"Hahaha!"

Because of Ye Wei's article "It's time to review film review people", Liz laughed repeatedly, it's a pity that she couldn't participate. This is a historic moment! Looking at Pug, Honickett and others who scolded him before, all the appearances were being performed. I feel so happy, I'm proud of my good friends.

I really want to see their expressions! Will it be embarrassing? What else? The most picky film critic award? Its selection depends on the lowest average rating ranking of the film critics. It is the most difficult for a movie to get their praise.

The winner did not surprise the media. Joe Morganston of the Wall Street Journal, known as the "worst-tempered film critic in the United States", is 11% lower than his peers. The 74-year-old man has experienced the vicissitudes of the film criticism industry and is a rare veteran.

[We only knew that Joe had won the Pulitzer Prize! The third place after Roger Albert and Stephen Hunter was last year. Congratulations. Joe was not exempted by us because we also discovered another secret of him. Joe was the most rude old man's neighbor. If he had two mouths, he would spend the whole day scolding each other. He gave too many recognized classic negative reviews, saying that "killing Bill" "abuses actors and audiences" was not a problem, but he was also the only positive reviewer of "Police Dog Chase Order" on Metac Day (70 points) "I'm happy for its comics", etc... Irving scored 0 points "addicted with a strange embarrassment". This is actually a great advertisement "Police Dog Chase Order"! It can make the most fanatical critics vomit and make the most picky critics cheer!" I'm going to see this movie after looking back.]

The runner-up is Anthony Lane of "The New Yorker". He has not commented on SS, so he naturally lacks topics. People's eyes have been firmly attracted by the third place. The New York Post's chief film critic Lu Ramnik! The most picky award was won by the New York Gang, and the East Coast style is like this, but the grudge between Ramnik and Viy is the focus.

[My friend Lu is very kind, and this Lu is a person who has fought with other critics at the festival and almost fought at the film festival. He always feels that Joe has suffered a lot of grievances. Perhaps New York critics particularly like dog movies. Lu praised "102 Spotted Dogs" with a score of 75 above the average score of 40. "This is the kind of movie that transcends the review." But what happened to "The Joker" which is the only praise-winner in the world (75 points), "First of all, this black comedy has a scene of male rape, which seems much gentler than the one in "The Four Warriors of the Tornado". "No matter what you think, I just have a sincere suggestion, don't go to the movie when you date.]

Ye Wei laughed at Ramnik's comments and sucked many people, but that was Ramnik's comments. Who could blame this?

The most picky ones are the most neutral, with the least significant difference in peers on the ranking list. The champion is J.R. Jones from "Chicago Reader", the runner-up is Stephanie Zachlark from "Salon", and the third place is Mike Lasal of the San Francisco Chronicle. Their difference is less than 1%, and basically every rating is the comprehensive opinion of the mainstream film critics.

[Jones' 59 points are almost the same as the average score of the sampled movie. You can call him "Switzerland in the film criticism industry". If you have to select one of the 50 critics to evaluate a movie, he will be the most stable and credible one. He is like the sweater knitted by his mother, neither generous nor picky, neither fancy nor ugly, and practical. He is also like Henry Fonda in "The Twelve Angry Man". When everyone is so quarreling, you might as well listen to what he says.]

There is no way to quip these neutral film critics in the article, and then the review of Roger Albert was announced, with very amazing results!

Albert was actually 11.5% higher than his peers, ranking fourth among the foolest critics. The article tried to make an analysis, which was related to Albert's style. He liked to give high scores to good movies, and scored very low scores to bad movies than others. He also thought some bad movies in the film critics were high scores and good movies.

[Oh my God! Roger, why are you here? This ruined all our work results. Roger is one of the best film critics in the world. Data shows that Roger is not the most mean mouth. On the contrary, he treats people generously and has great opinions... (Irving: His opinion is his opinion, and my opinion is stupid? Please explain it to me clearly!) OK OK, our review is really for reference only. The data can say something, but it can't be said all. Every movie and every review requires a specific evaluation to know whether it is good or bad. Do you know what science can't handle? Right, women and movies.]

