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Welcome. First things first. I think it was D.H. Lawrence who said one of the critic's responsibilities to the public was to specify his criteria for judging art. Fair enough. If film criticism is inevitably subjective, like I believe it is, then my choices are bound to run against other people's tastes. Lord knows, I have loathed many a film described by others in glowing terms, and many people have probably sworn never to ask my opinion again after sitting through one of my recommendations. I admit it: I am a movie buff. And I accept all the alleged geekiness that comes with the term. For years now I have been soaking in every kind of film, getting into childish arguments over cinematic minutiae and basically being a punk, trying to get anyone within earshot to see this or avoid that. I'm still doing all those things, in fact, but now I get to post my opinions in this site. People can take them up or throw them down, but just the fact that they are there gives them a modicrum of respectability that no barroom shouting match ever could. (Then again, maybe not. Who doesn't have their opinions online anymore?) All critics (or, at least, all self-respecting critics) write for themselves, rather than for the public. When I write a review, I am humbly sharing my opinion on a particular subject. That doesn't mean I am exempt from a certain duty to readers, many of whom just want to know right away if a movie is worth watching. Ratings. Stars. Thumbs up, thumbs down. "Feel-good comedy." "Edge-of-your-seat suspense." "A triumph of the human spirit." Or, simply, "good." There lies the catch. What makes a movie "good"? By whose standards are we operating here? After all, a review is not the movie, but the movie after having been filtered through the sensibilities, the loves and hates, the love-hates and quirks of the critic. There are at least a thousand ways to look at any given work of art, all of them valid. How pointless it would be if everybody liked or hated the same thing, and how boring it would be if all art was judged by the same criteria. So, to go back to Lawrence's concept, what are my criteria? At the risk of sounding coy, I wouldn't dare reveal them. Not out of selfishness, just because I myself only have a barely rudimentary awareness of them. A person's tastes, like everything else, can evolve, sharpen, enrich or otherwise mutate with the passage of time, as the person accumulates values, ideas, memories, experiences -- in other words, lived life. Just as a movie watched can be an experience lived, a movie review can be a diary, a document of the critic's feelings at that time and place. (That's probably why I include many of my early articles, more out of nostalgic than aesthetic value.)
Nonetheless, there are constants I treasure in art. Passion. Awareness. Style. Humanity. More than anything, I want
films to make me feel. Cinema is an all-engulfing medium, and, despite the insistent laments of so many critics, we are
living in a particularly exciting period now. This site is designed to help readers navigate through this oceanic art. My
ultimate goal is to be a reliable guide.
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