A review of Rolling Stone reviews: The good and bad

Because I feel as if I understand music reviews a bit more than movie ones, I decided to look up different movie reviews in hopes of finding both the good and the bad.  Lets start with the bad review first.

Peter Travers from Rolling Stone put together a piece called “The Twelve Must-See Fall Movies.” The first movie that pops up on this list is “The Social Network.” Aside from my general opinions (I assume this movie will be incredibly hyped up, but still suck) Travers opens the review with the following:

"This is the first film I've seen so far in 2010 that deserves my highest rating, 4 stars. It's better than the movie of the year. The Social Network also defines the decade." 

Reviews, to me, shouldn’t start out with such a bold statement. Since that is how he feels about the movie, he should have incorporated those claims later in the review. I usually tend to not take a review seriously when I hear about how perfect the subject is right away.  From there, instead of focusing more on what elements the movie has to offer, it explains why this explores the generation's problem with social networking as their main form of communication.

While I agree with that truth about my generation, I still want to know more about the film and not so much about the reasons the film is significant. After Travers discusses society, he describes who the lead characters are and then ends the review by saying its funny comparing it to “Roshomon” and saying it will pin you to your seat. 

Whatever, there was no substance to convince that was true. He simply just said that was the case. I still think it is going to suck.

Now a review that I enjoyed reading and found convincing enough to want me to go see the film. 

Also from Rolling Stone was a review on the movie “Easy A,” written by Will Gluck. Right in the beginning, Gluck makes a comparison to the movie “Clueless,” and the actress in that movie, Alicia Silverstone. This gave me an idea of what type of movie I was going to be watching if the review convinced me to go see the movie.

Once he explains who the lead actress is in the film, he begins to tell a synopsis of the movie. However, he literally stops mid-sentence and tells the reader to go see if for themselves for see what the plot is. He explains that this is a comedic film that really delivers, but not only because of the script, but also the actress.

This type of review is what I like to see because it doesn’t smother the reader with over-zealous claims that the movie is wicked awesome. It has a tiny word count only allowing for the most important information to be in there. It also give enough detail about the aspect of the movie he found to be the winning combination (the actress and the script full of zingers) in that short word count. I actually want to see that movie now.