... that I have a penchant for creating sub-genres with the suffix of 'realism', what with my ideas of 'sci-fi realism' in relation to films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Donnie Darko (once again) and Sunshine (I remembered the third striking thing about Sunshine; the versimilitude of the plot's scientific concepts).
It seems film critics have a love of branding new sub-genres (I base this opinion on DK Holm, one of my favourite movie reviewers, who seems to be coming up with new genre sub-categories every other week). Perhaps this need to pioneer new definitions comes from the critic's innate sense of self-consciousness and desire to create; after spending a career commenting on other people's creativeness, the critic wants to be creative him/herself, but can only do so in pinpointing generic traits to such a degree that every film can fit into its own individual category.
And that's it. I'm done for the night. Promise.
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One of the things that actually *stops* me from properly reviewing, despite being critical of everything I read, watch and encounter, is that I feel reviewing isn't creative enough, or rather, I want to make it creative, because otherwise I don't think it'll be worthwhile to read. But by turning the review into something creative/entertaining, I'm weaving a fiction of my own, of sorts, which is up for grabs to be reviewed on its own merits, which seems cannibalistic somehow. Hmm. Really gonna watch Heroes now though ;)
I don't think I ever told you, but I was doing film/DVD reviews for a long time there for my uni website (and continue to do music reviews for another website).
One of my favourite reviews I did was one on Godzilla;
http://reviews.media-culture.org.au/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1600
The whole experience made me really fussy about professional criticism, especially how lazy it tends to be (my own stuff included). I got into a fierce debate with someone at work a few weeks back about the role/necessity of film review.
I actually remember you doing proper review at university :) I bookmarked the Godzilla review for later reading, as I'm at work now. I dabbled in reviews of my own at various places, like thecomicsreview.com (if you sort reviews by writer, "Peter" is me) and at my two blogs, which I think I sent you links to in the past. I'm not sure. I really, really want to do proper criticism, but I always fear it'll become too dry or pedantic somehow. Any tips? (Your comment about laziness is a good one. I think that's probably a subconscious sticking point for me, that I can't just slap them together, but then it takes much longer to write them, and then it feels like work, so... :D)
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