(by Adhithya K R)
I wanted to insert “Bad cinema” or even “Terrible cinema” in the title of this piece but that would be going against the very spirit of what I’m about to say. It’s what Gautham Menon mentioned in an interview many days back that got me thinking about what the cinematic experience really means. “Every screening, every show, has its own magic associated with it. It’s not just the movie but the entire atmosphere that makes up the experience. Sometimes it works – People have an infectious enthusiasm that spreads like wild-fire and before you know it, people are cheering and they’re locked into the rhythm of the movie, responding to all the scenes exactly the way I wanted, sometimes responding to moments that I didn’t even expect them to. But sometimes things go down the wrong way. A sigh, a groan, an exclamation or a satirical laugh, and nobody’s taking the movie seriously any more.”
OK, he didn’t say all of that, but that’s the experience I got out of watching his interview. Before there were online reviews, and opinions about a movie got out so fast, the movie-going experience was very subjective for me. The first time I watched Transformers on the big screen with my cousin and a couple of friends from school, we screamed our heads off even when we had no idea who was fighting whom. I remember discussing with my Sanskrit teacher the scene where Optimus Prime played hide and seek, and making up songs with nonsense lyrics like “Transformers Kundalakesi…” – Ten, fifteen years later the memory of this day is what I carry though I’ve now wised up to the fact that Michael Bay isn’t such a God.
I don’t get such experiences that easily even with the best of movies these days. Everyone’s too engrossed with the movie. Understandable that they don’t want to waste the 250 bucks they spent on the ticket, but it’s scary to puncture that invisible shell that they’ve constructed around themselves. Most of my friends know that I’m insufferable if I start getting bored by the movie – I keep myself busy by cracking jokes and building a narrative around what’s happening on the screen. But movies these days are incredibly detailed even if they aren’t dense and it’s dangerous to disturb a Marvel Junkie who’s waited years to catch End-Game on screen.
True, movie watching is a very personal experience and something like Kumbalangi Nights will have the greatest impact when it’s watched in solitude. The unbroken, meditative state necessary to let some movies get beneath your skin just cannot be attained in the company of the others, even if they are all absolutely silent.
There are some experiences solitude cannot buy though. There’s a movie called “The Room” which has the dubious honour of being “one of the worst films ever made.” I watched this film with a close friend of mine and we spent two hours dumbstruck that someone would make a film like this, all while adding our own inside jokes and absurd “analytical explanations” to elevate it to more than what it was. The film didn’t teach us anything about life or transform a part of our soul, but it did give birth to a set of inside jokes and ideas that we kept coming back to. When we saw terrible acting by the guy who played Billy Russo in The Punisher, for example, we postulated that he had probably learnt acting by watching The Room. Unlike millions of fans who haggled over what happened at the end of the Inception, ours was an experience possible only because of that particular viewing. And that was probably true of every group that watched “The Room” which explains its cult following to date.
I had the same feeling when I watched Vishal Menon’s video essay on how Amarkalam was one of the most “meta” films of its time. I had watched Amarkalam just a few months back and I was just frustrated with the crude humour and writing, wondering how this was the turning point in Ajith’s career. But watching the video essay, I was surprised to see that Vishal had built a narrative of his own around the movie, finding meta-moments and references that made the film a ‘surreal experience’, in his own words. I didn’t necessarily buy into the story he was selling, but I could see that he did, and that was what mattered. The film enabled the construction of a story around it that gave him some form of catharsis.
This is not an attempt at justifying generic mass movies or at providing an excuse for bad filmmaking. It’s just that with the deluge of film criticism out there, people begin to re-evaluate the film that they’ve watched by isolating the film from the experience they had and belittling the memory that they’ve created in the process. I’ve done this too in the past, and only a conscious awareness of the experience as a whole lets me hold on to those memories. Sometimes it’s a good movie that truly moves me, but sometimes it can be just the basis for an engaging discussion. It could result in an inside joke or a meme. It could create the opportunity for a story outside the movie or serve as a template for you to fit your emotions on. And you can still enjoy that.
Sometimes art is not what it is, but what you think it is.
