For All Those Weekend Churners (How To Write A Good Movie Review)

Member Name: utero

Product:	How To Write A Good Movie Review
Date:	25/04/06 (183 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: This will put you on the path to Dooyoo enlightenment

Disadvantages: Sometimes it can be a struggle

“Arnie plays The Terminator, he arrives on earth and shoots loads of people. I liked the effects and it was good.”

You know it’s the weekend when you log on to Dooyoo and find ‘churners’. You know the people who see that you can get something for writing and then proceed to do brief opinions on anything and everything. They are incredibly annoying and funnily enough you can normally judge a churner nowadays just by the title of the opinion.

I guess there’s no real set in stone standard for how an opinion should be on this site. People have their own thing in their writing style and what they feel is good. I choose to write about Movies and DVD’s because they’re something I feel I can write about and be interested in.

When writing a movie review I try and give just a brief outline of the plot. This is because the reader may not have seen the movie and anything I give away may spoil their enjoyment. After that I concentrate on my own feelings about the movie, what I liked and what I thought didn’t work. It’s good to comment on performances, direction and anything else such as score, cinematography etc. It really depends on the genre. In all honesty somebody watching Scary Movie 4 isn’t going to see it for it’s sweeping camera moves and use of light.

When it comes to writing an opinion on a DVD it’s not just the movie you have to consider. I like to give my thoughts on the overall package including the transfer and the soundtrack. I don’t know if many people are interested in this but I like to do my bit. After all you may be looking for a DVD that will have your houseguests flipping out over the surround sound. Hopefully by reading my opinion you’ll know that Jersey Girl isn’t going to be the DVD to do that.

Extras are becoming a tough one. I feel that we’ve come to the point on a lot of DVD’s where the bonus content is all too familiar. There are only so many ways you can dress up a CGI effect and how it was done. I can’t say there have been many discs in recent years that have offered anything new or at least intriguing.

With the advent of online DVD rental, people are now getting the opportunity to see a lot more films than they normally would in their own home. Some of these discs differ from the eventual retail release. Now for me, I can only offer opinion on the DVD in front of me. Some have said that if it’s not an opinion on the retail version then it should go into the movie only section. Sorry but I disagree, it’s still a DVD and as long as you’re giving opinion on that disc, it’s soundtrack and transfer then it should be in the DVD section.

So on short, my bulletpoints for a movie review are –

DO’s

- Cover the plot of the movie but don’t spoil it
- Give the reader your opinion and try to cover everything you liked and everything you didn’t
- Would you recommend it?
DON’T’s

- Don’t just rundown the plot summary and then add a single sentence on your own thoughts
- Give away massive spoilers


FOR A DVD

DO’s

- Give opinion on the extras if there are any


DON’T’s

- List the extras and leave it at that, what’s the point?

Summary: There's a Write Way and a Wrong Way