Changing the Dialogue: How Digital Creators Are Reshaping Film Criticism

Hazel Hayes

I don’t know that I would call myself a critic. I’d say I’m a very active audience member. It’s not what I do for a living; it’s just something that I enjoy. I love watching films and analyzing them. I do the same with every book I read, and every story I hear. I’ve always done that, it’s just now I have a platform where people listen to me do it.

The kinds of things that I talk about on my channel, or the kinds of reviews that I’ll post on Twitter are things that I would be chatting to my friends about anyway. It just so happens that there’s a lot of people willing to listen.

Chris Stuckmann

It’s strange. Because on paper, I technically am. I talk critically about film and I guess if you were to define a critic the way they have been defined in the past, that’s technically what I do.

But the definition of critic nowadays comes with all this baggage. People say, “You’re just someone who complains about movies because you can’t be a filmmaker, which is what you really want to do!” I guess I don’t consider myself that definition of a film critic. One of my goals is to present myself as a film lover.

CinemaSins

CHRIS ATKINSON: We don’t consider ourselves critics. We really just take movies and we are purposefully super nitpicky for comic purposes. I guess there is an element of some seriousness to it, but not much. We are not trying to be Ebert and we are not trying to be Peter Travers or anybody like that. We are just trying to entertain people.

Lindsay Ellis

I would prefer the title “video essayist” to a critic. A critic’s job is to evaluate a film and recommend it to a consumer. What I do is talk about movies that the audience has presumably already seen and try to put them in context.

Ultimately, it is about putting media in a cultural context, asking questions about what that says about us, about like our culture, about our history. That’s what I am here for.

Black Men
Can’t Jump

JONATHAN BRAYLOCK: We definitely critique movies, so in that sense we are critics. We just critique them on a different metric than most critics do. Most critics come in and they’re judging it based on some idea of meritocracy. And we’ll talk about that stuff too, but for the most part we’re looking at how is this movie defining culture, and how is this movie establishing a precedent for actors of color.

How is it capitulating the stereotype? Is it making some sort of satire on, or some point about how America — and I guess the world — sees actors of color? What are the stories they’re telling?

History Buffs

I do. I’m telling people whether I think that this is a good film or not, based on how much of an effort the filmmakers made in bringing this time period to life. But I’m different from other film critics in that I don’t tend to focus on the craft of filmmaking so much. I don’t focus on the cinematography, or the score. I focus mainly on the history, and that’s what I’m known for.

Alachia Queen

I actually don’t really consider myself a critic. I think that you kind of have to accept that label, though, when you rate movies. I certainly never try to claim that I have any film expertise, and I certainly don’t consider myself a connoisseur of films. Those ratings are actually really based off of the way that I personally felt about the film.

I think that there needed to be a voice that was more of the people who think, “Whether or not it’s good or not — how does this movie make me feel? And why do I like it?”

The Worst Idea
of All Time

GUY MONTGOMERY: No. We are idiots. I would definitely put my credentials as “idiot” first, and then several other things I’m okay at, and then critic.

TIM BATT: Here’s the order: idiot first, New Zealander second and always, and comedian third.