This is what I don’t understand about newspapers and blogs, or in this case, vlog. At the Star-Telegram, film critic Chris Kelly and entertainment writer Robert Philpot, both smart, fine writers, are doing a video critic vlog called “Movie Madness.” Basically two guys sitting in the front of the newsroom, discussing the week’s releases. My question is this: why not put, or just leave, all the critique in the published product?
One has to assume that what appears in the vlog is mostly just an amplification, and sort of low-budget TV clip, about the movies in question (right now “The Poseidon Adventure” and “Just My Luck”). So that also means the two writers have to re-critique what they’ve already written, or maybe they do the vlog first and then write later what the paper actually sells. I’m not sure what, if anything, this adds to the genre of criticism. On this blog, for example, we just pop off about anything, but the stories that show up in print have their own life, and their own exclusive energy. The process is complementary.
But can a critic of a specific film, book, etc. really do the same thing twice? Does it take away from one format to more or less repeat in another?
Do we want to read the critique if we’ve watched the vlog? If so, why? What was left out of one or the other?
IJS.
