What is the art and craft of film reviewing?
A film review means different things to different people. However, what everybody would agree is that it’s a kind of writing which has a cinematic text as its point of departure and where the writer and his subjectivity play a crucial role. Reviews are mostly written, so the craft of writing is important and since it involves writing on cinema, so some sort of understanding of cinematic tradition also becomes important. 2. What according to you are the must have’s of a good review? A review must first give me a fair idea of the film. I like reading reviews which are rich in observation, which tell me how the film looks and sounds. If it also attempts to place it within the larger cinematic tradition, better. A review that passes judgments without argument is hollow. I’m not particularly fond of reviews which just drop names of other films without citing the context of comparison. Ideally, a good review should help me form an opinion about the film rather than force a judgment on me. 3.
