I think I saw four movies in the theater last year, tops.

Hitchhiker’s, Serenity & GOF (twice – because they cut off the entire end credits the first time)

but netflix is my second husband. big smoochies to netflix.

Two of the critics that I actually enjoy the most are a couple of guys that used to post reviews to the alt.rec.movies Usenet group back in the day: Steve Rhodes and James Berardinelli. They’re both opinionated, but unlikely to be swayed by Hollywood glitz (like, say, Peter Travers) or drawn offsides by socio-political fixations (Edelstein, Slate, or, to a lesser extent, The New Yorker).

I saw Domino a few weeks back. My friend and I both expected it to be horrible–it had been utterly panned by almost every critic (though, notably, Ebert and one of the NYT reviewers gave it relatively decent reviews). But because we knew that it was supposed to be bad, and why, we were prepared–and ended up quite enjoying it.

I think that for good movies, it’s good to know as much as possible beforehand. A good movie usually requires at least two viewings to fully appreciate due to complexities of characters and narrative. Reading a lot beforehand allows you to see the movie once, so to speak, so that when you actually do see the movie, it provides some of the benefits of a second viewing without actually having to sit through the movie twice. Then there’s also the issue of outright opacity. I would recommend learning as much as possible about characters and storylines of a film such as Syriana, for example, before going into the theater. If I had just had a simple cheat sheet of who was doing what and why, the movie would have been an entirely different experience.

On the other hand, some movies are best when you know little to nothing about them – for the sheer base pleasure of surprise. There are a lot of movies that have a 10-15 minute setup and then dive into a major plot twist that jumpstarts the rest of the film. Unfortunately, trailers usually have to reveal it to sell the film. But if at all possible, it’s best to see movies like The Island knowing absolutely nothing at all. I also made it into The Manchurian Candidate without having seen the earlier version, or a trailer, or heard anything in particular about it. I had thought, with Meryl Streep and all, that it was a serious political drama. That’s one of the most serious curveballs I’ve ever been thrown in a theater. It was awesome.

It’s reasonably entertaining once dinosaurs and Kong enter the movie. The first hour of it is perfectly terrible though, nearly unwatchable. And it’s almost ruined by the music.

Plus, it’s 3 hours long. Too long by 50%.

As for Ebert, I agree with your assessment for the most part. I don’t read him to decide whether or not I’m going to see a movie, but through him I often become interested in films that otherwise don’t get much press. Edelstein is worse than Ebert at fixating on unimportant elements, in my opinion. Often, he seems to be looking for any reason to be offended. But he’s fun to read and like you say, why he liked or didn’t like a film is more important than whether he liked it or not.

Personally, I tend to skim use Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic to get a good gestalt of what the critics as a whole think. Caveat: I think Rotten Tomatoes can be pretty darn arbitrary in how they sort a review as “fresh” or “rotten,” so I don’t rely too heavily on it. I’m more curious about why those who liked a move liked it, and why those who hated it hated it.

And unlike Russell, I’d rather know as little as possible about a movie (other than whether it’s any good) before I see it. I usually skip over the plot summary portion of reviews entirely, then go back and read them after I’ve seen the movie.

BTW – am I the only one who tends to read more movie reviews *after* I’ve seen a movie than I do before?

We have favorite directors (not so much actors or actresses), but they don’t influence our choices as much as reviews. Besides, these guys are paid to see everything out there; they see movies which we all miss. We’ve discovered great films (like Stephen Fry’s Bright Young Things) solely because of Ebert and Co.