Is professional criticism dead? - Has the internet age invalidated the need for professional opinions on media?

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Yes.

It's pretty funny when you go to IMDB, Google, etc. and see "user ratings" for X film are like 90% and 30% for "critics." Granted, if you are a "critic," you are supposed to be looking at the film with a somewhat trained and picky eye, but that almost always devolves into "This movie isn't Citizen Kane so it's bad" or "this movie isn't a weird arthouse film so bad."
 
Criticism died when reason and textual evidence were replaced by ideology and feels.
 
Kosher Dill dijo:
Even in their heyday, critics were only a way to hear the film-school take on a movie. They were useless for knowing if a new movie would be fun.
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Oh god yes. I remember the film critic in the newspaper back in the 90's in my area who would only give 4 stars to stuff that ran in the artsy theater that had two screens, that very few people ever went to. Even when he saw an action flick he liked, and wrote about how he enjoyed it despite himself (pretty sure he was that way about the first Jurassic Park for example), he'd still give it either 2 1/2 or 3 stars.
 
neverendingmidi dijo:
Oh god yes. I remember the film critic in the newspaper back in the 90's in my area who would only give 4 stars to stuff that ran in the artsy theater that had two screens, that very few people ever went to. Even when he saw an action flick he liked, and wrote about how he enjoyed it despite himself (pretty sure he was that way about the first Jurassic Park for example), he'd still give it either 2 1/2 or 3 stars.
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I think every local newspaper critic was like this. I remember all the boomer critics going to see the original TMNT movie deadset against hating it from the outset.
 
Patton Oswalt, elitist that he is, did a bit where he had the opposite problem. He was growing up in a Podunk Town and was forced to listen to the local culture critic rave over redneck entertainment while turning his nose up at artsy, indie entertainment. I guess no matter where you live, your local art critic is always going to find some way to piss you off and make you want to move.
 
My personal turning point was honestly Godzilla KOTM as someone who has been a longtime fan of Godzilla it finally became painfully apparent how many people didn't understand jack shit about the franchise i think it finally opend my eyes to how most "critics" and "experts" are pretty much people who did surface level reasearch if that and just coasted by on clout
 
Pokemonquistador2 dijo:
Patton Oswalt, elitist that he is, did a bit where he had the opposite problem. He was growing up in a Podunk Town and was forced to listen to the local culture critic rave over redneck entertainment while turning his nose up at artsy, indie entertainment. I guess no matter where you live, your local art critic is always going to find some way to piss you off and make you want to move.
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Nigger grew up 45 minutes from DC. Podunk my ass.
 
King Ghidorah dijo:
My personal turning point was honestly Godzilla KOTM as someone who has been a longtime fan of Godzilla it finally became painfully apparent how many people didn't understand jack shit about the franchise i think it finally opend my eyes to how most "critics" and "experts" are pretty much people who did surface level reasearch if that and just coasted by on clout
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Are you really surprised? Some critics complained that the 1985 Godzilla wasn't funny enough. Yeah, a movie in a series whose title character is a metaphor for the horrors of nuclear warfare is just ripe with comedic potential. Then again, the later Showa films did color Godzilla's reputation for a while.
 
It really falls into two camps these days: Either fully emotional or full logical. The former focuses more on themes and such and cares more about characters than story while the latter decries anything that doesn't follow internal logic (such as characters not acting like emotionless robots and always doing the "right" thing) and is more concerned about story over characters. IMO the perfect balance is a bit of both, but there aren't many big reviewers out there that think this way.
 
Mnutu dijo:
Actually, VA took back its half of DC (which was everything across the Potomac from Tysons Corner to Alexandria) prior to the Civil War. D.C. is 100% Maryland.
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Either way neither state is exactly a bastion of high culture
 
There are some critics who I think are pretty good. Joe Morgenstern at the Wall Street Journal likes a pretty wide variety of movies and he's pretty good writer. Joe Bob Briggs, of all people, wrote two books Profoundly Disturbing and Profoundly Erotic, that were really good at pointing out why some movies were good and why they important. They're not written in his usual style, but they are excellent.

I think the problem today is there's too many critics who are willing to exuberantly praise movies if they check some boxes or endorse a particular agenda (Ghostbusters 2016 or Captain Marvel). Rotten Tomatoes also promotes critics who are are just random bloggers who don't really care about ethics and will extravagantly praise a movie if they get swag from a movie studio.

I second the recommendation for The Dissolve. I wish there were more sites like it. I fear the fact that there are people who are unwilling to watch a movie made before 2010 means that we will see fewer and fewer critics who actually know anything about film history.
 
Well besides the fact "pro" critics have no dignity anymore and will shill/whore themselves for a pittance as others mentioned I would say what really killed this sector is the actual lack of professionality

Put simply they suck, they do a bad job. For example saying something its bad because it offends your faggoty tendencies its incredibly unprofessional. Not playing a game and still reviewing its extremely unprofessional, ever seen a movie critic that didnt even watch the movie?
 
Cool Dog dijo:
Put simply they suck, they do a bad job. For example saying something its bad because it offends your faggoty tendencies its incredibly unprofessional. Not playing a game and still reviewing its extremely unprofessional, ever seen a movie critic that didnt even watch the movie?
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That's called an Oscar voter.
 
Personally I don't think "professional" opinions were even reputable from the beginning, I mean it's just regular people being paid to review stuff, just that some people put them at a high pedestal.

We now are in an era where we can see public opinions thanks to the Internet and reviewing styles have changed too over time.
 
MoleeloM dijo:
Personally I don't think "professional" opinions were even reputable from the beginning, I mean it's just regular people being paid to review stuff, just that some people put them at a high pedestal.

We now are in an era where we can see public opinions thanks to the Internet and reviewing styles have changed too over time.
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This is true, but there's also the thing of refusing to take media reviews seriously and getting all your opinions on stuff from random people online. Sure, ILikeEverything.net probably has a wee bit of a bias going on, but conversely I don't really give a shit about what The Thing Hater has to say about media. It's best to filter out the mediocre review outlets or influencers and focus on ones that have a more balanced approach. Or you can just sub to ones who support the thing you like or hate the thing you hate, that works too.
 
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