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For most of my life I've been really doubtful of the popular critic culture that revolves around specifically film. Even though people always yell at gaming reviewers for being corrupt usually at least from my perspective they seem somewhat reasonable. The percentages they give things usually seem to make sense and they take things for what they are, entertainment.

To me, the film industry is really killer. Like unnecessarily strict. It doesn't seem like critics take into account what a film is trying to be and just put everything into this objective standard no matter the genre or anything. Like one thing that's really bothered me over the past few months is that basically everything I've seen this summer is trash according to reviews. Everything. I've seen like every big movie that's come out this summer because of a summer discout at my local theater and every time I come home liking it or not and I look at reviews, 50% is often the highest score I see.

In our society 50% is failing, am I just looking at it wrong? Nothing seems to even be average. How is everything bad and practically nothing average? What is the standard based on? Why can nothing be scaled off just being dumb fun and everything has to be put on the same scale as Citizen Kane and judged accordingly? This is mostly personal but I really hate how pretentious the industry is compared to other forms of entertainment. Like the Oscars are probably the biggest jerk-off ever and it's becoming apparent to more people.

This is more of a rant than anything and I don't think that reviewers are objectively wrong when they hate everything I like, or else I'd be a flaming hypocrite. (probably still am) The point is I think everything should be less serious. I have a difficult time even understanding what the basis is for these things. That's my biggest problem I usually am blind to quality in movies specifically, or at least blind to the "conventional standards". I've taken like 4 years of film/media classes in high school too which makes it even weirder that I'm unable to see what most others do.

So what are your guys' perspective on the film reviewing industry? How often do you use them to judge if something is worth seeing or not? How often do you disagree with consensus? Why do you think I'm so fuckin weird?

[In our society 50% is failing, am I just looking at it wrong?]

I don't really pay attention to critics. Most of them are older hipsters who still approach movies from the supposition that everything must be interpreted through the lens of a graduate degree in fine arts. That doesn't mean they're necessarily wrong in their review, but it does mean their attention is focused on how well the techniques used to construct the movie are put together, whereas most people (and most of the time this true for myself as well) only want to know if a movie is enjoyable enough to sink a couple hours into it.

I put much more value in what audiences rate movies because their opinions have less to do with affectations and more to do with whether they actually enjoyed a movie, and in the case of movies involving fandoms I generally assume that trolls and fanboys cancel their 1 and 10 scores out.

I am pretty skeptical of movies that score under 70% and a score below that is going to give me pause. I usually take this as a sign that the movie has nothing original to offer, and that it has a generic plot with very little else to offer in terms of visuals or acting.

But in the end it comes down to personal taste. For example I freaking love Terrence Malick movies despite the fact they're some of the most pretentious, art house type movies in the spectrum of mainstream film, and I like them partly because of all the pretentious film school methods Malick uses, and I like them even though most of them score below a 7 with audiences because there's typically very little dialogue and very little plot because what there is of each moves me.

It all comes down to how you want to enjoy a movie. Critics tend to put value their structural elements at the expense of the narrative experience, and audiences tend to do the opposite. You can choose to focus on, the other, or both.

This is coming from a more artistic, I suppose critical, point of view, and though I don't tend to follow every single popular movie that comes up- I rarely even go see new releases nowadays- I'd like to at least give some perspective.

I, personally, don't care much for the idea of a set objective standard, and instead prefer to see art from a entirely free point of view. What I mean by that is that I try to see how the choices made in the art in question affect the work as a whole, with little care in if it is good or bad.

So when I try to grade a movie, book, painting, whatever, I tend to prefer looking at it from a purely creative standpoint; What kinds of themes and messages it delivers, how its individual pieces work to support that, and its own sense of self and identity: what this piece is and is trying to be, and how that defines it. Even if the art isn't inherently enjoyable, fun, or even good, I'll be willing and able to forgive that if I can at least take something interesting from it, even if I don't agree with it.

For reference, the last movie I saw in theaters was Star Trek Beyond. I'd say it was enjoyable, but that was about it. Its action was spectacular, but it seemed like that was all it was going for. It started off promising with a scene of diplomatic talks, but that was dropped pretty quickly in favor of action scenes upon action scenes upon action scenes upon action scenes. Character development was pretty much barren, with the one newly introduced character having far less development than they really should have. In short, it felt like it was giving up its own sense of identity and interest in favor of being like Star Wars, one big sci-fi action-oriented thriller, more of the same. I think that might be where some of the critical receptions of movies nowadays are aiming.

And I think somewhere around here is where the critic and general audience's opinions differ. Some people might be fine with just fun entertainment- everyone is entitled to their own opinions, and nobody regardless of stature should be able to change it without your consent- but I think that it's a bit unfair to those who want to look at movies from an artistic standpoint, especially critics. They're allowed have their own ideas of what they want to see, and so do you. That's what I think the problem ends up being: two sides who both have different ideas of how to judge a movie, so both sides end up calling the other either "pretentious", "edgy", or "worthless", and "meaningless."

You don't need a degree in fine art in order to appreciate or to understand something as art, and I don't need to see everything as some deep analysis of the human condition, but I don't think a little variety now and then on both sides would be too much to ask for.