Movie Reviews: Just One Person’s Opinion
hobbyists, who ply their opinions both on- and off-line and are often not able to make judgments of a) what the film they’ve watched is trying to communicate and b) whether it was successful based on that initial desire to communicate an idea.
Where professional critics can contribute in a highly valuable way is through their knowledge of and dedication to cinema. A professional reviewer with experience over a number of years has a wide breadth of knowledge about film directors, the actors who perform in the film in question, the producers, and other technical contributors, based on their work over a number of years. They also, one would hope, have a wider perspective on the history of cinema and how any one particular work fits into the wider range of cinema production output over the history of the medium. Even so, their opinion can be influenced by any number of
