Help Writing Reviews

I didn't know where to put this so if this is a bad spot I'm sure it will get moved. I'm looking for guidance on how to start reviews I seem to have a lot of opinions but I don't know how to write them down in an interesting way. If anyone has some tips or like a general outline that can help me it would be greatly appreciated.

Check out others reviews and pick a format you like. We all do them a bit different.

Thanks for the tip I'll make sure to read some more reviews

Be yourself, and try to be honest even if it sounds a bit clunky.

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There is a thread on this topic somewhere already where a handful of members gave their advice.

Maybe someone here can find it.

That would be my awesome thread

http://www.movieforums.com/community...ad.php?t=38386

Yeah, the best advice, by far, is to read other good reviews. All writers (of reviews or anything else) read a lot. Nobody just writes well without reading a lot first.

A few other tips/rules I try to keep in mind:

1. Avoid other reviews of the same thing. You want to be reading a lot of other reviews...but not of the same film you're about to review. Force yourself to do your own thinking and your own analysis prior to writing. This creates much better habits and ensures that you don't end up just parroting other people. And it's a nice little reward to read them after you're done.

2. Be interested in other things, too, and bring them up. Some of the best reviews I've ever read contained references to other works of art, or made broad observations about humanity, or did all sorts of other things that branched beyond the confines of cinema itself. Don't be afraid to do this if it feels natural and it makes sense. You're writing about movies, and the reader wants to read about them, but you're also two people with lots of other interests. This isn't a school assignment, so there's no penalty for straying a bit beyond the immediate topic, if it makes for an interesting comparison or sidebar.

3. You'll find this same idea in the thread Gatsby just linked to, but: be entertaining. You're asking people for their time and attention, so you're obligated to fill that time and attention with something interesting. Obviously, you want to be insightful as well, but if what you write is boring, they'll never get to the insight anyway.

You might think "be entertaining" is rather useless (kind of like "be good"), but I say this because you'll be faced with lots of decisions, while writing your review, about whether to say something you think is interesting and mentioning something you think a movie review should mention. That's something you want to avoid. You want to give people a sense of the movie and say interesting things about it, but that's it: you don't have to roll through a checklist, making sure to comment on the acting and the cinematography and the pacing and the...et cetera. Mention the ones you have something to say about, but not the ones you don't.

On top of that: don't be discouraged by constructive criticism. This doesn't happen overnight. But the good news is there's a lot of low-hanging fruit at first, so sticking with it for a bit practically guarantees a lot of improvement.

Best of luck.