beefpelican said:
DemBones said:
If Bob wasn't a competent, well informed critic he wouldn't have his own show and column and we wouldn't be talking about him. That being said, there has always been one aspect of Bob's critiquing style that has bugged me. Bob tends to preframe his experience going into a movie too much.
Preframing is basically giving someone else (or yourself in this case) an opinion before having actually experienced the final product. Everyone does it to a certain extent (hype yourself up or try to let yourself down easy) but it will always affect the final judgment.
If someone is immersed in movies and trailers, as a reviewer would be, how are they supposed to avoid doing this? To see months of buildup without forming any opinion is kind of like not thinking about pink elephants, especially when thinking about movies is your job.
OT: This is not the first time that Bob has written an article in defense of his right to be a critic. I don't really see that it's necessary. Clearly his opinion is valued by the editors and readers of the Escapist, or else he wouldn't have a job here. Valuable opinions justify themselves.
The best way to avoid it is to be aware of it and try to avoid it. You shouldn't react negatively to a film because it didn't play out exactly as you pictured it based on your anticipation (within reason). It seemed to me that a lot of the criticisms for TDKR came from critics who had an itemized checklist of what to expect from the film, than reacted negatively when those items weren't checked off by the end. They can add items due to pre-release marketing (The way this costume looks probably won't work well) and then feel vindicated with the final product (This costume doesn't work with this lighting). You probably noticed the plethora of links to articles with the title "Top 5/10/15/20 things about The Dark Knight Rises that did/didn't work". Those type of lists all read like critics complaining that the film wasn't perfect (i.e. the film they pictured in their head before seeing it) so it must be disappointing. No form of criticism can be succinctly summarized as a list.
Realizing that you already formed a small opinion requires a self-awareness that not everyone has. Bob seems like a reasonably self-aware guy, since his tendency to explain his decisions (even if I disagree with some of them) in further detail show that his head isn't completely up his ass. Many people still respect his opinion (I still do, despite disagreeing with him), and he's earned that respect. I was just providing constructive criticism of his recent reviews, so that he doesn't become like Harry Knowles. Now we can see how self-aware he really is.
