Talk:For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism

This is a promotional piece.

This entire page is an advertisement, a self-referential rave of a film directed by a film critic, about film critics, with citations of its enthusiastic reception by film critics. I won't delve deeply into the merits of the film itself, which I subjectively believe was amateurish and only received positive press because it was, after all, a valentine to film critics. But elsewhere in print, it has been criticized for sycophancy towards Andrew Sarris and Molly Haskell, likely because they were still alive to be interviewed and defend themselves, while unfairly savaging Pauline Kael, who was not. The substance of the article, however, is a literal marquee of raves about the film's quality, largely by its participating subjects. I do intend to research this issue in detail and balance this article if possible, but I question whether this film achieved enough importance to merit a Wikipedia page to begin with. This page seems, to be frank, one of the more shameless abuses of Wikipedia policy, and I'm surprised it has not been flagged. Alanrobts (talk) 23:13, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

RE - "The substance of the article, however, is a literal marquee of raves about the film's quality, largely by its participating subjects."

While it is true that Peary's self-congratulatory remarks from an interview are quoted, and a review by participant Roger Ebert is mentioned, none of Scott Macaulay, Victoria Large, Michael Guillen, Eugene Hernandez, Anne Thompson, David Bordwell, Ty Burr, Chris Faraone, Jeffrey Wells, Chale Nafus, or Joe Leydon had anything to do with the production of this film.

As far as notability goes, I am very puzzled why, for example, Episode 5 of the TV series Twin Peaks, is considered notable enough to have its own Wikipedia article but this documentary, which clearly has greater historical significance is questioned.--Toploftical (talk) 19:05, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Twin Peaks was a cultural watershed, and there is no debate about its worthiness of inclusion in Wikipedia. However, "For the Love of Movies" is an obscure, vanity production with meager production values, extraordinary bias, and a minimal cultural footprint that was enjoyed almost exclusively by film critics themselves--hence the rave reviews for a documentary that if on another subject would have been either savaged, ignored, or both. Although some of the critics you mentioned weren't involved in the production of the film, they are after all film critics, critiquing a film about film critics, so their bias is independent to their being involved in making the film. Since you're asking me to clarify, let's say that asking Nazis to review Hitler is perhaps an apt analogy here. The film was a shameless opportunity for Andrew Sarris and his acolytes to finally stick it to Pauline Kael, who was no longer around to defend herself (not that she would have anyway), and it is a specious documentary in large part because it failed to acknowledge our most influential, erudite and prolific film critic in history. It lionized Sarris, who was an arcane figure in the history of film and an atrocious writer, and his wife, who tossed away her potential career by parroting all of his tiresome theories. And it failed to acknowledge Bosley Crowther as being the single most regressive and destructive force in setting the film industry back fifty years during his reign of terror. We're going to end up crossing the boundaries of Wikipedia guidelines if we go any further here (you already did), but if I cannot find a way to ameliorate the bias in this article, I'm deleting it, end of story. Because it is an advertisement for the film, nothing more. And your defense of it strongly raises the suspicion of you being affiliated with its production, I might add. Alanrobts (talk) 10:57, 17 June 2016 (UTC)