Film criticism consists of evaluating a film production. Film reviews can be found in a variety of media outlets, including magazines, newspapers and online texts. Critics seek to try to distinguish whether or not the film they are reviewing is of any quality, although considered to be their profession, critics are still only prone to opinion. This has lead to various reviewing styles, for a review cannot be of the same content if the film is subject to only an individual for them to analyse. Reviewing style tends to be a collective amongst different producers, for example reviewers who have their work distrubuted to broadcast media or online publications are considered to be journalistic critics. Depending on what publisher the critic reviews for, the style may differ.
Empire
Empire is a British film magazine. Empire reviews a variety of different productions, including mainstream feature films as well as art films. Empire tends to have a fairly casual approach to its reviewing, its coverage is less serious than other film magazines attracting a wide audience to its texts.
Sight and Sound
Sight and Sound is a British film magazine published by the British film institute. Sight and sound tend to focus on more art house releases, rather than covering mainstream productions. It also takes a more intellectual approach, additionally listing the cast and crew in every review. Moreover Sight and Sound regularly consult film professionals to contribute to a variety of unique texts in their magazine, such as voting for films to placed in certain aesthetic categories.
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website used for film aggregation. Rather than completely reviewing films itself, Rotten Tomatoes includes reviews from online authors. This then presents Rotten Tomatoes to have a diverse reviewing style were critics are certified authors, just from different associations.
Compare and contrast film reviews
After reviewing several texts from a variety of websites renewed for their critique in film such as Empire and Rotten Tomatoes, I took two reviews to contrast and compare reviewing style. I thought it would somewhat be more interesting to take The Guardian, a british daily newspaper, and compare it to Empire to contrast style used between different media texts, in that being newspapers and magazines.
http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?FID=136353http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/nov/19/twilight-saga-new-moon-review
The Twilight Saga; New Moon
District 9
In the introduction to the first review (The Twilight Saga; New Moon) the writer briefly comments on the first installment of the franchise, this acts as a short overview to display the overly similar plot line portrayed within the two films in negative critique. Using this as a fundamental basis, this review builds on how “gimmicky” and “the somewhat predictable groove” by exploring the film in synopsis, which ultimately in itself drags on. Perhaps the length but small detail from this review represents the film itself. Taking into account that this review was published by the Guardian in which due to its left wing approach is not really bound by heavy sensationalism like other media texts. Because of this, it is most likely that this review is for the audience which is that of universal as opposed to people of the productions target group who is most likely female.
Rather than in this review for the film district 9 takes a much deeper emphasis on the actual film itself. This review published by Empire magazine which specifies in reviewing film comments on the genre itself to begin with, that being alien based Sci-Fi and how supposedly overused the is in contrast to District 9 being a good film, in their opinion it “feels fresh and original”. Throughout the review, the author focuses on the style of the film, commenting on characters, themes such as aliens, the apartheid as well as its documentary style shot through a hand held camera for the entire film giving each factor of the film its own section creating a structure which is much like a bullet pointed list outlining the general positives of the film to conclude with small evaluating criticisms but with a certainty to put forward that this is a film of good quality.
Both reviews take a casual approach; their language is that of analytical as well as including that quirky social style to engage its audience to feel as if someone was talking to you about the film. The major contrast between these reviews is the detail, taking into account both publishers are of high professional standards, it seems the films themselves create the difference between the reviews rather than the publisher’s style. Because District 9 received a positive review the author recognizes a number of attributes in a positive manner to take into consideration, he develops a style to explain each detail one after the other. Unlike the Twilight review which just by reading the first few points the audience can see that the review is representing the film to be a bad one and lengthening the review by explaining what actually happens in the film rather than a analysis.
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