Critical About Critics!

Recently, Anurag Kashyap, while accepting his latest movie, "No Smoking", was bad, had reservations about how some reviewers write reviews. Check it out here! ...and here! He Particularly named Nikhat Kazmi (of TOI fame) and Khalid Mohammad. Someone wrote that he probably was drugged when making the film... :-)

He is getting back on critics because his film is universally panned. However, I share some of what he has to say in his critic bashing blog. Reviewing becomes easy (and irresponsible) merely by saying that the object of criticism is good or is bad. Instead reviewers should give informed reasoning, methodical analysis and careful observation on the object of criticism. The best way will be one should classify and differentiate sections within a review. Some of the sections mandatory for film review, a case in point, should be:

• Some background of the movie (Period/Sequel/Copied/Remade) and people involved in its making. (Their credentials.)
• Summary of the plot keeping the climacs, suspense and thrill safe. (Very fine line to maintain here.)
• What is good in it, as if one insists on finding some thing good no matter how bad the object of criticism is. (Bad films may have good performances, good songs, good dilogues etc.)Similarly, what is bad in it, as if one insists on pointing them.
• Rating or making observations about broad fields in the area of object of crticism. For films it can be..
• Individual performances.
• Important scenes.
• Songs, background scores.
• Dialogues, Screenplay/Drama.
• Camera work, effects, and other technical aspects.
• Disclaimers. Maybe reviewer is involved with the film in some manner. Maybe he was invited by the makers of the movie for free viewing, maybe they also paid or made arrangement to come down and see the movie, treated with luxurious dinner etc. One should disclose these details to the audience for source of biases if any...
• Any personal biases. (I don't like Salman Khan. I don't like art movies etc...)
• Why, in their opinion, will the movie work. Or why not. Who should particularly go for the movie? Who, among audience, it may not work with?
• Overall interpretation and rating.

However, I don't see such methodical approach (or should I say acaedemical) in reviews. Also these days reviewers pass judgement like don't waste your time on this one, go only if you have nothing interesting to do, meant only for dumbs etc. By saying explicitly they influence the business of the object of criticism, which reviewers should strictly abstain from. Reviewers exist because the object of criticism exists and not the other way around. Instead the reviewer should ask the audience to go for the movie and let the reviewer know how they felt about the movie. Publisher of the review should publish how different was the public's opinion from the one they hired. (Here comes accountability!)

And ya, no personal comments and ridiculing of the likes probably-the-creator-was-drugged, the-idiot-who-invested-in-this-film-obviously-had-money-to-waste etc...

I cann't help but recall the following.

"In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. World is often unkind to new talents , new creations. The new needs friends..."

--Quoting Anton Ego from Ratatouille.
(How true! Isn't it?)