All You Ever Wanted To Know About Film Reviewing

Writing a film review is a tough job. It’s exactly like prostitution. Most of the time you’re paid for screwing things you don’t like and occasionally you’ll have a good time.

Usually people who end up reviewing films are people who’ve had childhoods that involved spoiling their eyes. They are the kids, who like all kids were immensely fascinated by the captivating images of the silver screen but unlike other kids, the film reviewers never really grew up to move on to other things, like getting a real job. So when these kids grew up they realised two very important things that would shape their future forever:

1.  They still liked watching films.
2.  Food costs money.

Out of the necessity of the above two realisations they hit upon the perfect career for themselves. They decided they’d sit around and cry at support group meetings. No, they decided to do something worse. They decided to turn their everyday life into a profession. So they began watching, discussing, and fornicating with films in the newspapers and managed to get paid for it too. This was because newspapers soon realised that it’s much easier to keep publishing film reviews than it is too actually go and find real news.

The art of film reviewing involves the ability to dissect a film analytically and objectively, without, and here’s the tricky part, letting the fact that Jackky Bhagnani is in it affect your thinking. That’s why it’s one of the toughest professions around, even tougher than being in the army, because in the army you don’t have to worry about seeing Jackky Bhagnani anytime soon.

Film reviewers also have to keep to a very tight schedule. They put in long hours of work that last for the entire length of Friday and Saturday. It’s a hectic job that entails sitting for screenings of films in what is called ‘Press Screenings’ which is a term meaning, an event to show critics the movie before its release and make a sleazy attempt to get them to right a positive review in the process.

Saturday is usually spent in quiet meditative repose, writing out the actual review of the film. This is a tricky task because it involves remembering the plot and filling half the review with it. It’s tricky because some film’s don’t have too much of a plot to begin with and it then becomes the job of the reviewer to analytically and objectively make something up. After recounting the story for the majority of the column, the reviewer has to carefully present his clinical assessment of the film. This involves writing vague, ambiguous statements using cinema jargons to express judgement of aspects of the film that nobody cares for. Example:

1. The fresh cinematography which creates rich vignettes of the many hues of the characters rivets the audience 
2. The sound mixing compliments the complexity of the narrative.
3. Ram Gopal Verma ki Aag. ‘Nuff said.

At this point the ideal film reviewer comments on the performance of the actors and describes in ‘Layman’ terms what he thought of the film.  This is also the part of the review that the Reviewer uses to exercise his dry and sarcastic sense of humour. He’ll use funny quips such as, “Vivek Oberoi looks out of place in the movie. His place being out of the movies.”, “The film is so bad that it makes sucking on a lemon seem like a sweet experience” and “The film stars Jackky Bhagnani.”

The film reviewer understands that his reader’s are about as intelligent as sea turtles and hence they  rate the film out of a maximum of five stars and put it right at the top of the review so that readers don’t get confused reading actual words to know what the reviewer thinks of a film.

People often think that all film reviews are bought and paid for. This notion, I can safely and surely say is absolutely wrong, the truth is that only SOME film reviews are bought and paid for, because no amount of money can get a reviewer to write a positive review for Ram Gopal Verma Ki Aag.