Baradwaj Rangan 
N Madhusudhan
May 7, 2020
Fascinating article, Adithya. I remember even VJS mentioned in his interview with BR that there was positive word of mouth for his ‘Oru nalla naal paathu solren’ from certain screenings but the overall verdict was that of a disaster. And as you rightly mentioned, for some films the energy inside the theatre could act as the deal breaker.
But please don’t be one of those guys who keeps passing comments or making jokes when the film isn’t working for him. It ruins the experience of people who may be enjoying the film and it’s also disrespectful to the people around you. 🙂
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AdhithyaKR
May 8, 2020
@Madhusudhan, yeah I know it’s annoying at times and I’ve been on the receiving end too quite often. Palakkadosham 😅 (I don’t trash the film if that’s how it came across). I guess I’m more sensitive to how I’m affecting the experience of the people around me these days and keep quiet as a result. I usually don’t mind their comments though, unless they are repetitive and whiny.
My emphasis was also on people experiencing the movie and making up their own minds instead of getting carried away by analyses of the movie.
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Anu Warrier
May 8, 2020
Interesting piece, Adithya. There are times when I pass over watching a film because ‘the critics slammed it’ but eventually I tend to return to it because of streaming platforms or YouTube or something. But films that I do want to watch in the theatre, I go to, despite word-of-mouth disses or critical analyses. (Case in point: Thugs of Hindostan)
Before, you went to the theatre and made up your own mind about the film. Even if you had read the views of a couple of critics in the newspapers you bought. (My dad, for instance, insisted on going for a film if Khalid Mohammed had trashed it.) Today, there are a plethora of opinions floating around, and you hear of them whether you want to, or not. Sometimes, the sheer weight of those opinions puts you off a film – which you might like if you do catch it later. And sometimes, it sinks a movie that may have otherwise done a decent piece of business.
But allow me a mini-rant; it is one of the rare times I come off like an old granny yelling ‘Gerroff my lawn!’ 😦 I hate, hate, hate that the movie experience has been so diluted by people who decide that they need to spend their time in the theatre tweeting out their so-valuable opinions out into the void. It takes me out of the collective-yet-personal experience that is experiencing a movie in the theatre.
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vivaciously_yours
May 9, 2020
@AdhithyaKR- Very Interesting Take!
I have been practicing this for some years now: If I want to treat a movie like an event/celebration, I watch with a crowd- be it friends or family, say Rajini Movie, MCU, Vijay/Ajith Masala Commercial one, Star Wars. When it comes to watching art cinema, festival movies, other language movies, or serious cinema- I always watch it alone. I have found it hard to appreciate the very different nuances that the creator has to offer when I watch with a company.
A movie going experience or the art of appreciation of cinema to me also depends on our age and experience. With age, and experience and exposure our tastes change. While in college, just heading out with a bunch of friends is all that would have mattered. As we age our sensibilities change, our perspectives change. As a child, our opinions and views on social issues, or what type of movie we watch and music we listen to is mostly influenced by our family and the society we live in. But once we become more independent, we form our own opinions, we tend to be open to explore unconventional things.
Had I watched Schindler’s list as a teen, I would not have a) understood it fully, b) appreciated it. When I first watched Uthiri Pookal, I watched it just as a movie goer, “meh, a movie about a sadistic guy” what else a kid can understand. But as an adult, I am able to appreciate all the directorial touches that film has to offer. I watched Sarkar with my kids and nephew who are ardent Vijay fans, and went to a theater packed with fans, and let me tell you, I cruised along- with the high energy the audience brought, I loved the bad-ass attitude of Vijay and all the slow-mo’(I cd’nt stop but roll my eyes at Keerthi Suresh’s role). I re-watched this in prime, and I was like, “ARM, what were you thinking”. When I watched VTV when it was released, I was working 14 hrs a day with a travel job and toddlers at toe, and I literally speed-watched that movie, and my opinion of the movie was, “a cheesy romantic flick”. I re-watched it a few years ago, at my own pace, in peace, and I was wowed by how well Trisha’s character was etched and felt like it had been some time to have seen a female character with that many layers. Yes, Art is very subjective, and its beauty is in the beholder’s eye!