Ah? Liz was stunned at the end, oh! A little lost. But thinking about it is true. For example, SS is now similar to "102 Spot Dogs", so if Albert scored SS, he and Ramnick did the same thing in data, but in fact they are not the same.

There are too many news topics! The media are excited enough. For the first time, a filmmaker has bombarded the film critics in this way. Ye Wei also released statistical data files in the appendix of the article. Anyone who wants to know more about it can download it for free. If he dares to do this as his identity, he will not make a fake.

Fans and fans are so happy. Viy said it was novel and humorous. Even if this thing is for reference only, it definitely played the film critics hard! I wonder what the most neutral film critics such as j.r. Jones are evaluated?

Ye Wei seemed to have not mentioned it in order to avoid suspicion, but soon some movie fans sorted out the attitudes of these award-winning film critics. Ryan and Zachlark have not commented yet, and Mike Lasal made a negative review...

Some film critics seem to have made up their minds to ignore SS or judge after deciding on the situation and are unwilling to participate. In fact, movie fans know that it is because of SS's sensitive religious tone. The four most stupid, mediocre, picky and neutral champions, Greberman beat A, Richard Collis has not commented yet, and both Morganston and Jones have made positive comments!

"It's hard not to like its touch." 3/4, Joe Morganston

"Because of director Ye Wei's mature performance, the real courage of the story, the impeccable dialogue, this credible, painful and optimistic film will remain in memory forever." 3.5/4, j.r. Jones

If you can make all the champions lose their position, such ss must be supported by the audience. If the movies that are controversial in film reviews can be seen, it will be possible to see how controversial it will be.

...

Monday the 16th arrived as scheduled. New events made this war of words heat up and were reported by global entertainment media. s continued its strong performance on the first day and won the North American box office championship on the weekend. "It's time to review movie reviewers" sparked heated discussions in the movie fans. A spokesperson for Metac Daily tics said that he had worked with Ye Wei's team earlier. The website will improve the data statistics system of these critics, such as "average-review-score", which is compared with peers' equal scores, and like comment grouping. How many of all comments are higher, as much as they are, and as low as possible, so that their style and latest rankings can be found at any time.

Roger Albert, who is recuperating, posted ss reviews on the Chicago Sun and his official film review website, rating with his thumb: ★★★★

Albert has participated in countless wars of words, and this time he is determined to support SS. The four-star full-score film reviews reveal his mood between the lines.

[Soul Surfer is based on the true story of Bethany Hamilton, a 16-year-old girl who lost almost the entire left arm after being attacked by a shark three years ago. A month later, she returned to the surfboard and now she has won the championship and has just become a professional surfer. All of these are amazing facts.

This is a movie with no problem, although it has a simple-looking setting.

Bethany (Emma Roberts) has a family of professional surfers, and a big and friendly dog. She has a close friend, a talent for surfing, and lives right next to the beach. She is a loyal and devout Christian and has received great support from her spiritual leaders. She is an unstoppable optimist with a strong competitive spirit. The girl almost lives in a dream.

But there are more in the film. Can a 13-year-old girl continue to smile if she loses an arm? No, she can pretend to be fine. Producer, screenwriter and director Ye Wei shows the audience the complete Bethany, the night of the soul, the moment of sadness and anger, the temptation of nihilism, the temptation of despair, and the destruction of hatred.

Ye Wei's storytelling strategy did not control Bethany and prevent her from realizing these pains. The film made her face the misery of her own story again and again, constantly seducing her to doubt her religious beliefs like a demon, thinking that everything was terrible and that she could not accomplish something inspiring. She was a tragedy.

