For The Love of Movies

Alex Holt

Jan-16-2012

For the love of Movies

            For the love of movies was a very intriguing movie because from the start of it, you can’t tell if it will be a documentary or a short film or some kind of narrative. So it comes out to be a little bit of all of the above.  In this movie it really shows different views of how movie critics are viewed. I never  knew that critics played as much of a roll in the movie industry as it does, I believe the reason why I never realized that is because the movie industry doesn’t give critics the energy or light they should. In this film they also talk about two different styles of criticism dating way back to the 1920s and these styles are still somewhat used in styles of writing by critics in recent films.

            From watching this movie it seems that the hardest job of a movie director is to get their message across to the critics as well as the viewers in a way that pleases everyone. The critics show no mercy on the directors. The directories seem to value the film critic’s opinion because in the movie it shows the director giving the film critics readings some thought. In the movie they talked about high vs. popular culture. I feel like this was an important because high culture wasn’t taken serious and pop culture was taking serious and influenced the rest of the cultures to go with popular culture , this seemed like to me to be the turning point in the critics viewing and writing style. I also really like the change in the film when Elvis Mitchell talked about why he became a film critic. I feel like this part of the movie turned it from a short film to a film with meaning, I feel like this was the game changer in the movie it showed that film critics had a point to prove as well as do a job. It also showed that they weren’t there to just bash the directors as most society thinks. They were there to show the world that movies still have room for growing , and that’s the whole objective of film critics is to give the people a higher power of directing and movies. Another game changer in the movie was when Pauline Kael talked about her views on women films.  She feels that woman are portrayed show a nonrealistic view of what is going on in society it is made up on the motion picture, but in reality it is different.

            I feel this was a very interesting film it touched a lot of topics, which I felt needed to be address for film critics to be taking seriously in the industry. I am glad it got its message across to me because it would be a shame for a film about critics to not be interrupted the way it was intended to because this is the struggle the directors have to face every day they direct.