everyone wants to be a critic

Criticism and how it's changing is something that interests me. I've got so many posts running around in my head, but here are some links to articles that I've saved recently.

'We Are Not Consumer Guides': Talking About Talking About Culture

If you don't know at the time you start writing about television -- or movies, or books -- that many, many smart people will have diametrically opposed opinions to yours, and will express them eloquently and forcefully, then you will learn it almost immediately. I could rattle off ten things I love that are or undoubtedly would be totally despised by any critic you want to name whose stuff I love reading. I promise you that every single person I deeply respect who regularly reads what I write has, at least once, said to himself or herself, "I have absolutely no idea what she is on about; she has lost her mind." And then they come back the next day, I hope, and conclude that I have regained my lost grip. The idea that all smart and thoughtful people would, if asked, come up with an identical set of Good Movies and Bad Movies is just ... ridiculous. Beyond ridiculous.

That Kevin Smith Thing

It’s not personal. At least it shouldn’t be. It’s about the movies, which could just be entertainments released without comment for a public that can choose to go see them or not and then wait for a new round of movies next week. But movies are more than just those images that flicker for a couple of distracting hours then disappear. Critics are, or should be, those who think movies mean something more than that, that they don’t end when the lights go up. Loving movies means, of course, loving the movies themselves but also the conversations—in print, online, or in person—around them and the discussions of what they mean to us, whether they’re A Serious Man or Hot Tub Time Machine. (Or Jersey Girl. or Cop Out.)

These are focused on movies but this applies to all forms of criticism to me (books, music, etc). If I wasn't so tired I would talk more about how I view criticism but I am tired, so perhaps later.

A Song for All Occasions (30 Days of Music) #4

Day 04 - A song that makes you sad
Where Have You Been? by Manchester Orchestra

Just listening to this song pulls down my mood, and there may have been a night when I was already down and then got the the part I can hardly see what's in front of me most days, and those days too and clutched my pillow and cried a bit until I fell asleep with the song on repeat.

I'm really going to try and have a different artist for each song, but no promises

of course

The Hunger Games is being made into a movie. Ever since I first read the book, I started thinking about how this book would work visually.

ONTD brought up:

Sara Bolger


Emily Browning


Anna Popplewell


The article suggested the girl from Kick-Ass because development would take a while so she could grow into looking more age appropriate.


I hope they don't try and make it into more of a romance than it actually is and stay true to the book. Also, could it be PG-13? The book is YA and the violence doesn't have to be graphically shown and if The Dark Knight was PG-13, I don't see why this movie couldn't be.