The Brave New World of Unambiguous Movie Criticism
If you are tired of droll and vague complaints about contemporary films, you have come to the right place. It is the goal of these pages to identify specific script flaws and avoidable story errors with the hope of generating a useful tool for writers. No longer will a critic be allowed to say "It just didn't work for me," or "I've seen that idea before." It is our purpose to force rigor in the sensibilities of movie critics by giving them a solid evidence based structure upon which to lean.
A single flaw is often enough to pan a movie, but there are always good points to be weighed against the bad. The flaws identified here are based on viewing hundreds of stories on screen and on television and were simply deduced by noticing patterns over many years of exposure.
 | Literary Second Order Confluence --- Stories are almost always driven by singularly interesting and unusual occurrence. However plausibility problems can arise when TWO unusual occurrences happen in the same story. This is our best developed concept and we include plenty of examples from our extensive experience as a television viewer. However it is also a difficult and somewhat subtle problem that is often forgiven. |
| The Problem of Prophecy --- It probably goes without saying that the laws of physics as we know them specifically prohibit the possibility of prophecy, but that is NOT our point. Prophecy also introduces fundamental logical problems and critically unanswered questions that are rarely treated with care and leave the viewer metaphysically stranded. |
| Bad Guy Dynamic Range Rescaling --- In this day and age of frequent movie sequels it is not surprising that certain problems unique to the "Part II" would eventually emerge. Explore one such problem here. |
| Cliché Motifs ---It has been 50 years of modern moviemaking and movie going and television and it is time to asses where we are. Can we identify tired plot/character motifs that can be officially labeled "cliché" ? Can all the ways of being unoriginal be enumerated? We think so. Here are the first fifteen. |
| Incongruous Behavior --- "With great power comes great responsibility...." (---From The Amazing Spider-Man). Writers must understand the implications of the premises they exploit. Even more importantly, their characters must! |