Where do you get your reviews from?

This is the most positive anti-review comment I've seen on this website.

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Ami-Scythe

I've always had at least two of Leonard Maltin's movie guides hanging around.

So those. And RedLetterMedia's YouTube channel.

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Hi, doggy.

Sorry, which movie is this???

http://www.lesliehalliwell.com/four_star/index.html
Halliwell's list of 4 star movies (his highest rating)

I tend to trust Stuckmann. Me and him are about the same age. I think we have roughly the same sensibility in movies. He has a lot more passion about the craft of movie making then me which I appreciate hearing. He doesn't feel like a pretentious douche when he reviews. He feels like a general movie going fan who has knowledge of the craft and can articulate his thought well.

Certainly not the end all be all. But if he likes a movie chances are I will

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I came here to do two things, drink some beer and kick some ass, looks like we are almost outta beer - Dazed and Confused

101 Favorite Movies (2019)

It seems that Halliwell favored movies from the 1930's and 1940's so you won't see him giving any fours after 1967 or so, but his recs are still solid.

When I was looking for recommendations for my first movie guide (which I think goes for any review source) is to sit down one evening and look at various recommended review sources and pick ten of your favorite movies and see how each review source lines up with your taste. For me it was Halliwell, now I read film comment

I get my reviews from @Citizen Rules!

I read reviews on the imdb site, occasionally Roger Ebert's website, plus watch channels like RedLetterMedia, Jeremy Jahns, 22TigerDude, FilmFan0599, TheHorrorBoy and Chris Stuckmann.

Chris Stuckmann I mostly like. Though he does have a few traits that can annoy me. For example his laugh sounds very forced sometimes, like he's playing it up. Recently he also used the age-old annoying excuse for mediocre kids movies that "They're for kids, don't be so hard on them". He also has a bit of a bored voice, so I can never really watch too many of his reviews in a row.

@lenslady I don't think I've ever seen your reviews. Have you considered archiving them?

Hi Mattias,
I do post reviews from time to time, but they're on the Rate the Last Movie You Saw thread. I just got in the habit of posting my reviews that way. Started posting an occasional review when I was new to mofo, and still finding my way around all the categories and threads; but since I do it so rarely , haven't started an archive. But I thank you for your interest.

If you'd like to see a few of my reviews, you can use the search engine to find them , by typing in the movie. I have written reviews for:
Stan & Ollie
The Hero
Darkest Hour

I also mentioned ( maybe more of a commentary than a review) a short that I learned about from another mofo in the thread - worth watching imho :
The Man Who Planted Trees.

user reviews on IMDb

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Do you know what a roller pigeon is, Barney? They climb high and fast, then roll over and fall just as fast toward the earth. There are shallow rollers and deep rollers. You can’t breed two deep rollers, or their young will roll all the way down, hit, and die. Officer Starling is a deep roller, Barney. We should hope one of her parents was not.

https://www.movieforums.com/reviews

Here's another question: Who are your least favorite movie critics? Here are a couple critics I've come across which I don't really care for.

Armond White. Many of you are probably already aware of this guy's style, but if not, I'll elaborate anyways. This critic is notorious for giving pretty much all positively received films negative reviews while he gives pretty much all negatively received films positive reviews. He's a critic who goes against the grain just for the sake of it. Many people believe he's a troll and I agree. I don't understand the point of doing this though. I feel like it's silly to be insincere about your opinion just to provoke your audience. I might be able to excuse some of this if he raised good points, but the problem is that his writing isn't that good as it usually doesn't make much of any sense. I try to understand his viewpoint and where he comes from, but half the time, it just seems like he's so stuck up in his head that he's just throwing stuff against the wall and hoping it sticks. He makes an occasional good point here and there, but this is really rare.

Cole Smithey. Occasionally, he writes some pretty decent reviews. However, there have been multiple instances reading his reviews where I either wasn't sure where he was coming from due to him not explaining his criticisms thoroughly enough or where I wondered if he even got what the film he was writing about was going for. I'll list a few examples of this. Take his review of Tarkovsky's Stalker where he criticized how the philosophical musings can bog down as much as they reveal. I would've liked to see him expand on this criticism, but that was all he had to say on it. He complimented the visuals and just left it at that. I didn't get much at all out of the film by reading his review. Also, in his review of A Serious Man, he didn't mention concepts such as Schrodinger's Cat paradox or the Uncertainty principle (two important thematic concepts to the film which would've rendered much of his criticisms for the film moot). After reading his review, I began to wonder if he even got what the point of the film was. There was also his video review of Dunkirk where he immaturely insulted the critics who enjoyed it at the start. Then, he went on to say an argument which was flat out wrong, a nitpick or two, and one criticism which was fair at the very least. I don't expect to agree with everything a critic says and I've disagreed with my favorite critics in the past, but this guy rubs me the wrong way time and time again.

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In the UK his books were one of the main sources of info in the pre net era but he was always infamous for not caring about much beyond golden age Hollywood and generally being quite conservative.

Do you have a link to his review of Stalker? I looked for it on his site but couldn't find it.

Here it is.

https://www.colesmithey.com/capsules...6/stalker.html

Thanks for the link. I just read Cole Smithey's review of Stalker, ugh! What a horrible read that was. The guy is in love with his ego and spends more time trying to craft, fancy-worded highfalutin sentences so as to convince the reader he's really, really smart. I have to agree with you, he doesn't really say much of use about Stalker.

Do me a favor, there's five reviews of Stalker here at MoFo, including one written by me. Can you read them and give your honest opinion of each review? Here's the links.

Citizen Rules Stalker review
re93animator Stalker review
The Sci-Fi Slob Stalker review
Captain Spaulding Stalker review
The Gunslinger Stalker review

I'd be interested in how you compare these reviews to Cole Smithey's review style.

Yeah, that's another one of his problems. I initially assumed his tagline of "The Smartest Film Critic in the World" was just a joke when I first discovered his site, but now that I've gotten a better taste of his often egocentric writing, I'm not so sure anymore.

As for the reviews you linked, I'll first state that they're much better than Smithey's review. They made it clear that they have a better understanding of the film's themes. I'll look at them one at a time though.

Citizen Rules: Nice job! I loved your attention to the cinematography. Like you say, there's so many great shots in it in addition to the transitions from color to sepia. I often feel like it's more of a feeling than a film due to the power conveyed throughout the visuals from beginning to end.

re93animator: I liked the points brought up involving the possible social-commentary. I've seen some critics argue that the Zone may be a commentary on the Soviet Union's current state, and while I'm not entirely sure if this was the case, it does give you some food for thought.

The Sci-Fi Slob: I liked the description of several notable and significant scenes, especially the wording of the train ride to the Zone. I've always found that to be a perfect sequence. The sounds of the train and the reveal of the Zone in color are simply breathtaking.

Captain Spaulding: As is said in the review, I think the final shot is perfect. Not only does it completely change the way you look at the film which came before it (these are my favorite types of endings (Paths of Glory, anyone?)), but it brings so much implications to the film which warrant further viewings of it.

The Gunslinger: Although I found a lot to ponder over concerning the characters, I agree that you don't need character depth to be fully immersed by it due to the cinematography. It's still a great film with just the visuals alone (which is really rare).

Thanks for linking the reviews! There were quite informative to read.

Also relevant to Tarkovsky, I recently wrote a pretty lengthy analysis of Andrei Rublev. Maybe I might post it to this site.

Thank you for reading them!

BTW I haven't seen Andrei Rublev, but you should post your review/analysis of it here, as I know there are people here who have seen it.

Okay! It's getting a bit late, but I'll do it tomorrow for sure.