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AdhithyaKR
May 10, 2020
@vivaciously_yours, thanks. One of the reasons I love cinema and storytelling in general is not just the content but how different people perceive and interpret it. There have been times I’ve bad-mouthed a particular movie only to be vehemently challenged by a friend who presents it from his own perspective, listing all the merits of the movie. Sometimes this has prompted a rewatch and rethinking from my end and I still look forward to people challenging my opinions.
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AdhithyaKR
May 10, 2020
@Anu Warrier, interesting point about Khalid Mohammed. That’s how I used to view BR’s reviews in the newspaper as a kid. 😅 But with time, contrary views have helped me become more tolerant.
Not watching reviews before viewing a movie would be the ideal thing to do. Unfortuantely it’s very hard with the glut of content on social media.
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Madan
May 10, 2020
Well written Adhithya, though I personally don’t relate much to it since I’ve rarely had it happen to me that where and with who I watched a film affected my opinion of the film. I mean, if I was with someone who didn’t like the film and therefore made my own viewing experience difficult, I would not hold it against the film and probably revisit it at a later date. I can remember one or more instances where being with my cousin blessed with a wry sense of humour helped the both of us survive an all out assault of cinematic mediocrity (Sarvam and Arul being the films in question). But did it change my opinion of the films in a favourable way? Not at all.
” (My dad, for instance, insisted on going for a film if Khalid Mohammed had trashed it.)” – Ha! Something we should have followed but there was no Hindu in Bombay and unless you wanted to wait for magazine reviews, TOI was the only way to gauge a film.
I am going to say something that may not be so popular in this space (which is ironic considering it’s a film critic’s blog). I don’t think film reviews are THAT bad. I still glance over them to judge whether I should go watch the film. It’s not all about the rating, more about what they describe about the conceit etc. I tend to be forgiving of the instances they are off base.
This, as opposed to the fact that I don’t read music reviews pretty much at all. Whether it’s behindwoods reviews of a new Ilayaraja soundtrack or RS/Pitchfork etc, most reviews, irrespective of their length, are pretty shallow in their analysis and appreciation of music. I feel that movie reviewers (or book reviewers for that matter) have the discipline still to appreciate the movie/book as a work of art on its own terms (as cinema or fiction for the sake of it) while music reviewers somewhere make it too much about whether they relate ‘socially’ to the music. This doesn’t apply for some reason to Rolling Stone India because they seem to have people actually passionate about music write the reviews.
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Anu Warrier
May 10, 2020
Adithya, Madan, my dad’s opinion on Khalid Mohammed would have blistered his ears if he’d been privy to it. 🙂 I must confess that when I began working, I began to lean more and more towards my dad’s opinion of him. It was pretty clear from his reviews that he had his favourites and they could do no wrong; and, from what colleagues from ToI told me then, if you were nice to him, he would give you a good review. If you weren’t, he could be vicious.
Now, all that’s hearsay, and if only he wrote a decent review, I would probably have ignored the so-called ‘reason’ behind his bad reviews, but gosh, his reviews were badly written. I don’t know if you remember, Madan, but there was a time when he began rhyming his reviews? They were ghastly!
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Madan
May 11, 2020
” I don’t know if you remember, Madan, but there was a time when he began rhyming his reviews? They were ghastly!” – Oh yes. He tried too hard to stylize his reviews and it was awful. Raja Sen does some of that and when he does, it gets very annoying (they both have a thing for SRK, curiously) but his content is on average better than Khalid. Then, of course, TOI reviews became completely paid and unreliable and people began to read Mayank Shekar’s reviews on Mirror. Mirror has gone through a bunch of reviewers but their standard tends to be pretty good. IDK about Bangalore or Pune Mirror but in Mumbai, it follows the tradition of Afternoon Dispatch, sort of leisurely late weekday/weekend reading but with serious political articles too where Afternoon used to be much more city centric.
