An Interview with Steven Snyder
Film Critic for Zertinet Movies

1. As you are probably aware, one negative review has generated a large number of hits for our site. When writing a review, will you ever write a review a certain way to try and attract people?

First, I am no longer the only negative review on Rotten Tomatoes. Second, I gave it the same rating as several other web sites, notably Slant Magazine, which was listed as a “fresh” rating on the same site. The editors at Rotten Tomatoes assigned a “rotten” rating to my review and I decided not to correct them. After all, isn’t their opinion valid as to the overall tone of my review?

As to whether I would ever write a review to attract people, absolutely not. If anything, I try to block out the opinions of others when I write. This is my review, and I should be concerned in making MY view as clear and readable as possible, not preoccupied with living up to the expectations of others.

I would remind people that, if I went with popular trends, I would consider “Gladiator,” “Titanic” and “A Beautiful Mind” as three of the best films released over the past few years. To the contrary, I disagree in the extreme.

2. Why 2.5 stars?

For me, 2 stars means an average film, 3 stars means a very entertaining film with some shortcoming, and 4 stars means a great work. While rating “Nemo,” I was torn between 3 stars and slightly less than that. I thought that this fish movie was fun, but also (as I wrote) that it felt a bit formulaic, and at times forced. Was this an average film? No, that is obvious. However, I did not feel like it warranted a healthy recommendation (which is what 3 stars means). So, after long debate, I decided to give it 2.5 because it just fell short of keeping me engaged.

To quote Roger Ebert, however, “Stars are relative, not absolute. They are also very silly.” I think if people only looked at my rating, and never read my review, they have no right to complain. I believe my review speaks for itself. The rating is merely my suggested summary of my words. Others may have differing opinions.

3. Do you believe a critic should be ALLOWED to go back and change a review? And if yes under what circumstances?

Well, I have already gone back and given “Nemo” a second look. And, yes, I changed my rating to 3 stars. However, I clearly labeled this a “second look,” and Zertinet continued posting my first review.

I think it is perfectly appropriate, in this fashion, to revisit a review. To go back and change it without notation, however, I believe is unethical.

The only times one shoud rework a review are when there may be factual errors, when another viewing of the same film leaves a critic with a different opinion, or when the film reaches video/DVD and has been out in public long enough to approach the material freshly.

4. How exactly can you remove a movie from it’s ‘genre’ when writing a review? Will you not always have different expectations from say a Mel Brooks comedy, over an indie film by Darren Aronofsky.

This is a good point. You cannot remove a film from its genre. And, to be honest, I do not try to. Whether a children’s film, a comedy or an epic drama, I only demand one thing: “entertain me.” When a film fails to entertain because I can see every twist coming, I feel as if I have seen everything before, and because it fails to add something NEW to the genre, that’s when I call a spade a spade.

“Nemo” was not downgraded simply because it felt like a children’s film, and failed to break from the traditions of its genre. In the case of my review, it was downgraded because it leaned on those traditions and expectations too often. It took the road map of children’s films, retraced so many times before, and failed to add anything new to it. And, when I realized that I wasn’t engaged any more due to this staleness, I had to take note.

5. Below is some of the commentary we have received in response to your review. It ranges from moronic to some insightful. What do you have to say for yourself?

”Hey dumbass! Out of 121 GOOD reviews, yours is the only bad one! It must really be embarrassing posting your review and calling yourself a critic when this site is plastered with REAL critics who know what they're talking about:”

”Do you really think it deserves a negative rating? Is it legitimate to say something is bad because it's not great? Is it wrong for a G-rated movie to appeal mainly to children? Yes, the best ones, of which Pixar has produced a couple, do transcend that. But in a way aren't you punishing Pixar for setting too high a standard? Do you really think Scooby Doo is a better film? As you say of Nemo, "For families, it will be wonderful," and that doesn't sound like a "rotten tomato" movie to me.

” 107 Fresh. And you review rotten. Talk about being wrong.”

