Boiling Point: Biased Bloggers & Honest Reviews

Posted by Robert Fure (robert@filmschoolrejects.com) on March 9, 2009

bp-critics

The temperature in hell must have fallen a few degrees considering I’m about to say that many “critics,” especially on the web, have to be more professional. This from a guy who counts tit shots in horror films, has a desktop background of a skeleton wearing a suit fist pumping the air in front of a nuclear explosion and routinely uses the word “doodie” in every day conversation. Readers of popular, and not so popular, internet outlets may not be aware of this, but amongst our not-so-elite ranks, there is often a strong desire not to be called “bloggers.” It seems to take away our credibility. To me, and many, a blogger is someone who purely expresses emotion and thoughts and lacks the ability, desire, opportunity, or drive to actually provide critical thought on a subject. A blogger might say about Watchmen that it’s “so totally awesome, perfect!” while a critic should be able to relate it to other films realistically or break down the complexities of the story. A blogger might write a review that is merely a front to attack other sites or defend the film, where as an honest reviewer should exist in a bubble of his own thoughts.

True, the opinion piece or editorial is vital to both print and online media. They’re often the most interesting reads on any site as they come from a personal level and inspire a back and forth conversation. But you can’t label an opinion piece a review or a bit of news. This has become more evident than ever before with the release of Watchmen. It has been reported that print journalists, most of whom probably are not huge fans of the graphic novel and would never be considered “fanboys,” have given the film low marks. Conversely, the internet is awash with many self-professed nerds flying the flag high and proclaiming Watchmen a film to be celebrated on the level of Citizen Kane, The Godfather, or Schindler’s List. In doing so, rarely will they adopt a more academic approach to the review, breaking it down piece by piece and examining it. Rather, the easier route is to merely proclaim it great, assault its detractors, and end every paragraph with “but I thought this facet was excellent.”

If you look at a film that is considered to be among the top films of all time, there is little dissent that the movie is great. Casablanca does not achieve a top rank for over 65 years by being loved by 40% of the critical body and perceived with apathy by the other 60%. By mere fact that Watchmen is reviewed so differently between those who wanted to love the movie and those who had no stake in the source material, we can garner that the film must have some significant flaws that anyone who calls this film a masterpiece for the ages has an agenda.

I love that being an online outlet affords us opportunity to use words like tit and balls – there is without a doubt a difference between print and online writers, though I would happily admit the difference is we onliners answer only to ourselves, rather than large parent companies that can fire us for interoffice affairs – which are widespread and kinky. However, to be taken seriously, we must behave seriously. When we post Reviews and the like, we must come from a place that has no bias. How long has it been since Harry Knowles has lost credibility as an honest movie reviewer? When was the last time he posted a review that wasn’t an orgasmic explosion of hyperbole over a film that everyone knew he’d love before it even hit theaters?

The problem comes in the defense of these fanboy films, rather than their honest reviews. Granted, onliners have a level of passion about certain projects that makes us unique and different. We’re far more apt to put comic book movies on a pedestal and that speaks to our audience. Our audience wants to hear what we, as members of the fan community think – but they want to hear it honestly. Our job in being serious entertainment journalists is to report as ourselves, but objectively. My review should not influence any other review, nor should a review I read influence mine. Call-out editorials are one thing (which I enjoy), but in the bread and butter of our existence, reviews and news, if you’re not being objective, you’re not being a journalist. You’re being a blogger.

Being a genre fanboy, especially when it comes to horror, I know the desire to defend a film. When people attack horror films or slashers as cheap, low rent, or offensive, I’ll readily come to their defense in an editorial. I will not use a review as an excuse to promote a film or defend it. That is an opinion article. When it comes down to it, I believe that the audience reading my review is smart enough to know what kind of person I am. I love horror films, I curse, I argue, and I yell a lot. The audience is smart enough to know if I’m the kind of person who’s review they will relate to. There is no reason for me to dumb down a review or try to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes. If a film has flaws, it is our job to point them out. Those who come to our sites aren’t coming to be spoon-fed what they want to hear. They come for honest opinions from link minded individuals. Choosing to defend a film and sell an audience on it is bordering on offensive. Let the audience read your honest thoughts, your honest review and then let them judge if they relate enough to you to either see the movie or skip it. Or maybe, as sometimes has been the case, a reader will hate your guts so much they want to crap in your mouth and go see anything you hate.