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Aman Basha
May 11, 2020
The thing for SRK exists with almost all reviewers, if I may say so. Sukanya Verma, Anupama Chopra are self confessed fans and you can see them fangirling almost throughout their reviews, Raja Sen, even Brangan seems to like him more at times vis-a-vis his contemporaries though he does justly praise Aamir as well. The thing film critics and journalists can only be attributed to why Anu ma’am in the SMZS thread admired him for, his interviews. His wit, humor and charm spill over in large doses till even Dave Letterman with the bushy beard seems to be blushing. That even spills into Rahul Desai’s reviews, who in every review while talking about SRK seems to be more and more like Gaurav from Fan, keeps on harping about how he is every one’s dream interviewee or sorts.
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Madan
May 11, 2020
Aman Basha: I don’t have a problem with THAT kind of affinity for SRK. It’s art after all and we can’t be all coldly unbiased (that would hardly be desirable anyway in art critique). Even I relate much more to SRK than AK (and since I don’t relate to Bhai at all, nothing to discuss there). This is even though I feel AK selects scripts with more discretion and with respect for the content while SRK only values commercial potential which is why he has been consistently getting it wrong for a while now.
BUT Khalid’s bias was extreme and extended up to defending Asoka. I don’t know if Anupama Chopra went there and would be surprised if she had. Likewise, Raja Sen wrote an article on who might play the lead role in an Indian remake of The Artist and somehow his ‘obvious’ choice was SRK. Seems somebody never watched Pushpak. So in these cases, the bias reached a mad level where it was impossible for readers to ignore as just a little quirk of the critic. It was an obsessive kind of bias. That’s certainly how it came across in print, whether or not either of them intended it.
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Aman Basha
May 11, 2020
Madan: More than SRK, Raja Sen seems to have something against Aamir Khan IIRC. I read that article and it seemed like a fanboy, which I unabashed am, fantasizing about his favorite actor, though what surprised me is that he had it published. When I looked at the date, all my doubts were cleared, it mostly seemed a subconscious, kneejerk reaction to the horrors of 2011 where everyone deplored why he seemed to be involved in this trash and Raja Sen did trash them rightfully. I could see where he was coming from, not that only SRK would fit the premise but ruminating on his persona and legacy using the Artist remake idea as a crutch. If I seem defensive, it’s because I’ve done this too.
I don’t think SRK’s all about money, if he was, he wouldn’t have produced a Paheli, Asoka, PBDH, Zero or JHMS. He’s unapologetic about earning off weddings, endorsements and shows but he always says he doesn’t look at films for profit.
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Madan
May 12, 2020
“I read that article and it seemed like a fanboy, which I unabashed am, fantasizing about his favorite actor, though what surprised me is that he had it published.” – Which is the exact problem I had with the article because Raja Sen should have qualified the article saying he was wearing his SRK fan hat. He was so blinkered at that point that he had convinced himself his SRK fandom was just and right and it was the rest of the world that was myopic about SRK.
But I could have perhaps let that go too if he had not gone so far as to indulge himself this blasphemy. Yes, he insists it’s not blasphemy but sorry I disagree.
” I wasn’t entirely content with the leading man. Stellar as Jean Dujardin was in the role of a silent movie icon made redundant by talking pictures, I merely posit that Shah Rukh Khan would have done it better.”
First of all, Dujardin was brilliant in that role. And secondly, as an ACTOR, he has lots of range which the younger SRK may have had but not in 2011.
https://rajasen.com/2012/02/01/srk-the-artist/
His wild speculation that SRK’s inherent narcissism would make him more suitable for this role than Dujardin himself ignores the nuts and bolts of what the role required. SRK is an actor who relies heavily on his half-stutter style of speaking. This is not a bad thing in and of itself but in a silent role, you need an actor who doesn’t need his voice to act. SRK is not that kind of actor.
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Aman Basha
May 12, 2020
@Madan, it’s a completely senseless article, at first I thought he assumed the role has off screen parallels with SRK’s career in his opinion, which is a bit daft and he doesn’t really justify his idea at all. The more and more I hear of Khalid Mohamed, the less I feel inclined to read his articles. But then one worrying trend in some reviews these days are the extreme ‘wokeness’ or the need for every movie to be politically correct. This was especially evident in Uri, where the groundbreaking action stretches seemed to have been given short shrift to its politics where critics gave it less than complimentary reviews, comparing it to Zero Dark Thirty. Well, they seem unaware as to how actively the White House supported the producers, giving them access to even classified documents. It just annoyed me to no end for some reason and I really appreciate rangan sir’s reviews, they don’t smack of pretentious intellectualism or deliberate wokeness.
