What Type of Film Critic Are You?

When you tear down the facade of self-given absolutism and opinion based ideology, Film Critics are a unique subset of the human workforce. Unlike so many jobs where your skill set, style, and expectations are predefined, critics enjoy an open range of topics and messages they can present in the manner of their choosing through the medium of film analysis. However, I've noticed growing trends as of late in the subject of how critics view their jobs. The same principle applies to bloggers.

While there is no doubting that we often lack the consistent access to worldwide cinema that most published critics possess, bloggers play a role in the grand scheme of things. Well, at least in our little world. So I think it's interesting to see how each and every one of us approaches a review. From what basic value do we derive the entirety of each critique? Or are these critiques mobile and we adapt them to suit the film at hand? What happens when we fail to make that adaptation fully? Perhaps the better question is: should we? After reading a lot of blogs (I don't want to name names), I've come up with what I think are the three prevalent movie critic types:

Type 1: Entertainment Gauger:

Often a card holding member of 'Groupthink,' the Entertainment Gauger evaluates a film on level of interest maintained throughout the runtime alone.

Common Characteristics: Personal reviews (lots of direct first person criticism), constant references to things that are boring or exciting (such as comparing films to high school or college classes), and a priority centered on action (violence, romance, comedy, or vocal) over drama.

Positives: High correlation value to the modern film goer, often upbeat with their approach to mainstream films, and foster an environment in which consistent readers feel connected to the reviewer.

Negatives: Pandering of negative reviews to avoid being rebuked by reading base, writing style becomes redundant after a while, and favoritism towards modern films often ignores merits of cinema as a historically evolving art form.


Type 2: The Informer:

A 'this is what you're going to get, take it or leave it' approach to film criticism where the reviewer avoids making too many direct claims about a film, and instead offers the reader an idea of what type of film they'll be seeing.

Common Characteristics: Crux of the review centers around a summary of the film's plot setup, any analysis centers on the content of the film over the style, and demonstrated efforts to distance self from the film.

Positives: Preferable to the reading base that cares more about what they'll be getting out of a film, focus is on content over scoring, and any analysis there is usually well thought out and worthwhile.

Negatives: Lack of personality in writing, posts usually drawl on minute plot details, and failure to grab the reader's attention and gain repeat readers.


Type 3: The Analyzer:

As much a 'historian' of film as a real evaluator, the analyzer breaks down movies mostly on the technical and narrative aspects that uniquely define them with respect to film throughout the ages.

Common Characteristics: Often draws parallels in their reviews to other literary and cinematic tales, uses the summary as a starting point from which their criticism is derived, and makes many declarative statements about the quality of a movie.

Positives: Understanding film history appeals to those who want a broad picture of a movie, offer an in depth look with careful attention to socially relevant analogies, and never relent on their scoring in favor of public love.

Negatives: General negative outlook on streamlined blockbusters earns them the title 'snob,' assumption of self-absolutism alienates potential readers who disagree with them, and efforts at putting themselves above mainstream audiences can cause them to forget who they are writing towards.

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So, those are the three that I was able to come up with. I want to know - Which one do you think you are? Or are you a conglomeration of sorts? What type of critics do you enjoy reading? Why? Do you have a type of critic that I missed?

Enjoy!