Wednesday, 13 December 2023

Most Critics Suck

Welcome to my blog, and sorry for click-bait title. Today I am going to talk about critics, and why they mostly suck. Except for the few like Patrick (H) Willems who is also film maker.

I am Ashley Pollard, and Patrick's critiques are the reason why I'm writing this piece.

Critics talk about the why's, who's, how's, when's and where's of a story they're critiquing.

Patrick's piece on Jack Snyder is especially illuminating, and since I'm now going to criticize Patrick by saying his observations about translating Alan Moore's Watchmen into a film are off base. I will add, in case any of Patrick's fan are enraged at me criticizing his take on Snyder's Watchman movie, he's right about the dichotomy.

For me, he misses a salient point; the medium is the message.

Hollywood films are their own thing, and Zack Snyder is Hollywood (that's a metaphor for the slow of thinking). If you agree that the medium is the message then the use of the comic strip medium to tell a story, and Snyder's film translation of the story are going to be at odds with each other.

It's an inevitable outcome.

A critique is a message about how another's message has been perceived by the consumer of the message, and how and what they think of the message. That's my tongue in cheek critique of critics criticizing works.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-critics per se, just the way the art of criticizing works leads to circling the drain of content. Even the best critics can produce critiques that suck.

I had so much fun writing this. Just saying so you know.

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