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Senthil
May 13, 2020
Bad movies are just as important as good movies. I wasn’t able to understand why a good film was good and pick apart the bad and good features of a film until I started going just as in-depth with bad movies. Bad movies often aspire to be what the audience wants as well (but fail miserably), so I think that SOMETIMES, they give an indication of filmmakers think the audience wants.
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Madan
May 13, 2020
Aman Basha: Unfortunately, yes, our reviewers are showing signs of attaching more importance to the political or social agenda around the film than the film itself. The counter argument to this is always that movies don’t exist in a vacuum, they are based on life, they influence life blah blah blah. I get all that. BUT art critique should at least focus substantially on the how, the presentation. We watch a movie or listen to a piece of music to appreciate how an idea is presented, not to appreciate merely the presentation of politically acceptable or agreeable ideas. At least…I used to think that’s what film or music appreciation was about. Not sure anymore.
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Aman Basha
May 13, 2020
@Madan: I’m not sure of anything anymore. The world seems split to opposite extremes of the spectrum, and anything seems to warrant the most amazing over reactions. There’s even the trend of appropriating the latest trend and then running with it for a while. The way Chhapak got attacked on IMDB and BookMyShow drove me further away from them, the star rating system is a bane used irresponsibly, critics routinely pan movies which seem to influence people further towards disliking them like Thugs Of Hindostan, which though admittedly very average, didn’t exactly deserve to be bracketed with Race 3 to create a grand narrative of how the Khans are finished and the “script” is king, Tanhaji gets exemptions and all sorts of support though its leading man is the most hypocritical nationalist ever. Politics is playing a bigger and bigger role in movie watching and criticism which is very annoying. I mean, how did Akshay Kumar win a National Award for Rustom!!!??? The worst are the barrage of biopics conveniently tweaked to suit the narrative the filmmakers want to propagate.
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Vijay
May 14, 2020
@ Senthil
Totally agree. I used to stay away from bad movies (bec who wants to deliberately watch a movie they know they won’t enjoy) but found importance in them over time, in the same way you mentioned.
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Jai
May 15, 2020
@ Madan, Aman – I agree with you, several film reviewers these days have slipped into a regrettable tendency of giving more of a sociopolitical analysis than a genuine review. BR is one of the few who take the trouble to view the film for itself, and give an opinion on how it is presented. The reason most of us keep coming back to this site is because whether one agrees with BR’s opinion on a particular movie or not; 1) he always gives a very well written summation of why he felt the way he did about the film/ scene/ performance and 2) he is always clear that what he is putting forth is his opinion, and there is no such thing as ” only one way to look at the film”. Of course, reading his reviews about the films he hated is usually a hoot – guaranteed to make one chortle at the sarcasm!
Among the others, the ones I follow to a lesser degree are Rajeev Masand and Anupama Chopra. I find both to be very articulate, though Masand does get a bit pretentious at times. Again, his takedowns of movies he dislikes are quite funny. I find Anupama Chopra on the whole to be quite fair, though she does have an evident bias for a few actors.
Most of the other reviewers indulge in virtue signalling and a peremptory stance which doesn’t even take into account the setting or plot of the film. Most of their “reviews” are just scalding, hyper-opinionated pieces that prefer denigration over discussion, name-calling over nuance and absolutism over subjectivity. One reviewer I used to follow before and had a genuinely high regard for, was Anna Vetticad. But she has fallen into the trap of wanting to “compulsively polish her woke/ liberal/ progressive credentials” in almost all her reviews now.
