The Toasty Critic

The Toasty Critic by DE

Let’s begin this blog with one of the major problems I see with film reviews now a days.  It occurs whether you are left, right, male, female, younger or older, critics tend to prejudge films and reviews become wish fulfillment rather than an honest critique of film.  So with this regular posting, I am endeavoring to write some reviews for you that try to take my own wish fulfillment out of the review and focus more on the piece itself.  I want to make reading a review about an honest assessment about the strengths and weaknesses of a film.  I want you the reader to feel like someone has given you some insight into what I considered about the film itself.  This does not mean that I am not going to have a truckload of bias when I come into the movie.  I cannot necessarily check that at the door very effectively.  But I am going to be honest about that bias when reviewing movies, and you are going to be able to see that and still have a feeling whether this movie is for you or not.  I hope to take reviews back to a previous era.

I remember being a young child and watching the two talking heads of Siskel and Ebert.  And while these are critics of a bygone era of film review, I do see something in them that I wish that we had in the people who are reviewing films today.  And what it comes down to is guts.  They had cajones.  If they felt like something was good, they told it like it is, whether or not the tropes of the left or right agenda were lived up to.  And if they thought something was bad they were also going to tell it like it is.  This did not mean that the two of them were going to agree on any particular piece of film.  In fact it was much more fun hearing from the two of them when they didn’t.  But they really got into the particulars in the film itself and you knew what they liked and why they liked it.

If you watched carefully enough, over time, you could tell that the two actually had a pattern about how they reviewed the films they liked, and the ones that they did not.  When it came to Gene Siskel, the stranger and more outrageous the better.  He saw successful films as films that were going to do something in an entirely different and fresh way.  It was obvious that he hoped to come into the movie theater wanting to expect something completely different every time.  If he was given what he considered more of the same, then he was going to lambaste the film as a waste of time to watch.  This did not mean that he hated things that had been done before.  Even if it was something that had been done a million times before, like a Christmas Carol, if he thought the new version of the movie had a fresh and different take on the movie, he was going to appreciate it more. 

Then there was Roger Ebert.  Ebert reviewed movies in a completely different way.  His method of looking at movies was based in the intentions, or his “perceived intentions” of what the film maker was trying to do.  If the film was successfully trying to convey the message that he felt was trying to be conveyed, then he felt like the film deserved a positive review.  This does not mean that a film would end up perfect, and if you ever read his columns you would know that even a “thumbs up” did not mean that the film was amazing.  All it meant was that a film lived up to what he believed its expectations of it were.  He saw film making as entertainment, but he also saw it as functional.  Films needed to live up to their expectations, whether lofty or lowly.

So how am I going to judge films?  I remember a friend of mine once asked me what kinds of films did I like.  My response to him, other than being completely narcissistic, was very telling.  I said that I liked good films.  And while completely brazen, there is an element of truth to it.  We love films because we consider them to be good.  And we dislike films because we think they are bad in some way.  So I am going to tell you whether I think a film is good or bad.  But I am probably going to be more of the Roger Ebert, and less of the Gene Siskel.  I am going to let you know whether I thought a film was good or not based upon whether I felt the film lived up to its own expectations.  But I will not leave you dear reader completely stranded in the weeds about whether I thought a film was just about expectations.  I will discuss acting, cinematography, costumes, errors in film making, message, etc.  I may agree or disagree with some choices the film makers have but I will let you know whether or not I thought the message they wanted to convey was a success.  And whether or not I liked that message.  But the “I like” part or the review will be my bias.  

So there it is.  That’s who I am and what I believe.  I hope you can enjoy my reviews and get a glimpse of film making through my eyes.  And feel free to send in comments because I like to know how you see things as well.  It may not change my opinion.  Siskel could rarely change Ebert’s mind.  But it may make me rethink about a movie and maybe even give it a fresh outlook.  Sit back, relax, and enjoy.