My Film Reviews

I’ll be posting my first film review within the next few hours, but before I do so, I wanted to write a little bit about what you should expect from my reviews.
For the most part, my reviews will not be breaking-news, “I’ve seen it first” reviews. Most of the movies which I will be reviewing will probably have been in wide release for a while before I get around to reviewing them. The main reason for this is because I live in Craiova, Romania half of the time and we don’t get most movies here until well after they are released in the US.

I don’t see this as a major problem, though, for two reasons. First of all, in this age of Netflix, the majority of film viewing goes on at home, not at the theatre. Unless you are a major cinema geek, most of the movies you eventually see you view at home for the first time. So you should look at my reviews as a helpful indication of whether you should bother renting a film or not ( since chances are pretty good you didn’t see it in the theatre anyways).

The second reason why I don’t think late-breaking reviews are necessarily bad is because a good review not only helps you to decide whether you want to see a film or not, but also helps you to better analyze the films that you do see. A good review can give you a perspective on a film which you might not have had on your own, and which adds to your appreciation of that film.

Personally, I usually know which movies I want to see well before any reviews are released and I avoid most reviews until after I have seen a film so that my experience of each film can be as unspoiled as possible. But once I have seen a film and formed my own opinion of it, I seek out reviews by critics whose writing I respect and read what they have written to see how close (or different) it is to my own opinion. And whether I agree or disagree with these other reviews, reading them usually always adds something to my own internal analysis of the film.
Which leads me to another point which I should make about myself.

I am a self professed film snob.
I love great movies. I could watch great movies all day. But I don’t particularly like movies in general. I think that the majority of what is released is mediocre at best and mind-numbingly stupid at worst. I don’t watch movies as mindless entertainment (the way most people watch TV), but if I am going to invest 2 hours of my life watching a story then I expect greatness.
That does not mean that I prejudge a film based on the genre. There are no genres that I either love or hate. There is greatness and there is trash in every possible genre. When I prejudge a film it is based on the people who created it.
So, for the most part, the films which I will be reviewing are those from which I expect greatness, since I don’t waste my time watching anything else.

Once the reviews start appearing feel free to add your own comments. Start a discussion. What do you have to add to my analysis of these films?

See you soon.