Having trouble writing a review and could use a tip

[BUREINPARESU]

I'm trying to avoid a scene-by-scene review but find I can't help myself, there's just too many details that going in the order of the film is the best way to talk about them. If I wrote a much more to-the-point review, it'd feel like I'd just be listing all the details I want to talk about.

What can I do to balance myself out?

Actually, what do you guys prefer seeing in reviews? Scene-by-scene reviews or ones that provide a criticism in several paragraphs?

[Andrew]

Try writing some short notes, just highlights or thoughts that you'd like to talk about in the review.  Then concentrate on those notes.  Stuff like "Rayden:  purple Peter Pan" turns into "Rayden looks nothing like he did before, and after he goes through his midlife crisis, he looks like a forty-year-old purple Peter Pan - and he's just as effective."

[BUREINPARESU]

Hm, might work. I'm thinking of writing the whole thing and then filtering it all, hopefully that'll get me somewhere, because I don't really want to 'spoil' the events to my readers; they're not story ones (not that the story is particularly dynamic), but I like the idea of people going into something and getting a good surprise from action sequences. Then again I suppose seeing is different from reading something.

[lester1/2jr]

honestly,  I don't read lengthy review because it gives away too much of the movie.  I like something really short that tells me wether to rent it or not.  lke "it's this kind of movie and if you like stuff like a or b you may like it".



more to the point:  what type of review do you yourself want to read?  write that

[clockworkcanary]

Well, there are several ways to do a write-up so there's really no right or wrong answer. You could recap the entire thing or just write an essay on the main points. One method I use during the note-taking phase is to try to get all the details, scene-by-scene, but then during the proofreading phase, sculpt what you have into a nice-flowing summary, with elaborated sections on the parts you really want to talk about. I've often revised my entire outline/summary into a single paragraph (the movie in a nutshell) followed by a more elaborated essay. Hope that helps.

[BUREINPARESU]

Well, I ultimately did it the only way I could want if that makes sense, I think I was just tired and didn't want to re-watch the movie just to see what I was doing (even though it was a decent movie); a brief synopsis of events, a bit of criticism around certain scenes, and then finally talking about the overall thing.

I'm much more used to the thoroughness of essays after having come off college.

[Rev. Powell]

Sorry I'm late with my advice.  That's a really difficult question.  Lester gives good advice: write the kind of review you would want to read.  But there is another major consideration: what audience are you writing to?  For this site, readers expect a humorous review.  That style is going to lend itself to divulging a lot of plot details, because the jokes are mainly going to come from what you see on the screen. 

Although I normally hate reviews that are just long transcriptions of the plot, I've experimented with doing exactly that in a few of the informal reviews I've written here (see this SILENT HILL review for example).  If a movie is ridiculous and you want to highlight the absurdity this can be a good way to go. 

If you are writing more of a recommendation/analysis type review instead of a humorous review, deciding how much of the plot to divulge is one of the hardest lines to draw.  In my reviews for my own site I'll give a one to three sentence plot description and then try to forget about it.  But when you make your points about what you liked or disliked in the movie, you will want to illustrate them with specific examples (or else you'll have something useless that reads "X's acting sucked, the script rocked, the monster blew, the special effects ruled!")  That will necessitate giving away some more plot details. 

Andrew is right, of course: take notes of everything interesting you observed during the movie.  Then read over those notes and decide which points you just have to mention and which ones you can leave aside.  You could group them together into notes on plot, theme, character, acting, technique, etc.  I'll usually find one observation that seems to me to be the most important, and to encapsulate what I liked/didn't like/found interesting about the movie.  It could be a character, a performance, a technique that the director returns to again and again, the thoughts that the movie brought to mind, or whatever.   I'll try to develop that into a thesis for the movie, and figure out how to relate all my notes to that thesis.  It doesn't always work; often I'll have to make a paragraph that diverts from the main point to talk about exceptional or exceptionally bad acting or music or whatever.   

One thing that I do that may or may not help is that I write a lot of two-sentence reviews for the "Recent Viewing" threads.  Basically, I describe the plot with one sentence and state the reason I liked or didn't like the film in the second.  Trying to do this for every movie you watch may help you get better at making concise plot summaries and getting to the core of what makes you want to recommend or not recommend a movie. 

