Time again for one of my open-ended conversation starters. I would like to engage the list in a discussion of the role of movie reviewers. I'd like to limit this to the ones we read about in the popular press, whose reviews are supposed to tell us about what is currently playing in the theaters. What do you think their role should be? What makes a good reviewer/bad reviewer? What should the goal of their reviews be? What kind of things have irritated you in reviews you have read? Here are some of my pet peeves to get the ball rolling. 1) "good cinematography". If the cinematographer shows lots of sunsets and nicely lit landscapes this is called "good cinematography", paying no regard as to how meaningfully the images presented are used, which is my measure of "good cinematography". 2) lack of equal opportunity leechery. I used to be bothered by reviewers who were constantly describing the physical attributes of the actresses. A recent reviewer (female, by the way) describe the size of Demi Moore's attributes in the movie Striptease. Upon further reflection, those are probably the main reason that alot of people are going to see that movie, so why not tell people about them? But, believe it or not, many women also go to movies to ogle the actors, and I find little mention of this. I remember hearing a female reviewer on a radio talk show mention that the main appeal of "Last of the Mohicans" was seeing 2 hours of Daniel Day Lewis with his shirt off, to the shock of the male reviewers present. 3) Reviewers who use the review to show-off their knowledge of irrelevant trivia, instead of addressing the movie as a whole. 4) Reviewers who deem a movie "not funny" because the humor presented doesn't appeal to them personally. There are many different types of humor - some people can't stand Benny Hill, or Monty Python, but to call them "not funny" seems to me most unhelpful to the people who do like that kind of humor. Looking forward to your comments . . . Simone Fary ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]