” Did Mr. Snyder intend for his review to be the only one in the United States that was not regarded as positive? My husband felt this was done to get your site more publicity, but I felt it was a mistake and Mr. Snyder's review should be counted, even with his criticism, as a fresh tomato, and not a rotten one.”

” Congrats, you must feel like the fifth dentist. The entire movie review panel must have it wrong.”

“I believe Snyder missed the simplicity and energy all rolled up in to one great animated movie, Finding NEMO! Watch it again Steven! I won't mention you are the only one who whacked the movie.”

”We all found Ellen Degeneres' performance VERY MEMORABLE. This is without a doubt the finest work of her career.”

”I always look for the "odd man out" in the crowd, because they usually have something very interesting to say. Unfortunately in this case the "odd man out" did not.”

I appreciate their input. I think it is wonderful that people are thinking about what they are seeing. It does nothing but make us all smarter and savvier moviegoers. As for those who criticized me personally solely for my opinion, I will not do the same to them. As for those who offered up their personal take on the film, all I can say is that it was intelligent and reasonable enough to make me return to the film a second time. It is due to them that I give “Nemo” more credit now than I once did.

6. I have a personal bias against mainstream movies. I’m one of the few people who will literally leave a room and refuse to watch “Titanic,” “A Beautiful Mind” or “Gladiator” (all Best Picture Winners). What is your personal bias?

I think it’s hilarious that you literally chose the three movies I criticized in an earlier answer. Seriously, what are the odds?!

As for my personal bias, I don’t know. Looking over some of my past reviews, I think it would have to be movies that sacrifice characters for almost anything. A movie lives or dies by its characters. Even “The Matrix,” which one would not exactly call a “character study,” has vivid personalities and personas. We love so many of the chase sequences because of the characters we are seeing them through. When a movie abandons these characters, I wonder why I am investing my time.

7. Taking a quick look at reviews of great movies on www.rottentomatoes.com, it’s very difficult to find a movie that has a fresh rating greater than 90%. Yet, “Finding Nemo” is very close to a 100% ranking. “Finding Nemo” obviously is not as good as many of these films, such as “In The Bedroom” or “Requiem For A Dream.” Why do you think critics were so willing to give this movie a positive review, while those films saw such disagreement?

Interesting question. Here’s my take: truly great movies must take chances or do something new. And once you deviate from the status quo, you are going to turn some people off. My favorite story involves “2001: A Space Odyssey” and Ebert’s memories of the top critics of the time storming out during intermission. Something new is divisive. And, with a movie like “Requiem For A Dream,” which I named the best movie of 2000, while some will love it, others will be turned off. This leads to several more thumbs down, which will keep it from ever reaching 90 percent. Incidentally, “Requiem For A Dream” is listed at 78 percent positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.

In the case of “Nemo,” I can link its high rating to the very flaws that I saw in it. It is bland, middle-of-the-road, and passive. It is, as other critics pointed out, vanilla. And who doesn’t like vanilla? While many critics gave it 3 stars, that still counts as a “fresh” review. Why not like this film? It’s cute. It’s cuddly. It’s fun. And, with that, I think we have found one of those films that everyone says is “pretty good,” but very few say is “great.”

I’d take “Requiem” any day.

8. Especially in light of new FCC rules (allowing movie studies to own a significant portion of the press if they want to) do you feel that film critics will be under more pressure to churn out good reviews? People already question Entertainment Weekly and CNN in regards to Warner Brothers movies. Certainly Disney/ABC/Pixar has an equally large influence.

I believe we must already start questioning the commercial interests behind some film critics and the publications they write for. My favorite story concerns the movie “Proof Of Life.” Made by Warner Brothers, this film really did not impress critics. In fact, referring to Rotten Tomatoes again, only 24 percent of the “cream of the crop” critics gave it a positive review. And, as we’ve established, “positive” can mean anything from 2.5 stars up to 4 (out of 4).

But, TIME magazine, which is owner by Time Warner, not only gave the film a glowing recommendation, but listed it near the top of its year-end top-ten list. Not only did almost no other critics give the film four stars, but I did not find the film on any other year-end list that I saw. To make matters worse, it was referred to in TIME as a modern-day “Casablanca.” Now you tell me, were there corporate interests at work?

