Everyone's a critic - top tips for budding film reviewers

Mark Kermode’s fans await certain films – The Hangover Part III, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, anything by Transformers director Michael Bay - with a certain glee, hoping that they’ll be treated to a ‘Kermodian’ rant from one of the UK’s best-known film critics. Perhaps the most famous example is his view on Sex and the City 2:

With 'The Kermodes' - an alternative to the Oscars

it’s a film about redemption, about sacrifice, about faith and hope and things that are beyond life

“My expectations were low, and I have to say they were met. It’s ghastly. I spent quite a lot of time in the last week trying to think exactly what it is that’s so ghastly, and putrid, and vomit inducing about Sex and the City 2…Essentially the message of the film is this: feel sympathy for people who are disgustingly wealthy…imperialist American pig-dogs of the highest order. It is consumerist pornography, it is an orgy of dripping wealth that made me want to be sick.”

Fortunately, Kermode gives equal passion to films he loves, like Guillermo del Toro’s fantasy Pan’s Labyrinth:

“It’s absolutely wonderful…it is an extraordinary mix of realism and fabulous invention, it has a menagerie of monsters that are absolutely beautiful and on the other hand quite scary…if I can just get one of these every ten years I can carry on being a critic and sitting through all the Santa Clause 3s…it’s a film about redemption, about sacrifice, about faith and hope and things that are beyond life…I really cannot recommend it highly enough. If you only go and see one film this year, go and see Pan’s Labyrinth.”

Widely touted as one of the greatest films ever made, Citizen Kane did have some harsh critics on its release – gossip columnist Hedda Hopper called the film a ‘vicious and irresponsible attack on a great man’, and criticised its 'corny' writing and ‘old fashioned’ photography. However, it received mainly praise, such as this from the wonderfully eloquent (and wonderfully named) critic Bosley Crowther in the New York Times, 1941:

"We would, indeed, like to say as many nice things as possible about everything else in this film—about the excellent direction of Mr. Welles, about the sure and penetrating performances of literally every member of the cast and about the stunning manner in which the music of Bernard Herrmann has been used. Space, unfortunately, is short. All we can say, in conclusion, is that you shouldn't miss this film. It is cynical, ironic, sometimes oppressive and as realistic as a slap. But it has more vitality than fifteen other films we could name. And, although it may not give a thoroughly clear answer, at least it brings to mind one deeply moral thought: For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”

One of America’s most famous film critics, and the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for his writing, Roger Ebert’s reviews are legendary. He famously remarked of The Brown Bunny, “I had a colonoscopy once, and they let me watch it on TV. It was more entertaining than The Brown Bunny” and of ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’ that ‘…the movie has been signed by Michael Bay. This is the same man who directed The Rock in 1996. Faust made a better deal’.

E.T.—The Extra-Terrestrial is a movie like The Wizard of Oz, that you can grow up with and grow old with, and it won't let you down

But it wasn’t all scathing put-downs – when Ebert enjoyed a film, his eloquence came to the fore and he showed us exactly why he loved cinema, as in this review for E.T:

“This movie made my heart glad. It is filled with innocence, hope, and good cheer. It is also wickedly funny and exciting as hell. E.T.—The Extra-Terrestrial is a movie like The Wizard of Oz, that you can grow up with and grow old with, and it won't let you down. It tells a story about friendship and love. Some people are a little baffled when they hear it described: It's about a relationship between a little boy and a creature from outer space that becomes his best friend. That makes it sound like a cross between The Thing and National Velvet. It works as science fiction, it's sometimes as scary as a monster movie, and at the end, when the lights go up, there's not a dry eye in the house.”

Anna with IMDB founder and Into Film Trustee Col Needham

Anna is Contributing Editor at ELLE and Chair of the Critics’ Circle Film Section. She is a regular critic for many news outlets, including the Metro, Sky News and BBC News – so she knows exactly what makes a review stand out from the crowd.

Charles Gant regularly contributes reviews to BBC Radio 4’s ‘The Film Programme’ as well as being the Film Editor and chief film critic of Heat magazine. He makes sense of the box office top ten in a weekly analysis for The Guardian.