The pity is, I would wager many of us are as aghast at right wing loony bins as she is. But that doesn’t mean taking an extreme leftist ideological stance, giving out harangues about utopian sociopolitical conditions in almost every film review. Couple of “gems” from her repertoire was slamming Baby for apparently indulging in “patriotic chest thumping” and being somehow “selective in its condemnation of what constitutes terrorism” – this, for an espionage thriller which was not aiming to be a comprehensive documentary on current ills by any means. Another of her gripes was about Baahubali – which, despite its mytho-historical setting, she found to display “closeted conservatism …romanticisation of social status-quoism”. IMO, slamming a movie set in a fictional kingdom about 12 centuries ago for not showing ideology in line with contemporary values, is pretty pointless. At best, it shows lack of application of mind by the reviewer, and at worst, intellectual dishonesty.
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Aman Basha
May 15, 2020
@Jai: Oh, is this the same Anna MM Vetticad who saw rape in Baahubali, and then went on to write a bizarre and pretentious article on it, if it was valid, I’d agree, but the whole sequence seemed to be taken out of the movie and watched all by itself, using today’s news instead of the movie narrative or a meta narrative as context. Clearly seemed to be taking a contrarian view for the heck of it, I don’t want to re read the article but to be fair, Rape is too heavy a word to use in this context, where everyone and I guess, the director saw a woman suppressing her inner femininity as she becomes a warrior and this man who climbs a mountain in search of this woman tries to show that she is beautiful sort of thing.
Rajeev Masand and Anupama Chopra are quite good but with utter frankness, my relationship with reviewers is based on our mutual preferences like people, if I find some reviewer with an opinion similar to mine, I naturally gravitate towards them. Even if I don’t agree with his reviews, @brangan sir brings his perspective so perfectly that we understand why it didn’t work for him and these faults are always in the context of the movie first, then the sociopolitical atmosphere and so on. Masand and Chopra seem to write very short reviews and when you have similar opinion, but when you differ, it isn’t much fun as you don’t seem to understand their POV so well.
PS: There’s a whole fanboy tribute waiting to be written on how this must be the best Indian film blog ever!!
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Madan
May 15, 2020
Jai: Tbf, one thing that didn’t sit well with me in Baahubali is the enemy army that both Amarendra Baahubali and Balaladeva are required to tackle as the test is shown as extremely dark complexioned. They weren’t even asuras, so there was no mythological basis either to justify this. But that was just ONE element in the entire movie. As against Sivagami being the queen and the depiction of Avanthika as an accomplished huntress. Now if she wants to talk about the torture of the older Avanthika by Balaladeva, well, maybe she can also try talking about why Mr Nobel Peace Prize could somehow never shut down Gitmo in an eight year presidency (or is that also to be blamed on Moscow Mitch?). This is not a whataboutery. The point is there is much that is imperfect about the world we live in today, even the first world. Art is just a soft target and a mythology inspired fantasy film a particularly soft one at that.
I used to read Anupama Chopra’s reviews back when we used to buy India Today magazine (or borrow it from libraries). I guess both her and Masand’s style of reviewing was influenced by that era, which did not tolerate lengthy reviews particularly well. BR has been a trendsetter that way in bringing in a style of reviewing that is at once erudite AND highly subjective, not coming across as trying to impose the critic’s take on the audience.
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Jai
May 15, 2020
@Aman- yeah that’s the same reviewer I was referring to, Anna MM Vetticad. Well, to be fair, her article on the dynamics between Baahubali and Avanthika in Baahubali 1, had several good points on the occasionally problematic depiction of consent in movies. Where she went too far there, was in describing it – in an unnecessarily incendiary and click-baity way, as rape. One can’t just casually draw parallels to a serious and traumatic crime, for a sequence which is, at worst, poorly conceptualized/in questionable taste. Obviously, the whole issue got polarized, and the valid points she had made got lost.
Far from drawing any constructive lessons from this, she went on to write a travesty of a review for Baahubali 2. This time decrying it’s sociopolitical stance! Apparently she felt its portrayal of warriors and ruling class reflected conservatism and status quoism!! (mind you, she was talking about a movie set in a mytho-historical setting). I guess, in her opinion, Rajamouli should have shown elections and political parties and arbitration of disputes in court, for film set somewhere in 8th or 9th Centuries CE……
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brangan
May 16, 2020
I have never understood this whole “recommend a movie” aspect to being a film critic. There are many times I have sought out a restaurant because a food critic raved about it, and then I find the food is not that great.
