[throwawaaarrgh]

Actually sounds like a good thing to me. Any organization that styles itself an industry taste maker is simultaneously repressing the organic creation of culture by the disorganized masses.

Culture is best discovered by accident, and considered on its merits by the individual. When some critic tells you what's good and what isn't, you'll never know if you actually like it, or you just like it because someone told you you do. Simultaneously, if that's your only outlet for finding culture, you'll miss all the rest.

It's like with movies: you can watch whatever trends on Rotten Tomatoes, or you can watch a whole bunch of random stuff at a film festival. Guaranteed you will find something at the festival that will never trend on RT but that you'll enjoy thoroughly.

[lmm]

> It's like with movies: you can watch whatever trends on Rotten Tomatoes, or you can watch a whole bunch of random stuff at a film festival. Guaranteed you will find something at the festival that will never trend on RT but that you'll enjoy thoroughly.

Not my experience at all. Turns out critics are actually decent at judging stuff, and good movies really are better than bad ones.

[throwawaaarrgh]

So how come I've seen so many great movies at film festivals that no critic writes about?

[lmm]

There are plenty of reasons a critic might not write about a film - perhaps it's not being widely distributed, or they don't think people will be interested, or it's difficult to write about, or they simply haven't heard of it.

(I've seen some great films at film festivals, but I absolutely have had festivals that were a complete bust. So I took exception mainly to your "guaranteed" claim, which you seem to be stepping back from now)

[throwawaaarrgh]

I'm not stepping back from anything. Plenty of critics have hated films that end up being cult classics. A critic is no substitute for individual sensibilities. You can defer to them all you want, doesn't mean it's a great way to develop culture. But it is a great way to develop an insular culture.

[lmm]

> I'm not stepping back from anything.

Well then, to put it more bluntly, I once went to a film festival and didn't find anything that I enjoyed thoroughly. So your guarantee is bollocks.

[vonjuice]

but sometimes bad movies are more interesting than good ones (good, not great)

[lmm]

Meh. Occasionally you get a movie that failed in an interesting way, but most bad movies are just bad in the same handful of ways, and I lost interest in watching that fairly quickly. I know some people enjoy hate-watching as a social experience but I don't.

[vonjuice]

To be fair I also lost interested in "okay" movies. If I watch one it better be great or baffling.