Five Stars: How To Become a Film Critic, The World’s Greatest Job

Book Review:
Five Stars! How to Become a Film Critic, The World’s Greatest Job
Publisher: Sutro Press
Author: Chris Null
256 Pages
ISBN 0-9720981-1-9; LCCN 2004097261
$24.99

If you’ve spent time reading movie reviews you’ve felt that strange mix of jealousy and disgust. You’re jealous because the film critics see the movie free and first. Disgust arrives on the scene as soon as the jealously subsides, after all not only was the film free these guys are getting paid to form an opinion. You reflect for a moment and realize that every movie you see generates an opinion but instead of raking in readers and long green you’re seven bucks lighter for your effort. Chris Null has the prescription for your pent up feelings and that prescription comes in the form of 250 page book retailing for 24.99 and going by the title Five Stars: How to Become a Film Critic, The World’s Greatest Job.

The notion that a 250 page book can turn you into the next Ebert is laughable, books have no caloric value when digested (you need to start scarfing cheeseburgers right now) and, more importantly, landing a film critic job at a major media outlet ranks right up there with being pulled out of the stands to replace Tom Brady during the next SuperBowl. Here is where Five Stars twists like the best of Mamet movies, Chris Null pounds the point home that you’re not going to get magically discovered and promoted the aisle opposite of Ebert but he also provides plenty of methods for you to enjoy all the benefits of being a film critic (free movies, DVDs, exclusive screenings, cash, pasty white skin) without actually getting hired by, for instance, The New York Times.

Pivotal in Chris’ plans for the folks that yearn to review movies is the internet. He makes a convincing argument that the most reasonable path past the ticket line consists of honing your skills and catching on with a film review based site or, perhaps unsurprisingly, starting your own page filled with reviews. While that covers the essence of the method it is also much like telling someone the strategy for a baseball game is to score more runs than the other team. In short the goal is easily stated but achieving that goal is much more complicated.

How much more complicated? Well if it were as easy as reserving “reviewsbycaptainpopcorn,com” and mindlessly posting random thoughts about any movies you happen to see the book wouldn’t be needed. Naturally there is a lot more to it than just posting and hoping. Five Stars leads you through the process from start to finish covering such disparate topics as getting passes for the screenings, building site traffic and standard writing contracts. Five Stars offers a solid methodology for building a review-based site and getting access to the screenings without falling into book filling trap of providing code examples.

Going to the screenings and having your own website may be a pleasant ego rub but it won’t help you write a decent review. To pen decent reviews one of the first things you’ll need to know is a little more about movies. Five Stars provides a solid base of cinematic terms, techniques, styles, and a dabbling of history (if you ever wondered what Dogme 95 is know you’ll know). Five Stars won’t overburden you with deep discussions of the philosophical ramifications of German Expressionism but you will understand how something seemingly so obscure is relevant to modern cinema. If you’re wondering just how much sufficient grounding in film schools and techniques helps a review consider that every moviegoer knows whether they liked a particular movie, understanding film (i.e. what techniques the director employed) is the difference between saying “It was pretty good” and “It was well done because…” Not a trivial difference.

At some point every movie review comes down to writing. Hence a book about film reviewing that neglected writing would necessarily be incomplete. Five Stars doesn’t skimp in this area and, in fact, may go a little overboard. Chris Null outlines the standard review format all the way down to the number of words per paragraph. Initially this might seem to reduce the review to little more than an extended mad lib but, honestly, most movie reviews could use quite a bit more structure. As a counterpoint the author does include a section on unconventional reviews though it is not as in depth as the treatment of the standard review. Normally one might consider this imbalance a weakness but, sadly, after a fair amount of research the objective consumer of film criticism is left with knowledge that most reviews could use a very large dose of forced structure.

Five Stars is a how-to manual at heart and with any how-to manual the presentation of the information is almost as important as the covered material. It may be that Chris Null includes invaluable studio contact references (he does) but if it that information is presented in a convoluted manner then the worth of the information becomes highly suspect. Fortunately, and this is by far the strongest part of the book, Chris Null has a way with words and his talent leaves the book both information packed and easily readable. If you think of Five Stars as an educational text that is actually enjoyable to read (a rarity) you won’t be far wrong.

Finally we must consider the audience. If you write movie reviews as a hobby you’ll definitely benefit from Five Stars. Why, one wonders, would you spend copious amounts of time posting to IMDB after spending your own money? You’re basically wasting time and bandwidth with badly done stuff that no one wants to read. If you’re that person you should do yourself and review readers everywhere a favor and invest in Five Stars. Yet Five Stars’ appeal is not limited to erstwhile reviewers. The book provides unique insight for moviemakers as well. Independent or home making movie buffs will find the look into the reviewing process very useful, nothing will elevate the level of movies more quickly than understanding how they are judged critically. In the end it is hard to find too much wrong with Five Stars, there are nitpicks here and there but overall it is a can’t miss proposition for would be critics and film making hobbyists.

MyMac Rating: 4.5 out of five
Pros: Follow the instructions and you’ll see free movies
Cons: You’ll look at movies with a much more critical eye