RIP Roger Ebert

[Bridge]

It's regrettable he died. While I don't bear him any ill will as a person - I often agree with him actually - my disdain for professional critique is too great for me to recognize him as an important person. I value his opinion just as much as anybody else's. The only qualifications you need to be able to judge a movie's merits is an understanding of film as an artform and experience - which is something anybody can acquire. Most of it is also wholly aesthetic, something which cannot be anything other than subjective. That's not to say one should disregard critics just because they are critics, however it is depressing to see how much blind faith people generally place in their opinions. There is such a thing as being more qualified to make a judgement, but as far as having a better judgement is concerned - it doesn't exist. IMO.

A reason I think we like professional critics, as well as talented people who review movies, I think there are two reasons, one being more substantial than the other one. Which one it is should be obvious.

1. They get their point across in an interesting way so people like listening to them talk just as much as they like hearing their opinions.

2. They can more often than not point out various traits of a movie which may decide if it's good, or not, many of which may just fly right over a typical movie-goers eye. Typical movie goers may feel it there, but they can't really put their finger on what it is while talented critics can easily discover what causes such reactions. Sometimes they'll even point out things some people miss entirely which sometimes even have the potential to completely turn around someone's opinion of a movie prior to knowing such an aspect.

If you're easily swayed or don't care to form your own opinions, power to you. In my opinion, the best thing a critic can do is put things in context, which is indeed very useful. But those are facts, not opinions. If he presents a fair, unbiased review, then it is up to the reader to decide whether the movie in question was good or bad. However, due to incompetence and arrogance, the vast majority of reviews are not like that at all. Some are completely subjective, focusing only on the aesthetic interests of the critic writing the review, so by the end the reader has only had his mind poisoned by someone else's opinion which may or may not be worth listening to. What's the difference between that and listening to somebody who went to see the movie, who may be vastly more experienced in the language of film?

That's why it is dubious, and even detrimental, to place any higher importance in the opinions of critics. Speaking from experience reading reviews, many of them are more unprofessional than amateur critics, and many of them are flat out wrong. I don't care if it's hypocrisy; some of these "professional" critics just don't understand what they are watching, and if they do, present their biased take on it which helps no one and has no business being called a professional review (I don't care if they will technically always be professional reviews no matter the quality by the way).