Comments on: Open Forum Friday: Should Critics Review a Movie If They Haven’t Seen It All The Way Through?

By: FrankFN

FrankFN — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:52:10 +0000

I heard from several sources that people didnt recieve the product they bought from amazon
is this true?

By: Jim

Jim — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:55:36 +0000

If you don’t watch a film all of the way through, you shouldn’t give it a score. It’s as simple as that. If you want to write an opinion piece about why you walked out eight minutes through, it’s a different story, but don’t label it as a review. It’s misleading, dishonest, and lacks integrity.

Frequently critics get criticised for not having an investment in films because they get to see them for free. The flipside of getting to see them for free is that they’re obligated to watch the whole thing. In the UK, the FDA screening rules are that you should sit through the entirety of the runtime, as you can’t possibly give a balanced and fair critical analysis based off of anything less.

Ebert gets away with a lot because of his name. If a staff writer for a film magazine had come out and said that, they’d be fired. It’s unacceptable for someone who labels themselves a professional critic. Yes, it may be the biggest pile of dross ever, yes, you may want to scratch your own eyes out before the end. But it’s your job to watch it, and review it. Let’s face it, it’s not difficult to get paid to sit in front of a screen for an hour and a half, then churn out 400 words on it.

Shame on you, Roger Ebert.

By: Joel

Joel — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 02:54:19 +0000

I think this is silly. Ebert admitted that he only watched 8 minutes. He’s totally open about it being a device in his piece. If you want to read a review by someone who watched the whole movie, I’m sure you could find it.

It would be aggravating to me to have idiots whining about what my job was like this. Especially considering this is fucking Ebert and his job is supposedly a creative one, you’d think he could be given a little leeway to write what he wanted.

By: Bob The Slob

Bob The Slob — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 00:27:27 +0000

NO!

By: swarez

swarez — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 21:05:58 +0000

And you call yourself a geek Reed. For shame.

By: Sean

Sean — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 20:38:20 +0000

If Film Junk is responsible for forcing you to finally upgrade to a computer that supports resolutions higher than 640 x 480, I’ll feel like we really accomplished something special.

By: Reed Farrington

Reed Farrington — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 20:13:17 +0000

I think critics should admit when they’ve slept through parts of a movie. I can guarantee that any reviewer or critic over 40 years of age drifts off while watching a movie. Beginning with Star Trek Nemesis, I haven’t been able to stay awake for any movie. Never trust a review from anyone over 40.

With the regards to Film Hunk, I mean Junk, being wider, my monitor at home only supports a max 640 x 480 resolution. And for some reason, I don’t get a scroll bar. So I can’t access things like Most Recent Comments.

By: Shannon the Movie Moxie

Shannon the Movie Moxie — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:53:47 +0000

His original review does note how much he saw and how he supplemented the article from other references. That’s a bit cheeky but overall it is honest so I think it is fine.

Personally, I’ll write a ‘non-review’ for a film I’ve turned off or disliked so much where I think there is value to potential viewers of the film to know what it was that got me all grrrrrr! about it, but it’s always brief and notes specifically what turned me off.

I don’t want to spend time nor energy to write a full blown for a film that I didn’t watch the whole way through, nor is it really fair to the film.

By: swarez

swarez — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 17:10:17 +0000

I’ve done a review of a film I walked out on, granted I watched about half of it, it was Epic Movie by the way, but it was more than I could bare.

But I think instead of trying to review a movie you’ve only seen 8 minutes of you should just say that even after 8 minutes the movie was so bad that you had to leave and leave it at that.

By: Greg

Greg — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 15:46:10 +0000

Everytime I see that pic of Ebert I think he’s wearing a bib. Like he just sat down for a meal of barbecue or lobster.

I love a review of 8 minutes of a movie.

By: entertainmenttodayandbeyond

entertainmenttodayandbeyond — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 15:07:01 +0000

I think its fair for Roger to describe exactly what happened, and why he did what he did, but not critique the film as a WHOLE because he wasn’t there to do that!

By: Ian

Ian — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 09:50:25 +0000

I think the reader of the critic must be smart. Honestly if the Ebert critique gives a sense of what he felt the movie was about and it seems reasonable to believe that the first 8 minutes could through following the narrative formula accurately predicit a movie then that’s all well and good. Hell I’ve seen people cite reviews by head up their ass philosophers where the whole point is to draw some overwrought critique based on the conclusion they want to come to. Criticism is the sort of thing that everyone should take with an enormous grain of salt … but don’t let it raise your blood pressure