Based on this strategy, Soul Surfer has many particularly convincing scenes and lines. After the story happened, Bethany woke up in the hospital and asked her teenage mentor why God treated her like this? She hid alone in the bathroom after returning home. She put on a useless prosthetic limb and refused to use it again, and became angry and said that she had nothing to do. She roared and supported her family and close friends. She expressed her feelings to her dog.

There are many more moments that touched me the most. Bethany woke up from a nightmare in the middle of the night and begged God to appear, giving her the reason to persist in courage and faith. This is a rare moment in the history of film, which fully demonstrates the melancholy, doubt, and humility of the collapsed optimist in the face of fate. For me who is fighting cancer, I understand the darkness in the middle, and from there I can't stop my tears.

Bethany had a perfect reason to give up, and she and her family gave up for a while, but she eventually continued to be tenacious. Even though the movie was a little perfunctory about her recovery process, nothing disappeared, and it was all true. This allowed me to cheer for her beliefs and spirit without reservation, be heartbroken for her pain, give her full trust in her determination, and recognize that she is a great athlete, this 13-year-old girl.

This movie never indulged in grief. It has many details that make me laugh, especially the Bethany family's "Creation Adam" T-shirt. I don't know how you feel, but I really clapped my hands and laughed. This detail also makes the families who are covering up their depression with optimism so real. You can feel their moods in substance. How they support each other and how they turn sadness into warmth and love is incredible.

Ye Wei is actually very thoughtful in handling details. He knows what the movie must tell the audience, such as Bethany's medical information, and what risks are there for the wound when returning to the sea in a month. In the conversation between the doctor's advice and her parents, we can understand that her recovery is a difficult and complicated process. The movie quickly expresses this process through montage techniques, which may feel that some of the audience may feel missing, but it is not easy for you to pay attention to the details of the scene. Bethany in several scenes even has obvious insomnia and dark circles, which is the moment when her soul struggles.

Emma Roberts is a likable and convincing heroine. Compared to her other 13-year-old girl she played in another movie of this year, the Mermaid, she is like a fantasy magic cast by Ye Wei. Colin Fiss and Helen Hunter, who play Bethany's parents, both have excellent performances. Although the script does not give them too many choices in addition to supporting their daughters, they seize every opportunity to express their complexity and break out in a quarrel.

Oh, how could I forget about Sarah Mentor (Melissa McCarthy), awesome performances, awesome characters, she is the very effective buffering band for the film. Bethany’s best friend Alanna (Sheline Woodley) plays faithfully, and another young actress Theresa Menor is also impressive, with her surfer role not much, Bethany’s rival, not the kind of vicious blonde, there is no villain in this movie.

"Soul Surfer" tells me that Ye Wei has maintained his standards. This 18-year-old movie genius is a young and frivolous problematic character, but he is really good at making movies.

Is this a rewarding inspirational video? No doubt it is, not just.]

...

It was also on this morning that with the release of the Los Angeles Times on the new day and the official website update, the "Death of Film Review" that was hyped by Ye Wei throughout the weekend was finally released.

If Albert's participation in the war is exciting, the best reviews he wrote are not surprising. Ye Wei's long article is completely beyond people's expectations. This is not a typical Viy statement, nor is it his laughter and scolding on social networking sites. How can there be any joke?

Many people who were looking at newspapers and web pages suddenly woke up. Those jokes were bait! Because this was not easy at all, and I didn’t know who to show it to...

But some people were shocked.

【Film Review of the Death of Ye Wei, 2006-10-16

To talk about the death of film reviews, there are four areas that have to be clarified first, including the film industry, academic world, film criticism world, and audience world. How to sort the four and what kind of interactions they have, are all debates. The core issue is how they view movies and how they watch movies.

The audience is the best introduction. Movies are definitely one of the most artistic creations without artistic arrogance. For most other works of art, people tacitly agree that viewers and commentators need a certain knowledge in the art field. If you want to appreciate a Van Gogh painting, you must have an understanding of oil paintings. If you want to comment on a Chopin piano piece, you must also have a foundation in music theory. It is also necessary to understand aesthetics and have both history, just as you read a novel by Tolstoy.

