’t end up on Film.com. I’m still not clear, as it turns out.

What’s even better is that at some level I DO NOT CARE. I mean, I certainly hope you’re getting paid good money for something you clearly enjoy and are good at, but from a purely selfish perspective all that matters to me is that I like your reviews and can (searching in vain for a better word) “trust” them because I seem to have similar tastes in movies.

When I read your paragraph about “Professional Film Critics” versus “Bloggers” I wondered: in which one of those groups would you say you are? My guess is you’d say both–but (unless I’m mistaken) your movie reviews have been a hobby with rewards that over time have now become at least partly financial.

I guess it’s all relative. From your vantage point, what you do is different from the bajilion run-of-the-mill bloggers who go see a movie and then write about it. From Roger Ebert’s perspective, you may be just another one of those thousands of chubs and suckers in the movie review reservoir who are crowding out the trophy trout.

News flash to the so-called professional film critics who would see you as a blogger wannabe: Roger et al, I don’t really care whether *you* liked the movie–I just want to know if *I’m* going to like the movie and so I read Eric Snider instead of you. Neener, Neener.

Eric, you are a classic example of what I love about the Internet. It’s the last bastion of equal opportunity (um, and by that I mean equal to everyone with an Internet connection, a knack for writing, and a perfunctory knowledge of how to import Google Ads into their web pages).