Do You Prefer Populist Film Criticism Over Professional Critics?

I do.. For example, when I see a movie, and then go on IMDB to see what others say, I only check out the User Reviews and if there aren't any, I probably will never read the "professional" critics.

I also prefer reading what you all have to say, too.

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Depends on the professional critic - I find my tastes are very much aligned to what Peter Bradshaw has to say. Quite aligned to what Mark Kermode has to say, and not really aligned to what Robbie Collin has to say.

As for populist opinions on film, I find you can't really go by them. I see some reviews on IMDB of films I have loved and they are rating them 4 out of 10!

The only true way is......watch it yourself and don't give a mouse's fart what anyone else thinks!

Don't take much notice of either really.

I usually do. I tend to give more credence to reviews by the average person than by professional critics. I look at reviews, comments and ratings on Letterboxd, IMDB, movie sites like this one, and friends and groups on Facebook.

I don't have much evidence to weigh on here, but I probably put more weight on the critic's tomato meter than the audience one.


However, I put the most weight on people (critics or not) whose voice I have a sense of, and when listening or reading their description of a movie or their thoughts on it, and see if they say certain things that sound like it's a movie I'd enjoy more-so than necessarily purely if they liked it.


This is also assuming the primary purpose of the film reviews I read are merely for answering the question, "should I watch this movie?" Or, "is this a good movie." As opposed to, "what was this movie going for," "how does this compare/contrast to a similar type of movie from 20-60 years ago," or even, "what's an alternate take as a way to read this film."

Most professional critics I know don't do much for me, but there's a small list of several critics I know and really trust that I regularly follow. As far as popular film criticism goes, I don't know if you're referring to the users on this forum and my other movie buff friends, or just random people I come across on RT, IMDb, and Letterboxd, but if it's the latter, I definitely don't put much consideration into their thoughts. I'm sure there's plenty of informed people amongst them, but since my taste in film is much different than that of the average non-serious moviegoer, I tend to favor different things than them, so their preferences probably won't reflect mine.

So, in terms of professional critics v. my movie buff friends, I'd probably pick the latter since I know much more movie buffs here and elsewhere who I trust than professional critics. In terms of professional critics v. random people though, I'd pick the former in a heartbeat.

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IMDb
Letterboxd

Mostly this.

At times I skim through random IMDb / Letterboxd reviews to get a general idea of the film's type or tone. I'm not too interested in the actual ratings, or if the film is "the worst movie the reviewer has ever seen" (a surprisingly common occurrence) but concise whys and hows it sucks (or, in rare instances, is good). As a rule, I always skip those long walls of text.

I suppose a perfect film critic for me would be a professional populist who writes Twitter-length reviews and watches a shit-ton of movies with a preference for genre films. It would be great if he loves some of the same films I do, but also hates others -- the better I would understand his taste, the more helpful his reviews would be for me.

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Most of the reviews that I bother to read at IMDB and that ain't often...are just retelling of the film's synopsis and void of opinion or critique. If I've just watch the movie then I don't need to read a blow by blow detail of what happens in that movie.

And most definitely you don't want to read that before watching the film. That's one of the main reasons why I systematically skip all the long reviews in those places.

When I first got into movies, I would use the Tomatometer as a guide, but I switched fairly quickly to following individual critics who I thought did a good job of giving you a sense of the movie, even if their tastes didn't 100% line up with mine. I have never considered IMDb ratings useful for this purpose.


I've been putting less effort into keeping up with current releases lately, so the use I've gotten out of critic reviews has diminished. But even then, if I'm using my Letterboxd circle or my forum friends as a guide, it's because I have enough of a sense of their preferences that I can get a sense of whether I will enjoy the movie. I am not going purely off how much they liked it.