Flim critic's job much harder than it looks

Iabsolutely love movies, all genres of movies. Whether they are new or old, filmed in color or black and white, silent or with sound, watching movies brings me great pleasure.

I confess I am addicted to them.

My favorite movies when I was in grade school include “The Parent Trap,” “Flubber,” and “The Love Bug.”  Not surprisingly, the great Walt Disney produced them all, as he did most of the movies created for young people during the 1950s and 1960s.

Recently, my younger daughter Tracie, who loves foreign films, encouraged me to give them a try. Those took a while to adjust to at first because of the subtitles, but I have seen several I really enjoyed, especially the French film, “A Very Long Engagement.”

Currently, my DVR is choked full of movies waiting for me to find time to watch them. Also, my Netflix selections sometimes lie around for a week or more before I have a chance to enjoy them.

I used to believe film critics had the perfect job: to get paid for watching movies. What could be better than that? Right?

Recently, I experienced a little bit of what it’s like to be a film critic, and let me just say it’s not as easy as I thought.

Last semester, I took an opinion-writing class. One of my assignments was to write a movie review. Our professor gave us the option of choosing any movie, new or old. Also, he said it could be one we liked or didn’t like. He warned us if we chose one we didn’t like, we should be very careful not to go overboard with harsh criticism.

So, I chose one of my all-time favorite romantic comedies, “Notting Hill.” Having seen this movie multiple times and owning the DVD should have made this a cinch to write, but it didn’t, much to my surprise.

It took several hours of playing and replaying movie scenes in order to take notes and transcribe dialogue from which to write my review. In other words, it was WORK. What a shock!

Moreover, I didn’t find the process enjoyable at all. It was very tedious. I had to scrutinize every aspect of the movie: the dialogue, acting, scenery, direction, plot and music. As a result, I completely lost the joy of the whole movie experience.

Also, deciding just how much of the plot to reveal to entice moviegoers became a tricky situation because one could easily spoil the ending of the movie for viewers.

To see for yourselves how I resolved this issue, turn to Page 6 to read my first—and quite possibly my last—movie review.

Please note: I wrote my article as if the movie were currently showing in theaters although its release date was May 21, 1999.

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