The film critics are up in weapons after their reviews of “Dune: Part 2” embargoed while social media influences were encouraged to share their judgments immediately.
When reviews of films on Tiktok-of a click called “Movietok” and other platforms are becoming increasingly influential prioritize studios increasingly “social feelings” over newspaper revision. The trend has “developed in recent years”, Manuela Lazic wrote for The custodianAnd have consequences “not just the film criticism but culture at large”.
“Treat knowledgeable reviewers with respect”
“My movie criticism colleagues steam from all openings,” said The timesRichard Morrison, after “influences, industry hangers and general celebrity freeloaders” had to share their judgments immediately on the new sci-fi sequener, while press writers were confused for a week.
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Critics should “strike back” against the “regrettable tactics” of putting Tiktok reviewer first, Morrison wrote. Newspapers and websites publish “millions (most favorable) words every year about new films”, and “In return, the film industry should treat knowledgeable film reviewers with respect, not try to start them to irrelevans”.
Similar tactics caused anger at the London Press Preview screening of “Barbie” last year, where mainstream medium critics “were left censored,” Lazic said in the Guardian. “If all the discussion about the film’s qualifications before release is left to influencers, whose driving ambition is to get free goods by talking well about the studio’s products”, where will “engaging, challenging” and “at least impartial conversation” that cinema takes place ? And how “should the audience think critically about what is sold to it”?
The trend is “aggravating to see,” Patrick Sproull wrote for GQ. While critics have “editorial and ethical standards to follow”, Movietok is a “comparative wild west”. And TikTok -reviewer who accepts “large sacking tissues with dollar signs on them” from studios is “simply the useful farmer from publicity departments”.
‘Democratization of the opinion’
But many at Movietok believe that traditional critics have “false or uneven authority”, said New York Times.
“Many of us don’t trust critics,” Bryan Lucious, who has 387,000 followers, told the newspaper. He pointed to differences between the points for relaxed users of the review page Rotten Tomatoes and those of the “top critics” and claimed that the “critical plant” is “without contact”.
Movietok -Armors consider what they do that “differ from film criticism”, said Sproull at GQ, and “even positions themselves as more legitimate than supposedly stale establishment writers” and began a “democratization of opinion”.
Britain’s entertainment publicist Amber Muotto told Screenedaily that influencers do not replace journalists as such; Rather, they allow greater coverage of films that are potentially overlooked by mainstream media. “I have been in situations where it is like drawing blood from a stone to get journalists to cover (a smaller title),” said Muotto, who specializes in independent films. “When we will not get the reviews we hoped for, we must turn to influencers to fill these gaps.”
But traditional media critics are convinced. “Giving social media sycophants a head start to influence the public debate” does “nothing to care for film as an adult art form,” wrote The Times Morrison.
