Changing the Dialogue: How Digital Creators Are Reshaping Film Criticism

Hazel Hayes

We’re in a really interesting time where more and more people are becoming interested in being more active audience members. We’ve seen a huge increase in the number of film analysis and film essays, be that on YouTube, or podcasts, there’s clearly an appetite for that content.

Moving forward, it just feels like we’re entering a little bit more of a democratic time for film criticism. When you look at things like Rotten Tomatoes, where you’re separating the critics score and the audience score, we’re seeing that critics may think one thing, but an audience may think another. We have more information to base our judgment on. People are being encouraged to talk about film publicly more and more, which is only a good thing. Because we’re sort of immersing ourselves in that world and learning more and more about it. And I’m learning an awful lot from it.

Chris Stuckmann

Everyone’s trying to get their voice out there, which is beautiful but also very chaotic because there’s just so many voices that are scrambling to be heard. I used to worry about print, but I don’t anymore, actually. I just know so many people who still work in the field and want to stay there, and so many people who still read print critics. If you just took up any Blu-ray of really any movie that has critics quotes on it — it’s going to be a print critic. There’s a level of professionalism that print critics have that someone like me really has to work hard to earn.

In the future, my hope is that studios recognize video critics a little more, like Rotten Tomatoes has, and appreciate that there’s a lot of voices out there.

CinemaSins

CHRIS ATKINSON: I don’t know that it is going to change much. In the next five years, I am cynical. I think it is just going to get more and more negative and more and more loud voices. People are always going to try to be the loudest voice in the room, because that’s what sells. You tend to get a lot of people who want to emulate something like us — where it is super negative — but you may not get people who are doing it with a purpose. You may just be getting people who are negative for negativity’s sake.

JEREMY SCOTT: I agree. It’s going to become more and more of the type of voice people think we are, when we are really joking about being that.

Lindsay Ellis

I am a natural pessimist, so my suspicion is that this is as good as it is gonna get, and it is about to get really corporately commodified. The highest quality stuff you are going to get, for better or for worse, is going to be fan-funded. But once corporations figure out how to outbid fan funding, then the scene might change.

However, as long as people are willing to pay for this online content that is not supported through regular revenue streams — on Patreon or otherwise — maybe it will only keep getting better. I feel as long as corporations and ad revenues keep their dirty paws out off of it, it will continue to grow and flourish.

Black Men
Can’t Jump

JAMES III: I definitely think that in the future, anybody can say what their opinion is and it can have bigger weight than it currently does right now. I’m a movie critic now because of a Facebook post of an opinion about Martin Lawrence, and then now here we are. It’s like, what’s happening?

JONATHAN BRAYLOCK: I think people get a general sense of what the critics, as a whole, think about a particular movie. It’s weird, because in a way, critics have more power as a whole, but maybe less so individually. And in terms of the future — man, I have no idea. I really don’t.

JERAH MILLIGAN: Personally, I hate Rotten Tomatoes. When I see the Tomatometer score, I know that’s from critics and not the fans. And fans need to come first to me. I don’t know what the future is, but I would assume in some way that fan reaction is going to be what propels criticism. Because those are the people who matter.

History Buffs

Film criticism on YouTube has already progressed so much. I remember back in 2007 and 2008, it was just a lot of people in poorly lit bedrooms on a webcam, just talking about a film. Often, the cliché was like, “Hey, guys. I just watched this movie,” and they’ll hold up the DVD case to the camera.

But I think this is the golden age of film criticism, right now. People have better production value. They’re getting great cameras, great lighting equipment. Anyone who’s starting out and wants to be a film critic on YouTube needs to figure out what they can bring that stands out from other people. I think it’s sort of set a new standard, and it’s just going to progress in that direction.

Alachia Queen

It would be nice to have a wider representation of a general audience, of people who don’t look at films necessarily the way that past critics have looked at films.

From my perspective, it seems like lot of people who are reading film critics are reading reviews and thinking, “This doesn’t represent me at all.” So, I think that there needs to be more representation of people who just really aren’t looking to create a narrative in the review world, or in the media world, who are just simply expressing their opinion.

The Worst Idea
of All Time

TIM BATT: I’ve always been quite amused with the whole idea of critics and reviewers. I think it’s so funny that hundreds of millions of dollars get spent, thousands of people are involved, hundreds of thousands of hours of work go into it, all of the time, energy, and resources. Then some schmuck just pops off to the movies and decides whether it’s deemed worthy or not. I find that really amusing that they give themselves so much power. I get that we need people to sit through the huge amounts of media that we have out there now and inform us as to what’s good and what’s not, and there are certainly people who are experts in film. But it seems so incredibly reductive to just pop along to a screening of something that took thousands of hours to make. I find that quite funny. And absurd.

GUY MONTGOMERY: Well, you can’t see us, but if you could, I would say you are looking at the future of film criticism.