But in the field of film, the public's tacit understanding seems to be that you can watch, understand and comment on any movie without any knowledge.

This is naturally because movies have been sold as a mass commodity since their birth, and it takes longer to be used as a product than to be an art work. Later, Hollywood turned this commodity into a best-selling commodity, which mostly pleasing the audience. This makes it take longer, and you always feel respectful when you walk into the art exhibition hall. When you walk into the cinema, you mostly think, "Can I have fun today and watch these movies, they'd better be able to do it."

Movies are not just commodities, but movies are also art, whether it is popular art or anything. I am not sure whether this has always been the case or is so far this is the case. Most viewers have forgotten or even disdained this.

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, the audience was not like this now, and it could be the best and most influential period in the American film critic. It all began with the death of the famous film critic James Edge in 1955, and his collection of essays was published in 1958. This is the first collection of essays in American history. It means that critics officially won the title of intellectuals and what they wrote would be taken seriously. Then, heroes came into being.

In that era, a film review by The New Yorker critic Pauline Kyle could recommend a movie as a great work. Many new Hollywood movies have caused a sensation in the United States before they were released, or they have gone from no one to be interested overnight.

But don't get me wrong. Pauline Kyle is one of the people who really push the film reviews to the point of popularization. Her original idea is "I worry that one day movies will no longer be the only art where everyone can enjoy and express their opinions freely. I worry that it will become something like music, art, that only allows academic research and appreciation."

Roger Albert was also worried that the popularization of film art would cause art films to lose their status and survival space, because what the public is most passionate about is definitely the part they can understand. So he highly recommends classic art films and "Forgotten Movies" in "Chicago Sun Pole" and film review TV shows.

Andrew Sarris is an important figure in another school. You may have heard that the "Author's Theory" movie is a director's work. It originated from French director François Truffaut. Sarris took the lead in spreading the theory of author in the United States, writing film reviews with the theory of author, discovering unknown new directors, and rehabilitating the neglected old director. At that time, the French New Wave movement also began, followed by the New Hollywood movement, and the director's reputation and status rose to an unprecedented level.

Sarris and Kyle are lifelong enemies, and the debate between the two since the 1960s laid the foundation for the faction in the American film criticism industry.

Kyle disagrees with the author theory and other theories of Sarris, such as the idea of ​​establishing a new film review system, "pantheon" (pantheon, sorting directors in layers). She believes that the author theory elevates the directors by sacrificing producers, screenwriters, and actors, and in its aesthetic way, it will regard some garbage (trash is one of Kyle's favorite film review terms) as art, which is anti-intellectual and anti-artistic, like a cult ritual.

Sarris was very disdainful of the clichés in film reviews on mainstream print media. Quoting another critic of Ezra Goodman's satirical "decisive comment list" can illustrate the situation:

"People say that people often have more clichés than the movies they review, and the sample commentary sentences include: 'Absolutely fire, shocking, exciting, extravagant and exciting, luxurious, charming imagination, advancement, great drama, absolute screen art, very good performance, exciting tension, huge moving, spectacular ending, incompetent director, unusual clumsiness, jaw drop, adrenaline rush, puzzling, hell, very good, resonant, fascinating, dark, incredible, intense self, perfection, amazing.' It sounds like we're fussing all the time."

Sarris believes that these critics have no passion and dare not take risks. He said, "The lack of critical theory makes the American film critics moody. The quality of each movie is just because you are happy or unhappy." He suggested that critics must love movies, take the art of film as their breath, and in other words, there must be things. They should combine theory, history and the scheduling of the movie itself to explain clearly why a movie is a good movie or a bad movie.

