(NOTE: This is the first in a series of interviews with notable film critics)
It’s not enough that Roger Moore’s film reviews are carried both in the Orlando Sentinel, his home base, and in papers nationwide courtesy of syndication.
Moore also runs a sharp film blog, Frankly My Dear, which he somehow finds the time to update on a daily basis. WWTW reached out to Moore, whose first film review covered “Rocky IV,” to get his thoughts on some of the pressing issues facing today’s film critics.
WWTW: Being online allows you to interact with readers in a way that wasn’t possible before. Thoughts on this kind of immediate give and take, and does it make you a stronger reporter/writer?
RM: It’s like having legions of proofreaders, which is helpful. And legions of people with very narrow and specific interests which they are outraged that you don’t always share. Which isn’t helpful.
WWTW: Has running a film blog honed your critical skills in any way or changed the way you craft your newspaper reviews?
RM: I am so much more in touch with the pulse of Hollywood and film fandom than I ever was as simply a print movie critic. You have to follow everything, so trends become more obvious much sooner, your sense of stars on the rise or decline is keener. And you simply have to write more, which is the down side of this. More typing means more typos, more chances to stumble in the meaning of some idea, opinion, what have you, that you’re trying to get across. Blogging turned the job into a 24 hour a day obsession. [WWTW note: Amen, brother]
WWTW: Do online film critics have clout, or do you think it’s their collective voice that could nudge a film’s box office receipts up or down? What should they do to increase their power or status?
RM: Online critics do have clout. At Comic Con. And around Oscar time, the buzz-builders within their ranks can have an impact. Not sure anybody online has wide impact, aside from Roger Ebert.
WWTW: Some film critics openly flout their ideological stances – Roger Ebert from the left, John Nolte of Big Hollywood from the right. Your reviews take a much more ideologically neutral approach. Do you think film critics should be open concerning their political views?
RM: The more the reader knows about you, the better use he or she can make of your reviews. If a movie calls for this sort of political disclosure, I make it pretty obvious where I stand.
WWTW: The disconnect between some movie critics and audiences – witness films like “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” – persists. Is this a concern, or are films like “Fallen” aberrations rather than the norm?
RM: That disconnect has long been there — always, even. Critics wind up championing movies that don’t stick to the cultural conscience, that don’t have staying power. But sometimes we get it right. Audiences will flock to something like the last “Pirates of the Caribbean,” or “Transformers” or the later “Matrix” movies, and then wonder, two years later, what the hell they were thinking? Unlike audiences, critics have to own up to that. We have to have memories, benchmarks and have to remember every fleeting fancy we’ve endorsed and regretted. Unless we’re Rex Reed.
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“Unless we’re Rex Reed.” Heh.