For The Online Reviewers
I began writing poetry when I was about 13 years old, that is what started my writing journey to become a online reviewer. I wasn’t good at it, my poetry sucked, it lacked heart, meaning, it was just hollow. When I was about 20 I started writing short stories and scripts, some were good…and others not so good, I was always so scared of showing my work in fear people would hate what I wrote or laugh at how I would phrase a sentence. 2 years ago I started a tumblr blog, and no I didn’t fill it with stupid instagram photos. I filled it with short reviews of films I had watched and anything I generally wanted to rant about. The reviews were just bad, they didn’t really go anywhere, they had zero structure, they were just film rants. When I decided to start my blog up it was originally going to be just all podcasts and articles being put few and far between. But I got very sick at the beginning of this year and couldn’t talk. While stuck in bed sick and feeling sorry for myself I decided to write. At first I found it tricky, I felt my wording was wrong, I felt they were just turning into rants again, and I didn’t feel like I had a voice. But I started writing an article every day or two, and suddenly realised that I had a bit of a knack for writing. I wasn’t sure if it was something I was totally amazing at, but once I saw my progression from those early tumblr blogs, I realised I had come a long way. All I wanted to do was write more. I have become more obsessed about writing about film, than watching it at times, because I want to share with everyone how a film made me feel. I realised I didn’t want to rant, I wanted to feel and review.
I have always read film reviews, and when reading online I noticed too many reviewers paid or unpaid, are very ‘vanilla’. They never discuss how a film made them feel. They discuss the technical aspects(which is fair), the story, the actors, high points, low points, but they never discuss how something made them feel. I understand that when you are writing for a publication you do have to take out a lot of what you might want to say because you have a limit of what you can say, but what is wrong with showing emotion. Authors create stories to engage the reader, they suck them in and don’t let go, they want the reader to be upset that the book they have devoured in several days, or even hours has finished. But they want the reader to pick that book up and read it again, and to tell others about it. Why can’t the film critic do that? Why can’t they engage the reader with words the same way a trailer engages an audience with it’s visuals. Constraints and guidlines aside, it comes down to a few reasons as to why the same reviews are being recycled over and over again. But the main one I believe is laziness. I find sometimes it’s the quantity of reviews people produce not the quality. I am going to be honest when I say I have found some better unpaid online reviewers through this site and twitter than I have in any film magazine or newspaper with established critics. It’s these online reviewers who do it for the sheer love and passion they possess for film. When I read their reviews it makes me want to watch the film, it makes me feel emotions. Not every online reviewer does that but there are ones that do it well.
My purpose career wise is to be a film critic that specialises in editorials. I love to go into a lot of depth of how a film made me feel, what I liked, disliked but also the overall viewing experience. I would love to one day have a film magazine that rivals Empire, Film Ink and Total Film. I don’t want to write about the same Hitchcock, Kubrick, and Lynch throwbacks every few months. I don’t want to write about the same recycled crap. Film is endless, as long as there are filmakers, equipment and actors there will be film. Why don’t these magazines write about the screenwriters and their untold stories, their struggles to write a story which leaps off the page and has directors, actors and film crew fighting to be a part of. Why aren’t articles published on documentaries which got lost among all the thousands of ‘Man on Wire-esque’ stories. Why not have an article series on the American Martial Art films which never saw light past the bargain bin? Why are we so fucking blind to see the other side of the fence when it comes to film? Why do we automatically shoot down a film, because of one bad review, or low quality production? Film is a large medium, it’s endless, everyone’s opinion is different, however let’s not recycle the same damn opinion that any of us can read if we typed it into google. Why are we allowed to make fun of certain film makers, actors, directors and label them as a joke when writing a review, but we cannot label something that is considered ‘art’ as pure trash? I have grown up in the last few years in terms of my movie taste, because before that I thought I knew everything, but I don’t. Once I discovered films which were forgotten because of knock offs with bigger budgets and ‘better’ names attached to the production, I realised that film is such a huge medium.
My movie taste is very eclectic, I love all kinds of genres. My favourite will always be action, and my favourite actor is Sylvester Stallone. I still get labeled as an idiot, and not a ‘true’ lover of film because I class him as my favourite. They make stupid comments like ‘Oh you can’t even understand him’, well you know what’s strange, I seem to be able to understand what he says fine, I guess I can just listen better. As an action film lover, I want to take back that genre, I want people to see it as a credible genre, not just the bastard child that you can praise for reaching box office targets but condemn if it is a critical flop. Never write a film review on a genre you don’t understand because usually that review will come off as negative and completely ignorant. I am not the best online reviewer in the world, I know this because even when you believe you can do something well, there is always someone better than you out there. But I also believe that online film reviewers like myself want to get recognised as someone with talent, passion and knowledge. Just because I didn’t go to University to study film, it doesn’t mean that I have least amount of passion or knowledge. Most film students I have met in Perth(which has been a lot), majority enrolled in film school because they just needed to fill their time with something and didn’t know what else to do, and had no intention of doing anything with a film studies degree.
To all my online film reviewer pals out there I say this, if you want to get somewhere, work really hard, stand out, don’t be mediocre and boring. Don’t take separate your personality from your writing because all you will have to offer is hollow words.