Regarding Kyle's argument, Sarris admitted that the original story of the film was usually not thought of by the director, but the director's work mainly aims to transform the text of the play into images in his personal style. Because film reviews convert images into words, traditional film critics rarely pay attention to the pure aesthetics of the film, but only retell the content of the film. When his author talks about film reviews, he must put the form at a higher level than the content, so that movie fans can truly understand the director's style.

Many people are dissatisfied with Sarris, such as Dwight MacDonald, an elite intellectual in New York. The most dissatisfied with the cultural critic that Sarris elegantly embellished films belonging to popular culture, such as using some commentary terms in the field of elegant art to write film reviews, confusing the boundaries between avant-garde art and mainstream art.

His criticism forces critics to choose a camp. What is film art?

Compared to MacDonald's group of people who despise movies, Kyle and Sarris are in the same camp that love movies and are closely connected with the audience. But Kyle is the kind of sarcastic loner who scolds everyone. She also criticizes critics who despise and attaches too much importance to popular culture, and also criticizes Hollywood and avant-garde filmmakers. She said, "Reject Hollywood, you are pretentious; reject avant-garde movies, you are brain-diseased." Sarris also does not think he has anything to do with Kyle, and criticizes her for not wanting to elevate movies to the mainstream art level, because of her old-fashioned and conservative thoughts.

Both of them and their camp members think that their style is art, and they correctly view the attitude of films and the future of film reviews.

You can also see that the film critics really have a glorious era of controversy over a hundred schools of thought, and they influenced how people view and watch movies today.

However, in the eyes of most scholars in the academic world, they are all idiots. The academic and media comments of movies come from the same source, intertwined and fought for a long time. Film theorist David Bodwell once said: "In the 1970s, when I started studying for graduate school, I was surprised to find that my new friends sneered at the reviews I wrote to media such as "Movie Review", and scholars were not interested in movie fans. Even film critics with academic education backgrounds would be hostile to the academic community."

In summary, scholars believe that film critics make money by writing articles on movies, and hurriedly make conclusions about a movie with some characteristic words. One is academic film reviews, the other is news media film reviews, which have disagreements and have no prospects to bridge.

Bodeville admitted that the rift between the two was mostly attributed to academics, and affirmed some public suspicions:

The academic community that promotes "grand-theory" rejects both the popularization of movies and the author theory, disdain for popular movies, stays away from film production, and does not care about the operation of Hollywood. Even Steven Spielberg is neglected. The academic community attaches more importance to dull works made from difficult theories and obscure terms, which is just in line with the way of analyzing and studying movies one by one. He also revealed that there are actually a group of scholars, including himself, who admire talented and movie-loving critics, and they benefit greatly from them, and film critics are vice versa.

Bodeville is a person with many good wishes. Compared with grand theory, he advocates "middle-level research" more, a way of studying films that is neither in the aerial attic nor in the ground newspapers in the film criticism industry. "Sensual appreciation and rational analysis can complement each other", "combining commentary analysis and academic interpretation with theoretical reflection", the two groups of people respect each other and work together.

Unfortunately, Bodeville has not made a detailed explanation of the middle-level research yet. Perhaps the problem of the essential opposition between scholars and film critics is difficult to solve: What should we say first when writing a film review? As he said, typical media reviews answer similar questions: "What are the unique characteristics of this film? How do these characteristics strengthen our understanding of its value?" while typical academic reviews answer similar: "How to apply and analyze my theoretical framework in which aspect of this film?"

The academic community does not pay attention to the evaluation of films. Many grand theoretical scholars believe that all forms of art are a means to achieve social control, and films reflect consciousness-forms. For example, an audience member has actually accepted the assumption of racism in westerns when watching an old-fashioned western. A director who can escape, fight in some way, and ultimately defeat consciousness-forms is a good director.

Having said so much, you can be considered acquaintances with this enemy in the academic and film critics. But before talking about other things, I would like to talk about another film critic, the famous "conscience of the American public". Susan Sontag. This great female literati also participated in the criticism debate in the 1960s. Yes, she was also scolded by Pauline Kyle.

