Reviewers who can’t write reviews…
I don’t pretend to be a professional reviewer, whether I’m reviewing books or movies. I can’t be a professional reviewer, in fact. No one pays me for book or movie reviews. Reviewing books is my way to give back to the community of readers and writers. Reviewing movies is a service to readers of this blog, especially those who want to see what an average moviegoer thinks about a particular movies. OK, maybe I’m not an average moviegoer, but no one pays me to go to movies and write a review, so what I say never suffers from avoiding biting the hand that feeds me—I can say what I like. Bottom line: All my reviewing work is purely voluntary.
Maybe I have an advantage over other book reviewers because I’m an author, but I don’t dwell on the esoteric elements of storytelling for fiction, for example, or historical or other accuracies when it’s non-fiction. And I’m certainly not or ever want to be a Hollywood insider. (I do believe some of my fiction would make good movies, though. One person said my recent novel Rembrandt’s Angel would make a good movie. I can imagine how Hollywood would destroy that one!) I occasionally sample others’ reviews (not of the book or movie I’m reviewing, of course—just in general), and then I’m often surprised by how bad the reviews are that are posted, that surprise having many reasons. When some of those are a negative reflection on the skills of the reviewer, I try to ignore the reviews. Why are those reviews even posted?
Let’s start with movies. I’ve come to ignore what professional reviewers say about a movie. First, when the reviewer states it’s a fantastic movie (max number of stars) or a dud (one star or less), I suspect there’s an agenda. That’s a kneejerk reaction dictated by experience. (Sometimes I’m wrong.) Most movies have positive and negative qualities.
If the reviewer complains about the plot, I wonder about the screenplay…or the editing (good stuff often gets cut, leaving only the mediocre flash-bang stuff the director thinks will sell the movie). If the reviewer complains about the acting, I wonder about the casting person who chose those actors. For example, I’ve railed about choosing Tom Cruise to play Jack Reacher; I even think he’s a bad choice to play Ethan Hunt. His acting is a problem, but it’s not the major one. The problem is that it’s impossible to think of him as Reacher, no matter how well he acts. Someone made a major mistake in casting him in that role, so why shouldn’t a movie reviewer say so?
Book reviews have similar problems and give me more indigestion than movie reviews. Amazon counts every one of them as equal when—let’s face it—too many have zero content for helping readers to decide to make a book purchase. Of course, Amazon only wants that star-ranking so they can calculate an average and claim that the overall rank is based on sound statistical principles. What a bunch of malarkey! (Movie review websites do the same thing, of course. Double malarkey.)
Amazon has contributed the most to making reviews all but useless. This is where I most often see incompetent reviewers writing terrible reviews. Zero content is the most obvious sin, and this is encouraged by the bandwagon effect (readers throwing on a review like they were voting on American Idol, leading to thousands of zero content reviews). I had one reviewer of The Secret Lab (now with a 2nd edition rewritten and reedited by A. B. Carolan) criticize that YA sci-fi mystery because the sentences weren’t long enough! Turned out she was primarily a writer of endorsements for women’s shoes and apparel. (I’m a minimalist writer. In her defense, she hadn’t read any of my adult prose, so consequently she didn’t know that.)
If reviewers can’t write a review with informative content, whether book or movie, why bother? Forget Amazon, Rotten Tomatoes, or any other stupid online website that claims to determine quality statistically based on reviews. There’s no way this determines quality! (Ask ten reviewers what each star means, and you’re likely to get ten different answers. And people use the ranking system like they’re voting for a participant of American Idol.) The system is flawed if not corrupt. (Corruption is rampant unfortunately. A lot of it isn’t the reviewing sites’ faults either.)
Consider the following scenario: Reviewer X says, “This book sucks!” (Replace “book” with “movie” if that’s what interests you more.) Yeah, I know, many online reviewing sites want more than that for product endorsements, but the review or endorsement is still zero content. In fact, it’s not even an endorsement, one way or the other. Maybe reviewer Y says, “This book is great!” Again, zero content, and not even qualifying as a product endorsement.
Too many Amazon reviews have zero content. I suspect most reviews nowadays have zero content. Siskel and Ebert might have started all this hellish behavior with their simple thumbs up or down, but clearly that tells the would-be buyer nothing. Amazon and Rotten Tomatoes carry on that tradition.
The other aspect of this is that a thumbs up or down often plays to crowd sentiment (again American Idol comes to mind)—all the Romans in the Circus want the gladiator’s blood, so the Emperor gives a thumbs down! Or the opposite occurs. By that I mean people jump on the bandwagon, basically cheering for a book or movie because everyone else seems to be doing so. No independent thought required.
Bias is evident if only from this: ever seen a negative bandwagon effect? There have been a few, I suppose. Some are politically motivated. The Benghazi movie suffered that fate—it played on silver screens for one weekend. There was a campaign going on and a mostly liberal press went into action. The book Fire and Fury was torched by Fox News and other right-wing media outlets. Censorship can be subtle, but I guess even that can be considered a bad review…made by bad reviewers!
The best review is one where reviewers state clearly the positives and negatives, and why they consider them that way. The reviewer can certainly state if a book or movie has a political agenda—that might influence purchasing decisions (whether such an agenda is a positive or negative depends on the reviewer’s political proclivities, of course), but the review shouldn’t be all about that. And reviewers don’t need to write an MFA thesis, and they shouldn’t waste other people’s time either (especially mine) if they can only offer zero content. Unfortunately many professional reviewers get paid for doing the latter, which makes the whole system corrupt and corruptible.
***
Great Spring Thaw Sale. Every two weeks, with one week overlap, starting April 1, one of my books will be on sale at Smashwords (the overlap means that there are usually two books on sale). (Yes, it’s been going on…sorry about that, but it was announced on my Home page and elsewhere.) Take advantage of this to download some entertaining spring reading. Each ebook will be on sale for $1.99, regardless of the normal retail price. Access my Smashwords author page for the entire list of ebooks. (Remember, Smashwords offers ALL ebook formats, including mobi format for Kindles.) Use the coupon code for the ebook on checkout.
In libris libertas…
