Response to “Reviewers” posted by JH on August 3, 2007.

I've just posted a review of “Body Burden” to the blog that was broadcast on KUNM. It's the third review I've written in the last couple of months. All three have been “positive.” But, unlike JH, I don't think that means that my credibility as a critic is either compromised or that people will stop paying attention to my reviews.

Between 1990 and 1999 I was the regular on-air film critic for "The Women's Show" on WMNF FM in Tampa, Florida. Over those years I wrote hundreds of film reviews and only a handful of them were negative. Was that because I'm not a discerning, discriminating critic? Not at all. It's because I was very careful about the films I chose to review. Unlike a paid film critic for a newspaper who has to review everything that comes along, I, as a volunteer, was able to pick and choose the films I wanted to review. If it sounded like a stinker or a waste of my time I just wouldn't bother. I went to see films I thought were going to have significant content and that had a good chance of being something my audience might want to see. Sometimes I was disappointed and when that happened I said so and said why. But mostly I liked the films I saw, and, importantly, I had good, thoughtful things to say about those films. My listeners didn't discount my reviews because they were largely "positive." Rather, they came to rely on my reviews as a guide to films that they might want to see.
(You can read these old film reviews, if you like, at http://www.mith2.umd.edu/WomensStudies/FilmReviews/ or on the Rotten Tomatoes website at http://www.rottentomatoes.com/author-4017/).

I'm not "afraid to call a spade a spade," I just try, as the public does, to select shows that I think I might want to see. If the acting is bad or the production values weak, and it detracts from my theater-going experience, I'll be disappointed and won't be afraid to say so. So far, in the plays I've reviewed, that hasn't been the case. Obviously different people are going to disagree in their reactions to shows. One that speaks to one person may not speak to someone else. That's a function of your taste or your life experience, perhaps, but not a reason for calling the credibility of the critic into question. Nor should the fact that a critic may know some of the cast members call the integrity of the review into question. Anyone who has worked in the theater community in Albuquerque very long at all is going to know people in our community. If you don't want to offend your friends, you probably shouldn't be a critic! -Linda Lopez McAlister