At that time, Sontag was becoming famous in the knowledge circle with two pioneering articles, "Opposition to Interpretation" and "A Culture and New Sensitivity". Her philosophy was that Western culture was obsessed with interpreting art works, forcing critics to find meaning from them, oppressing sensory experiences, and weakening the pleasures generated by feeling art. He also believed that the old-school cultural authority has become a stumbling block for society to appreciate popular culture, and prejudice should be abandoned and humanities should be redefined outside of tradition.

In "Opposition of Interpretation", she advocates paying more attention to form and eliminate the arrogance of interpretive arousal caused by overemphasizing content. She also affirms the value of precise and detailed academic papers. But "the important thing now is to restore our feelings. We must learn to read more, listen more, and feel more." That is, the viewer must understand the content of the art work, the external appearance of things, see the true itself, and the feelings of the soul. The comment is to tell why it is, not what it is.

Kyle strongly disagrees with "Opposition of Interpretation" and does not like Sontag and others who give some "junk movies" respect. She criticized Sontag's film reviews for "treat equality and no opinion", "Since everything works, nothing actually happens and nothing works." Criticizing the pioneer cultural circle "If we refuse the criteria for comments, accept that everyone says they are artists, and regard anti-commercial works as art. If Sontag continues to do what she is doing, the end of comments will come."

The film should hold a firm position in popular culture, Pauline Kyle, who is popular in film reviews but maintains the authority of the critics, has a contemptuous theory of film reviews, subjective, vicious, and emphasizes content and the performance of the creators (today's mainstream media film review style).

To promote the author theory and enhance the artistic status of films, everyone is a film critic, and every film worker is an artist. Andrew Sarris, who respects everyone, but has to divide the talent level for them well. The style of film criticism focuses on form, and it is difficult to understand.

Opposing simplistic interpretations, everyone should be seen as the hearts of the people. Art criticism of the democratized Susan Sontag, film criticism is neutral in style, paying attention to form, and clear perception.

Who do you support?

Shortly after that debate, good things did not happen, and bad things came.

Maybe everything will be like this, from low to high, from prosperity to decline. Since the 1980s, film critics have become rampant. Most of them do not understand film production, academic theory, artistic aesthetics, what rationality is, what emotion is, how to vicious tongue is, how to lyricism... don't know anything. As long as you can figure out whether you like or don't like a movie after watching a certain movie, you have a cliché comment list, and you happen to be able to contribute, and you are a film critic.

It should be said that everyone has the right to like and hate a work. No matter whether it is subjective or objective, any critic will be influenced by his preferences. But at that time, it was never so severe before, so since then, film reviews gradually lost their influence. By the end of the 1980s, people began to say that "film reviews are dead."

At the same time, American movies are thriving on the road of popular entertainment. For all the big names in the industry, the art space is getting smaller and smaller. It seems that Pauline Kyle is unfortunately speaking, superficial pop culture is overwhelming, and the art culture that should have been independent and self-love is degenerating and eventually rotting into a ball.

Why? In 1996, Sontag published "The Decline of Movies" in the New York Times. In her article, she said that compared to the quality of the movie itself, she noticed more attention to the regression of audience quality: "It may not be the movie that goes to the end, but cinephilia, a kind of love used specifically to describe the love born from movies."

I completely agree. Hollywood and independent film industry spend most of the time making movies for the audience, and those who can’t make money are dead. As Francis Coppola said: “After I walked out of school, I never had the freedom to make movies.” I thought Sontag could have saved “maybe”, and the appearance of the screen is a general portrayal of the needs of the audience.

Many moviegoers still have the love of the movie, but many viewers are gone, and many film critics are gone. Moreover, when writing film reviews, it is not enough to have love, because love can produce many other emotions, including hatred.
To be continued...