I've been writing reviews for many years. I think I started sometime in high school, meaning I have been writing reviews for more than half my life. I like to think I've acquired a certain level of skill. I'm not saying I'm the best reviewer in the world, or even close to the top, but many people have told me they enjoy my reviews, and there are still magazine editors who ask me to write for them, so there must be something in my writing. I have noticed lately, however, that writing reviews is almost something I do on automatic pilot. I watch a movie, think about what I thought of it, and then drum out a review, detailing what happens in the movie (or game, or cd, or whatever), with my opinion added to the mix. Yeah, what you expect a review to be. And how most other critics also write their reviews. That is where the problem lies.
You see, after writing yesterday's review of Ratatouille, and re-reading it today, I felt a little disappointed. I mean, there's nothing really wrong with the review, and I kind of like my style in praising the movie, but it's just that: a review, and nothing more. Ironically, it's in Ratatouille that the work of a critic is brilliantly dissected. As the movie's food critic Anton Ego says: "In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new."
What especially hit me in that quote, is the line "[...] the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so." I guess that's a frustration many critics can agree with. Still, there are some critics who are able to cross boundaries and write reviews that are more than just reviews. Be it in the way that they know how to write an enjoyable review, or that they can come up with new ways to criticize a movie, or that they can actually write so well that you wonder why they are wasting their time on reviews. Roger Ebert is one of those people, and I'd say the older reviews of Harry Knowles are immensely entertaining as well (right before he was too busy to really write as many of those long ass reviews anymore). Then you have somebody like Joe Queenan, who turns writing reviews into something that is definitely more interesting than most of the movies he writes about, and my favorite writer Bill Bryson, who actually only wrote one movie review for as far as I know, but which might actually have been the most entertaining one I have ever read. I cannot come up with the name of a videogame critic along these lines, but I'm sure there are critics in that field, or in any field, who climb above the mountains of well written but unexciting reviews clogging up the internet everywhere.
Before you think I am going to speak the lines: "I am the equal of Roger Ebert," or: "I am going to be the equal of Roger Ebert," forget about it. The only thing I can promise you is that I am going to try and do something different with my reviews. No more just the standard reviews that start with an introduction, followed by the plot, and then the criticism. Many people will probably wonder why you would want to try and make reviews 'exciting', and if it isn't the nature of the beast to not be too exciting, as to accentuate how great the things are that we write about. If you think that way, then the web is full of reviews just for you, and don't get me wrong, I do think most critics on the web are great writers, who have very valuable opinions. It just doesn't mean I have to follow completely along their lines. I'm going to try something new. Chances are I will fail miserably, or that I will write more reviews that are serviceable but boring. But for that tiny chance of me actually succeeding, I'm willing to give it a shot. Don't expect me to re-invent the wheel here, or come close to even making a wheel at all. But if you are lucky, I will fail so spectacularly it will become fun to read anyway.
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