This has become extraordinarily long winded and I apologize – but I know that if you’ve read this far, you’ve often either found yourself agreeing with me or hating me enough to keep reading. So we’re here together – I thank you for coming along for the read. To any of my fellows who read this I would merely say – trust your audience to make their own decisions. You are not a defender of films you are an examiner. It is not our job in reviewing movies to sell them or sink them. Publicists are paid far too much money for us to do the job of defending the film in biased reviews. Play the cards honestly and openly, point out flaws and triumphs and above all respect your audience. Do not sell them, do not trick them, do not lead them unjustly. Present the facts and try to view the film independently of other reviews, other movies, and its source materials. Certainly adaptations merit the mention of the source, but if you are defending the movie was an indirect way of defending the source, you’re doing everyone a disservice. We’ll never garner the level of respect we want and deserve if some among us so predictably and blindly leap to the defense of genre and fanboy films rather than honestly reviewing them and treating them like any other movie.

If you can not do that, if you can not objectively review a film and not come to its defense out of some misguided responsibility to protect a genre film, well then I’ll be skipping over your propaganda and roil past my boiling point.

Do you think online critics have treated Watchmen fairly? Have they been biased? What do you think of online journalists vs bloggers?


Read more articles by Robert Fure

« Previous Article | Next Article »

Related Topics:

Boiling Point, Site Features, , , , , , ,

Related Reading:

Your Ad Here

Comment Policy: No hate speech allowed. If you must argue, please debate intelligently. Comments containing selected keywords or outbound links will be put into moderation to help prevent spam. Film School Rejects reserves the right to delete comments and ban anyone who doesn't follow the rules. We also reserve the right to modify any curse words in your comments and make you look like an idiot. Thank You!

  • Tenika
    I always read you guys reviews and your reviews only. Maybe it's because you can use words like balls and tits that makes me trust your judgement lol. I've always felt like newspaper critics have had an agenda which is why I find the internet (this website in particular) my best source for movie reviews
  • "Maybe it's because you can use words like balls and tits that makes me trust your judgement ."

    If we can reach one person, we have accomplished our goal. Glad you're here to support us, Tenika.
  • joshi38
    I've said it before and I'll likely say it a few more times, but in this day and age when anyone can have their own blog and write what they like, people who can write fairly unbiased reviews about, well anything, are being extremely saturated. I've seen professional and well respected publications employ a biased view of things, movies or otherwise, when they've built up a reputation of giving unbiased reviews.

    The thing is, people only read reviews for a few specific reasons and when you get right down to it, you'll find that it's almost impossible to eliminate bias entirely and sometimes, people even want it (even if it really shouldn't be found in a critic). Lets focus on movie reviews for now since that's essentially what we're talking about here although I think my thoughts and yours can be attributed to critics of any particular medium or thing (not just the arts).

    If a person reads a movie review before seeing a movie, they either have no clue what to expect and are looking to "professional critics" to, basically give them an idea of the movie, or, they have a fairly good idea of what o expect due to trailers, marketing, hype and so on and simply want confirmation of what they already expected. Now, in the former case, they'll likely want an entirely unbiased review (and unfortunately, likely be given a fully biased one). But in the latter case, if they're the kind of people who go into a movie with a certain expectation (like, for instance, most Watchmen fans went in expecting a truly amazing, groundbreaking movie), then any reviews they read before saying that it was merely a good movie, not Citizen Kane, they'll ignore, and any reviews that came back telling them exactly what they wanted to here (i.e, the biased ones) will be the ones they were looking for.

    Now, I could go into the type of people who read a review after watching a movie, but I think you get the point anyway, since it's pretty much the same, people have made up their own minds and just want reviews to validate their thoughts (and yes, I'm generalizing).

    And what this really comes down to is that people like to be led. I'm not going to go into a rant about how we're all sheep who can't think for ourselves, that would be arrogant on my part. But the fact is, a purely unbiased piece of writing gives us ideas and allows us to come to our own conclusions. A biased piece leads us, it tells us what we should be thinking. And people are more comfortable with the latter than they are with the former. It's a little less scary for us if we find someone else to explain the world to us instead of making up our own minds, we spent a good deal of our childhood listening to other people tell us how the world worked and now we depend upon it, be it through tabloid newspapers or Oprah Winfrey.

    It's not good, but as there is a market for it, people will always be looking for that biased review of that film they really really want to like.
  • Well put, Robert. I know that I for one hate the idea of FSR being termed a blog, though I've heard it referred to as such many times over. However there are far too many balanced, objective, well thought out and well researched pieces on this site to ever warrant that term. If people wanted to get an emotional reaction to a movie, there's Rotten Tomatoes or the IMDB approach. A critic's review is far more than just detailing the story, it's noting the storytelling.