9. Do the vast holdings of the Zertinet Technology Group and Information Systems ever threaten you?

It is always wise for people to note the corporate interests behind a given media outlet. However, in the case of Zertinet, we are not affiliated with any entertainment companies, which would eliminate (in my mind anyway) any conflicts of interest.

But, to assure our readers even further, I am willing to disclose: I am not an official Zertinet employee, but an independent contractor, and my opinions are in no way influenced by the business affairs of the Zertinet Technology Group.

10. How important has internet media become in the past 10 years? When I read reviews outside Zertinet, I read several mainstream papers and numerous Internet sites. However, my favorites (except for the NY Times) are all Internet sites that do not exist in print.

Much like my comments regarding “Finding Nemo,” I think that many major news outlets, including the country’s biggest newspapers, are simply walking the safe path. If “Nemo” was bland because it failed to do anything new, then newspapers like the L.A. Times and magazines like “Newsweek” are bland because they are trying to reach large readership bases. They are worried about being mainstream and, yes, strive to be vanilla. With the rise of the Internet, many are having access to the masses for the first time. And, many of us readers are finally finding those writers with similar expectations and opinions. We no longer have only 5 or 6 sources to choose from, all with similar views (some Friday read the same review in all the major news outlets across the country, and realize how they are all saying the exact same thing), but have access to 30 or 40 or 50 distinct voices that we are more likely to be engaged by and agree with.

In terms of making people smarter moviegoers, and in terms of facilitating discussion, much like Zertinet has seen over the past few weeks, the popularity of the Internet is extremely important.

11. Is there a difference between movies for arts sake and movies for entertainment’s sake?

I do believe that films exist made solely to entertain and others exist made to truly enlighten. However, I have one qualifier: Many movies made to simply entertain are so well-conceived that they rise to the ranks of enlightening. Take “Raiders of the Lost Arc,” “Batman” or even “Singin’ In The Rain.” They were made simply to be a fun film for viewers. But they were original, well-written, well-acted and creative. They are truly among the best movies ever made.

But, is a film like “2001: A Space Odyssey,” which clearly dares the viewer to think, and “Lara Croft Tomb Raider,” which attempts to lull the viewer into a coma, striving for different goals? Damn straight!

12. Who are the three most important film critics in your life?

I have never thought of this before. Well, I guess I’ll just answer with the three writers I read without hesitation on a film’s opening day. First and foremost, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times. You can read his work at www.suntimes.com/ebert, and I strongly recommend that everyone purchase his book “The Great Movies,” containing 100 films that he believes to be the upper echelon of cinema thus far. He was one of the few mainstream critics to put “Requiem For A Dream” on his top 10 list. Unfortunately, he has also given the last two “Harry Potter” films four stars.

The second critic would have to be A.O. Scott of the New York Times. He was one of the few to recognize Steven Spielberg’s “A.I.” for the brilliant film that it is. Read his work at www.nytimes.com.

The third critic, I hate to say, is James Berardinelli of www.reelviews.net, the web’s self-proclaimed “largest non-commercial movie site.” I rarely agree with him, and I also feel like his reviews leave something to be desired. But, damnit, I have to admit, I read his stuff every week.

13. What are the 5 most important cinematic events in your life?

Many of these events are vivid to me. These top five moments are really what have made me love cinema the way I do, and help me persevere through the crap that I must often see:

1. “My Dog Skip.” I have been a film critic for quite a few years, but my first review to appear in a reputable publication was “My Dog Skip.” Not great by any terms, but still a touching and heartwarming nostalgic trip down memory lane, it was a challenging film to dissect in my first prominent review. I still remember taking notes during the film, waiting for the bus to take me home, and constructing introduction paragraphs during the hour-long bus ride I had to endure.

