Last night was Eyebeam’s panel on what criticism means now that professional critics have to contend with “amateur” blogger critics. It strayed pretty far from the criticism topic and into general blog issues, not all of which were that novel, but overall it was a pretty interesting discussion.
A funny moment came when Duncan made a pejorative reference to “what kind of sandwich I ate for lunch today”-type blogs, and Jason just laughed and made a face. This reminds me of what Roger Ebert, says about movies: “it’s not what they’re about, but how they’re about it.” I don’t know if this applies to blogs 100%, but I know I’d rather read an insightful and well-written post about sandwiches than an unoriginal, poorly thought out post about politics (or whatever).
Another interesting tidbit was from Michael Atkinson, film critic for the Voice, he said that most newspapers hire people who know nothing about film to write about it, unlike most other critical professions. My guess is that this is because most movies that make a lot of money are the only ones most papers really care about reviewing (they want to please the most readers). Generally, these movies are pretty bad, and the last thing you want is someone who prefers Jean Luc Goddard to Jean Claud Van Dam reviewing them. I’d venture that it’s not all that different for music. I don’t know much about any mainstream music critics, but since most mainstream music is terribly bland I can only assume that the critics aren’t really into good music.
One of the recurring themes was that while the availability of information has increased, our capacity for it has not. Duncan Watts talked about his grad students who feel like they don’t understand enough so they just keep reading and reading. He has to beg them to stop reading and take time to process and reflect on what they’ve read. Jason Kottke commented that he feels like those grad students most of the time. I can definitely relate to being addicted to knowledge. I think part of it is that it’s a lot easier to input than to output (at least for an introvert like me). That’s part of why I keep attempting to maintain a weblog—to force myself to process the things that I see, hear and learn in an organized, structured manor.
reader Says:
November 4th, 2005 at 4:59 pm
QUOTE: “Jason just laughed and made a face. This reminds me of what another film critic, Roger Ebert, says about movies: “it’s not what they’re about, but how they’re about it.” I don’t know if this applies 100% about blogs, but I know I’d certainly rather read an insightful and well-written post about sandwiches than an unoriginal, poorly thought out post about politics (or whatever).”
The fundamental flaw in your (implicit) argument is that Kottke is neither insightful nor a good writer.
On the other hand, your (explicit) argument that “it’s the writing, dude!” is spot-on.
chris Says:
November 4th, 2005 at 8:47 pm
Well, it’s probably not worth debating the merits of Kottke’s writing skills here, but I guess I would expand “it’s the writing, dude” to “it’s the writing or the content filtering and selection, dude,” which is probably the main reason I read Kottke everyday.
Wendy Says:
November 6th, 2005 at 7:32 pm
I’m surprised to hear anyone contend that jason kottke isn’t insightful — I think that’s an outrageously false statement. And I don’t know if he can “write” but damn, the man can blog.
zp Says:
November 14th, 2005 at 10:31 am
“Michael Atkinson […] said that most newspapers hire people who know nothing about film to write about it, unlike most other critical professions. My guess is that this is because most movies that make a lot of money are the only ones most papers really care about reviewing (they want to please the most readers). Generally, these movies are pretty bad, and the last thing you want is someone who prefers Jean Luc Goddard to Jean Claud Van Dam reviewing them.”
It’s a good guess, but I’m not convinced. I’d say that sometimes the choice of films to review has more to do with what a publication can assume will be nationally distributed (if it’s a national publication) or what a publication might assume a local market would see (if it’s a local pub). And that is determined by a lot of factors, not all them good . . . .
However, your assumption that someone who prefers Goddard to Van Dam would, perforce, make a better reviewer seems a little off. Knowing about film history and history of film industries, international film distribution and production, audiance and filmgoing practices, genre, cinematography . . . all of this would make a reviewer a good reviewer and none of it would automatically make said reviewer like Goddard more than Van Dam. Being a well-bred, out of touch, pseudo-intellectual might make him or her prefer Goddard to Van Dam, but would not make such a reviewer a good one . . .
Just a thought, in passing.
zp Says:
November 15th, 2005 at 7:32 am
PS. I would so be the one to participate in a miss-spelling of Godard. I deserve to be shot in the street like a common tart.
chris Says:
November 15th, 2005 at 8:57 am
To clarify my poorly articulated and misspelled point:
I wasn’t trying to say that you had to be a Godard fan in order to know a lot about movies. Don’t get hung up on the Godard part—that was just a silly example.
I just meant that most of the movies that are the most popular do not benefit from the kind of critical analysis that someone who has a film studies degree or “knows about film history…” or whatever Michael Atkinson was implying would make him a “qualified movie critic.”
Sandwiches « Archive « Musings of a Chicagoan Says:
November 17th, 2005 at 7:27 pm
[…] “I know I’d rather read an insightful and well-written post about sandwiches than an unoriginal, poorly thought out post about politics (or whatever).” — Chris Johanesen […]
zp Says:
November 18th, 2005 at 6:34 pm
I’m still confused. What does this mean, “most of the movies that are the most popular do not benefit from the kind of critical analysis that someone who has a film studies degree or “knows about film history…” or whatever?”
Are you saying that they don’t receive critical analysis (because of the negligence of the media) or that they wouldn’t benefit from that kind of attention?
chris Says:
November 19th, 2005 at 10:53 am
Er, I guess I should just stop making generalizations (heh, watch me try). I was saying both, really. But by “wouldn’t benefit” I mean they would get bad reviews if reviewed by someone who knew and loved movies.
Of course, people who go see popular movies such as XXX2, SawII, Big Moma’s House 2, etc., don’t care about reviews. They don’t care that those are “bad” movies. The media (ie some film companies and newspapers) really only want reviews that they can grab snippet out of like “biggest laughs of the summer!” and “wall to wall action.” So why bother hiring a film critic that isn’t going to provide those quotes?
Although, I’d have to say I’m not being entirely fair to the popular movie industry. I think the good-to-bad movie ratio is much higher than, say, the popular music industry. Notice how there aren’t really reviews of popular music? You can turn on the evening news and find the latest movies reviewed, but when was the last time someone on TV actually reviewed music? MTV surely doesn’t do it. Yeah, there are mainstream music mags like Rolling Stone and Spin, but do people really read them to find out if the new Brittany Spears album (that they’ve been hearing nonstop on the radio or watching the video on loop on MTV) is any good? (Hey! there’s another generalization!)
zp Says:
November 20th, 2005 at 8:20 pm
yowza. excellent point on the pop music/pop film comparison. at least to my ear. but the difference is due to the very material, historical and economic differences between the industries. for my money music is more like sports.
but on film, well, i think hollywood film would benefit from well informed reviews, whether those reviews found themselves positive or negative . . . and i don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion that informed reviewers hate popular movies, which can be aesthetically creative and politically subversive every once in great while.