It’s about taste, sensibility, exposure, and your own taste buds — I’m sorry, but I still am not not a fan of sushi!
Without even knowing you, how can I say “go see this film”!
But that’s also why my reviews haven’t transcended the niche readership. Because most readers WANT these recommendations and are simply not interesting in my babbling about this aspect and that aspect of a film.
One funny incident: At a lit fest, one guy came up to me and said (very politely) he is not interested in knowing what I felt about a film. He only wanted to know if HE would like it!!! He meant it like a piece of advice. 😀
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Madan
May 16, 2020
“He only wanted to know if HE would like it!!! ” – Would that he simply watched the film to find out than rely on a critic’s infallible judgment.
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Jai
May 16, 2020
@ BR, it boils down to what the audience of these reviews is looking for. Most of us who keep returning to your site love the discussion around the film. Debating what worked and what didn’t for you and for each of us. And I would like to think that most of us gain a better way of looking at a film after that, noticing small nuances and nuggets which may have passed unnoticed before. In fact, many times I read your reviews after watching the film, and I’m sure this is the case for many of us here. If I’m trying to get a sense of what you felt about the film before watching it myself, I normally just read the tagline and the first para or two of your review, just to get a broad sense and to not encounter spoilers. And then I come back to the review once I’ve seen the film (if I decide to watch it).
I guess, people who try to decide whether or not to go for a film based on what, say, a Taran Adarsh/Anna Vetticad/Shubhra Gupta/Mayank Shekar said about it, aren’t really all that interested in nuance or discussion about the film. They are looking for a couple of things- 1) the end-phrase “advice” – which is usually a stock variant of “this is awful, avoid it like the plague”, or “this is hands down one of the best movies of the year, don’t miss it”. and 2) There is this obsession with star ratings. Earlier it used to be whole numbers, then it evolved to half mark scales, and now, for crying out loud, there is even a graded quarter mark scale involved. Anna, for instance, gives ratings like 3.25, 2.75 etc.
The consequence of this forced scaling is, invariably it leads to debates about “how could you rate XX movie as 2.75 whereas you rated YY as a 2.50, when the latter is so much better…..”. Instead of a fruitful discussion about the merits and shortcomings of each film, it devolves into sniping about relative “marks”. So my review of their “reviews” usually is – “stay the hell away from these, if you value your intelligence and peace of mind”! 😀
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brangan
May 16, 2020
What a coincidence 🙂
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Isai
May 16, 2020
“He only wanted to know if HE would like it!!!”
Isn’t this the reason why MANY people look at a review BEFORE going to the theatre? It would be NICE if critics, in ADDITION to what they do now, also spend some time in understanding the movie tastes of their target audience and suggest which section of the audience is most likely to enjoy that movie. For example, I noticed the flaws in Kaithi movie but I also noticed that the movie had an infectious energy that was gripping most of the audience. I watched Kaala twice and could see that most people were ATLEAST slightly disappointed with that Rajini movie. As I hurriedly walked down after watching Sivalinga in SPI Perambur, wondering what’s wrong with me, I remember noticing women and teenagers smiling and happily watching the end-credits roll. I feel understanding these differing tastes and giving tailored recommendations will help in increasing the reach of the critic, beyond cinephiles and those who come to enjoy the writing.
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Jai
May 16, 2020
Sigh. Wrt Hari’s tweet you have quoted above, BR- it’s a symptom of the times we line in, isn’t it, that to be “nuanced and subtle” is considered a kind of weakness. Many would seemingly prefer a more absolutist, polarizing stance. All the better to yell and argue (instead of discussing and debating) about.
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Madan
May 16, 2020
Jai: “Shubhra Gupta” – Anybody depending on her RATINGS is going to skip a lot of films. As a reviewer, she is quite good, mind you. But her ratings are like Uncle Scrooge.
