Reviewing The Review: What Is It Good For?

“Jack Goes Boating” (Directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman, 2010)

http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/movies/17jack.html

“The Town” (Directed by Ben Affleck, 2010)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/movies/sc-mov-0914-town-20100916,0,6220128.column

Why do people read reviews? Why do readers seek out the opinions of one critic over another? What makes for a good piece of arts criticism? The answers to these questions are as varied as those who rely on them in spending their entertainment dollars judiciously. Some may choose a specific critic because they have similar tastes in music, movies, etc. Others may just want a preview of the event before they attend. And there are those who want their opinion of a piece of art given to them. Following are two review reviews and this writer’s take on why they do or don’t work.

The New York Times review of “Jack Goes Boating” begins with a description of a man named Jack whose chubby, child like appearance is in keeping with his seeming inability to master the challenges of adult life. Jack has two friends, Clyde (John Ortiz) and his wife Lucy (Daphne Rubin-Vega), who try to help Jack become proficient in the tasks of daily living. As a reader, I am hooked. I want to know more.

A.O. Scott’s review of “Jack Goes Boating” is literate and erudite. “ Jack Goes Boating” is a character driven art-house film and Scott conveys both of these facts without actually using either of those expressions. Scott knows his reader and respects their intellect. He doesn’t write down to them. While he does point out what he considers the film’s weaker moments, he is objective about how those moments fit into the film as a whole. He never tells the reader whether or not they should see the film. He gives them some context, providing a comparison to the films of Mike Leigh and referencing the title character from the 1955 film “Marty” starring Ernest Borgnine, but in the end he trusts the reader to draw their own conclusions.

Michael Phillips’ review of “The Town” in the Chicago Tribune provides a much less satisfying read. Phillips begins by telling the reader that the film is “worth seeing for the actors.” The fact that he starts with those five words gives the feeling that Phillips is writing from on high; one can imagine him tossing them over his shoulder as he is leaving for a better party. In the remainder of the first sentence he says that the film would have made a “fine, trim early-1930’s studio picture from what's commonly called the pre-Production Code era.” From this description, one might infer that Phillips considers “The Town” outdated and, perhaps, unsuited to today’s audiences. In noting that the era he is referencing is “commonly called” the pre-Production Code era, he is making it clear that he doesn’t think his readers sufficiently educated in film history to understand his reference. With this initial impression of the film and it’s critic, I am not compelled to finish the piece, bad news for the circulation numbers of the critic’s employer.

Phillip’s style is much more informal than Scott’s; he writes to the reader in a voice of jaded expertise. He opens with his five-word summation of the movie, as if that’s all the reader really needs to know, and writing down to the reader. He doesn’t see them as equals in entertainment consumerism. Scott’s review is a journey. He draws his reader in with thumbnail sketches of the characters in “Jack Goes Boating.” It’s only after he has the reader intrigued by and invested in the film itself that he breaks it down into its components as a film. He wants his reader to read the entire piece. He respects his reader and and it shows.