By the way, BUREINPARESU, I am always looking for people to help review "weird" movies on my site.  I even have a contest going this month.  PM me or visit the site if interested.

[BUREINPARESU]

Thanks for the lengthy post, Powell.

Well, this review was actually for a site I'm working on, my two previous articles for it weren't so much reviews, but instead looked over much of the text and everything related to it (things like sequels, spin-offs, production etc.). This one was more of a straight-up review (of a film called Mechanical Violator Hakaider) as there was not a lot of research I could really put into it other than the origins of the titular character.

Reading the review now, it feels like I'm explaining much of what is going (but not every little detail, just notable scenes in which things happen, I also don't describe what happens all the way to the end, I write it all up to where the final events are going to take place), I could leave you with the article if you want to see for yourself. As it's a positive review, I really couldn't inject much humour at all, though there are various films I plan to review later down the line that should get a bit more than just a bog-standard review.

The contest sounds interesting, I'll take a look at your site.

[Rev. Powell]

Feel free to post the article or PM it and I'll make some comments on it, if you like.

[BUREINPARESU]

http://forgottenjunk.webs.com/hakaider.htm

The site is pretty much in its early stages, I'm in the middle of preparing things for future updates.

There's a sarcastic review I'm doing, and I almost hate lying through my teeth because the thing I am reviewing is so bad.

[Rev. Powell]

It's actually pretty well organized, although I do think you were right that you spent too much time outlining the plot. 

There are four paragraphs describing the plot; I probably would have condensed them into one.  I thought the review was a bit long, so three paragraphs would not be missed. 

The sentence "While not perfect in a lot of areas, Mechanical Violator Hakaider is one of the most fully entertaining films I have seen in a while" is where the review really begins, in my view.     

The opening part about Haikader traditionally being a villain is probably important to the target audience, but to me it wasn't an interesting enough point to start off the review.  I would have moved it to near the end, which I find is a good place to put digressions and trivia before you launch into your conclusion.

In the third paragraph, "there" should be "their."  There are some other places throughout the review where I think the grammar, style, word choice, and punctuation are questionable, but nothing too terrible.  But, we're discussing structure and organization here.  If you had an editor to work with, they would take care of some of the grammar issues for you.    

You did do a very good job of using vivid, specific examples to illustrate your points, which I think is very important and often overlooked.  Overall I think it's a good start.  If you look at Andrew's early reviews, you'll see that they are pretty unsophisticated compared to the professional quality stuff he writes today.  The more reviews you write, the more you'll find your own voice and learn the craft. 

I'd study the way Roger Ebert integrates the plot into his reviews, rather than writing a separate plot section.  (Agree or disagree with his opinions, his writing is a model of clarity; he's a good guy to learn from).  Like this one (selected at random) for Boogie Nights.

First paragraph: overview of what the movie's about, no plot discussion to speak of
Second: describes the setting of the film, doesn't give away any plot
Third: describes the main characters and the setup, gives away very little plot
Fourth: discusses the film's attitude towards sex, all plot details are there just to illustrate that point
Fifth: he segues smoothly back into a discussion of Eddie/Dirk's character, this time focusing on the change he's undergoing through the film
Sixth: discusses nudity in the film, plot details used only to illustrate his point
Seventh: discusses the minor characters, plot details used to illustrate their characters
Eighth: compares this movie to similar movies
Ninth: talks about the film's "aliveness," uses specific examples
Tenth: conclusion

That's a ten paragraph review with no separate plot summary section.  You did something similar in the second half of your review: spent a paragraph on the visual look (and used examples), a paragraph on the fight scenes (with examples), a paragraph on acting (with examples).  You could have added an extra paragraph on the symbolism, which is kind of scattered throughout the review instead. It's promising writing, but I guess I'm saying you were right to be suspicious of the scene-by-scene format. 

[BUREINPARESU]

Thanks for that helpful reply, I was once used to writing short, clear reviews but over time I did less of those. I actually do like Ebert's method of writing, but I should see if I should draw any influence from it.

I might apply some changes to that article using what you've suggested, or in my next review instead.