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Jai
May 16, 2020
@ Madan, yeah what you said about Shubhra is true. I used to think Raja Sen was harsh on the majority of films but Shubhra is even “stingier” with her ratings scale. I mean, most movies which are quite an enjoyable watch don’t get more than a 2.5 as per her scale – another reason why I don’t like these “marks” at the end of reviews. IIRC, there was even an article about how a film “rated” as a 2.25 by “an eminent critic” like Anna means “it isn’t half bad”. Go figure . 😀
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Aman Basha
May 16, 2020
@Madan: Isn’t this the same esteemed Shubra Gupta who KJo religiously reads since she (in his words) seems incapable of liking a film and he’s entertained by how she nitpicks as he says. I’ve seen some of her reviews recently and thought she was quite fair. Could I get an example?
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Madan
May 17, 2020
Aman Basha: It may be that she read what KJ had to say about her and toned down, idk. But at least until recently, her reviews gave the impression that she focused more on the aspects she didn’t like while issuing a rating which had the effect of making it sound like even films that received some critical acclaim were average at best. Here’s Kapoor & Sons:
https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/movie-review/kapoor-and-sons-movie-review-stars-rating/
She gave it just two stars. She talks a lot in the first half of the review about the things she liked in the film and then comes the big BUT. Note that even Namrata Joshi and Anna Vetticad rated the film highly.
Now, she is entirely entitled to rate films the way she wishes to. But there is a pattern of her being extremely stingy in handing out the stars.
3.5 for Jolly LLB2:
https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/movie-review/jolly-llb-2-movie-review-akshay-kumar-huma-qureshi-star-rating-4517116/
3 for Dangal:
https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/movie-review/dangal-movie-review-aamir-khan-sakshi-tanwar-star-rating-4438873/
3 again for Neerja:
https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/movie-review/neerja-movie-review-sonam-kapoor-film-stars/
See, I have covered a range of styles of movie making here and it’s hard to understand from this just what kind of style she relates to most.
Her REVIEWS are well written and detail her objections to different aspects of the film well. But when you add it up with the rating, it’s more like a prosecutor’s case against the film. A kind of “I am the cat’s whiskers and hard to please” posture. I want critics to advocate for cinema, to feel and sound enthusiastic about it because it is a pleasurable experience. A grouchy reviewer leaves a sour taste. Piling on snark for a really bad film is not only ok, it’s enjoyable to read and most good critics revel in it. Chris Stuckmann has a hilarocrity section specifically for really bad films and his Cats review is a hoot to watch. But if you take reasonably well made films and go “Yeah, but” all the time, it starts to grate after a while. Yeah, no, would rather read somebody else. I can see why KJ thinks she is nitpicky.
And she’s not as clear about what she likes in films as she might sound from the above reviews. She gave Queen 4 stars which I loved but not convinced it’s really head and shoulders above the films I mentioned. And then 3 stars for Agneepath which was a lot, lot more boring – not to mention padded up to the nth degree – than the above ones (and lastly, almost unforgivable/unpalatable if you have already watched the original Agneepath starring AB which was riffing on Scarface which in turn was kind of riffing on the 70s angry young man films).
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vivaciously_yours
May 20, 2020
@BR: For starters most people confuse film review (one which give a rating) to film criticism. I have friends who wouldn’t go to a theater if the Rotten Tomato rating was anything <90%. “Save it for Redbox” is what they say. I also believe there are two kinds of film criticism- one which tells how engaging the movie is- ie the entertainment quotient and then there is this is socio-politico-cultural criticism, which goes beyond acting, directing etc – beyond what we see on silver screen and that’s what I look for in an essay from BR.
A critic’s job is not to tell me how to feel about a movie, or what to understand from a movie. I don’t want to be spoon fed about how to interpret the movie, but enlighten me and engage me in a discussion. A good film criticism should not only articulate how we view films but also in turn shape the entire film industry. All the discussion around a movie, does open up our views and provide alternate thinking and film appreciation.
I think a general audience needs both- A Review/Rating and criticism- one which gives a rating of “would I like this movie?” and for a cinephile, a good enriching essay on the movie which is why we read BR’s posts. There has been times when I am short-handed on time, and I really don’t want to read any review, I have looked at your youtube Quick-Gun reviews for its timing, and would think to myself, “Ok BR’s video is more than 4 min long, I should definitely watch this movie- either it’s too good, or he has too much to dis about it 🙂 “
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