Movie Review?

This blog features virtually no reviews of music.  It has some comments I felt like making after some musicians or artists who meant a lot to me died, but not really any "reviews" per se.

I've written hundreds of reviews of records for the various radio stations I've been at.  I never felt any of them were worth printing.  My favorite reviews, actually, were for things that weren't very good, or for things that I didn't have much to say about, so I would take the opportunity to write something dumb.  For example, there was a band whose name was the same name as one of my middle school teachers, so the review began like this:

My eighth grade English teacher was named [band name].  I kind of liked her, but everyone else thought she was a servant of the devil because she held us to high school standards.  She was small but stern, & obviously loved the stuff she taught us.  She introduced me to Poe!  Anyway, this band – which is two brothers – has nothing to do with that.  

This doesn't help you understand the band at all, so I do describe their sound & what tracks I like.  It's standard stuff for a radio review, which (usually) isn't meant to be read by anyone but a deejay thinking about playing a song on the air.

Which is not to say that I don't appreciate criticism.  I love to read what people think about stuff.  I don't agree with probably most of it, but I don't mind it.  Sometimes someone else's opinion reinforces my own - or, better yet, makes me think more deeply about what I believe or think.  For some people, however, criticism can seem to be a writer showing off his/her style, or it may just be a bad argument, someone trying to change your opinion, & that can be irksome.

But I was thinking of writing a review of a movie I recently saw, for no other reason than I just saw it.  Occasionally I write a review of something on the Internet Movie Database - very occasionally, actually - I recently wrote something for the first time in seven years - but I am rarely moved to comment on a movie in the same way lots of people are & do.  (You can read my handful of reviews here, if you'd like.  None is essential.)

& then I started thinking, this morning, how much more I enjoyed the Game Of Thrones season four premiere far more than the movie.  There were a few dull, expository stretches through the movie - but all the dialogue (& it was a talky premiere) in the television show seemed essential.

& what is the point, anyway?  If you like some of the music I like, you'll like some of the shows I've put together.  An album review or a movie review or a television review won't make much of a difference.  Will it?  How could it?