    Another place where this is very visible is the TV For Movie Lovers stuff here. I regularly read the reviews for the newest episodes of Lost, BSG, SCC and many others, both here and on a couple of other sites, and I find that reading FSR's version (I'm beginning to sound like I'm spouting propaganda here!) is always better. Rather than just going through the events of the episode, the reviewer discusses the happenings in the context of the bigger picture, not only plot wise but also touching on how it impacts viewers. They don't do it in simplified terms, they don't just state that it was fantastic or that it was terrible, they back it up with arguments and coherent thought.

    Ok, I'm done now.

    w00t go team FSR, u r awesomE!!!11!
  • Larry
    Read Ebert's review. Unbiased and he loved it without having a reason to. Or take Jeffrey Wells review, a front page ad for idiocy, who also was unbiased and had no reason to like it.

    It can go either way, I saw Watchmen twice and loved it while recognizing the flaws of this theatrical version.

    Personally cannot wait to see the DVD versions. We will get more of that story and fleshing out we were hoping for.

    All said, I still give it a 9/10 for the theatrical run.

    Another point, the movie (like the book) is not catered to idiots.
  • Nice read Fure.

    I think it's obvious that online reviewers, fanboy sites in particular, have most definitely treated Watchmen overwhelmingly with a predetermined deference. But as already stated, most of the readers of these sites have the same viewpoint too. The reviews confirm what they already believe.

    And I would argue that reviews by their very nature are opinion pieces.
  • Yeah, they're definitely from the viewpoint of the writer, expressing his opinion on the many facets of the film, but once someone starts ignoring flaws their opinion becomes less valid in a way. The audience wants to trust our opinion. Even if the audience wants to love Watchmen, if they can relate to me or you, they're going to want to hear our honest opinion. They're not going to want us to sell them on the film. The response to my Watchmen Review was a good example - a lot of people said the review addressed their concerns and they still made the decision to see it or became more excited to see it.

    I just think that right now there are a ton of examples of people who aren't being honest. They're protecting the film because they want it to do well. Or, there are definitely a few who are giving handjobs to films to appeal to the publicists and get free shit and exclusives. You can tell by our lack of awesome free shit that we are not among that group. We have to steal our stuff like normal criminals.
  • Actually the best review and most equal on all parts of the film in regards to the viewer as a whole was the one I read on this site...I mean Rotten Tomatos gave a 65% rating before it came out, and that was based on other reviews from other sites..Here's the deal: Now usually when I see a film being reviewed on tv by either the "at the movies" crew or the ex ebert crew ,whatever its called now-I usually take it for what its worth, tv ego...But this week they gave "two thumbs up " for Watchmen, which was the total opposite from what I've read in the papers and online for the exception of this site..Now who do I believe??Personally I believe that certain sites as well as media have a certain need to throw monkey wrenches into a well directed film, quite often.A perfect example, is "Australia", I saw this over the weekend and after tolerating the Oscars this year then seeing this film- I've decided to boycott anything related to the Oscars next year.Now mind you I'm not a Baz Luhrman fan nor a one for Jackman or Kidman.
  • But the film was pure epic and directed much better than any handful of films I saw last year and it should of been nominated at least in the 5th wheel category of Best Picture..its that good, much better than the reader or ben button..and I believe could of given slumdog a run for its money..But negative press as well as rumours of it being unfinished brought it down faster then the Hindenburg...Maybe the press was expecting another musical???Wtf?Does it matter, just review the movie and keep your personal opinions out of it!!
    Everyone I've talked to over the weekend who have seen Watchmen-love it!!Be it black(I have alot of black friends who love dark shit-gangs etc), white or latino all love the movie and said they'd see it again...
    Which tells me, that most of these reviewers are just not into films as much as they think they are..
    Oh and it helps to see the movie more than once before you write a review too...
  • Well said. I find myself guilty of slipping into defending movies more so than reviewing them all the time. Then again, I don't consider myself a journalist and readily admit everything I write is colored with distinctly in my own personal beliefs and impressions. Watchmen especially has caused me to go on the defensive both times I wrote about it on my blog. I'm becoming more and more able to step away and see it for what it is as the days go on, but my personal attachment to the graphic novel has certainly clouded my unbias movie critiquing eyes.

    That being said, I also feel as though in this case, a lot of the print journalists, real journalists, DID go in with a bias. Apparently the critics screening was full of derisive laughter. Both times I say it, the movie was fully respected by its audience with laughter only where there should have been. I just feel like if you come into a movie ready to laugh at what you consider to be corny, you knew ahead of time that you were going to let yourself do that, you know? And to let that happen at a CRITICS screening?! How would that not influence those around you and help form their opinions?

    So I think everyone is guilty of having some sort of a bias in this case. I mean, its Zack Snyder. And it's WATCHMEN.
blog comments powered by Disqus