2. “Scream 2.” Yep, “Scream 2.” Great movie? Of course not. However, I will say this: It is perhaps the most fun I have ever had in a movie theater. I saw it on opening night, with a soldout crowd eager for this fun horror film. And, given the popularity of the first “Scream,” we were all there to have a good time. I remember women screaming and others in the audience laughing. I remember people yelling at the screen, telling one character to do this or that, or screaming out their predictions as to who the real killer was. In an earlier question, you asked about movies made purely for entertainment. Well, “Scream 2” is one of them, and I have had tried to keep the energy of that evening with me as I refer to a film as a great “Saturday afternoon popcorn film.”

3. “2001: A Space Odyssey,” in 2002. For a long time, I have been a fan of “2001,” and continue to consider it one of the seminal achievements in cinematic history. In 1999, news was spreading that new prints were being made and that the film would be touring the country. However, in 2000, the tour was scrapped and most of these new prints went directly to DVD. Only a few copies of “2001” continued to circle the country, and imagine my deight when I realized that, at the Coolidge Theatre in Boston, it was showing for the last time only two hours after I was scheduled to land at Logan Airport. So, my plane landed, I dropped off my stuff, and rushed to theater. What a glorious evening! I was seeing it with friends who had NEVER seen the film before. They enjoyed it. I was seeing it at the Coolidge. A beautiful theater. And I was seeing a new print that looked more crisp and radiant than anything I had seen before. I appreciated this masterpiece in an entirely new way.

4. “Saving Private Ryan.” After returning to this film numerous times, I would first like to admit that it is not among cinema’s greatest works. But it is close. I love this film, and I remember sitting in the theater, after it was done, in complete silence. No one in the audience budged. No applause, no talking…nothing. And when the credits ended, and the lights came up, everyone filed out in silence. My first exposure to “Private Ryan” was an unforgettable moment.

5. “Requiem For A Dream.” Without question, my most haunting experience as a moviegoer was seeing “Requiem For A Dream” at the Uptown Theatre in Minneapolis. About drugs and how they tear apart the lives of four friends, the final fifteen minutes of Darren Aronofsky’s masterpiece are as shocking and painful as anything put forth in movies of the last 20 years. However, they are not gratuitous moments, designed to shock, but rather scenes that shock and horrify because we love these characters, and watch helplessly as they each hit rock bottom. There is a point earlier in this film that made me cry. But at the end, I was in too much shock to cry or even speak. I wandered about Uptown for about an hour or so, attempting to process what I had just seen. I called my friends and my mother. The true power of this film can be found in the fact that in subsequent viewings, I have been equally affected. “Requiem” is not a movie that succeeds because all drug imagery is inherently nauseating. Rather, it succeeds because it about these characters, their dreams, and the decisions they make that ruin their lives forever. If we did not love these people the way we do, we would never feel so devastated as we see them throw it all away.

14. Which 3 people made the most significant impact on cinema today?

It is quite difficult to reduce a list to 3 people. There are many who I think have made a dramatic impact on films.

D.W. Griffith, with “Birth of a Nation” gave birth to the long-form feature film.

Eisenstein pushed forth the theory behind montage.

Welles not only was a fine actor, and gave us one of the greatest movies ever made in “Citizen Kane,” but pushed the style of cinema to a new level.

Hitchcock - what do I even need to say?

Walt Disney was the father of animation, helping it evolve into something beautiful and poetic.

Kurosawa, with films like “Ikiru,” “The Seven Samurai,” and “Roshomon,” gave us some of the best stories ever told.

Brando took acting into the next frontier.

Spielberg gave us blockbusters and three of the best films ever made - “Jaws,” “Raiders of the Lost Arc” and “Schindler’s List.”

Lucas fused juvenile imagination with the epic scope that only cinema can provide in “Star Wars.”

And Stanley Kubrick and Woody Allen brought unique styles to the medium, forever expanding the possibilities of what movies could do.

This list still feels very incomplete.

15. I commission you to make a film. Death isn’t an issue (i.e. I’ve finally gotten the spell right to raise people from the dead). Which people would you ask to make your movie?

First, congrats on that whole “raising the dead” thing. Here’s my imaginary cast (conceived in under 5 minutes):

Director: Stanley Kubrick

First Assistant Director: Woody Allen

Second Assistant Director: Michael Mann

Stars: Marlon Brando (young), Gregory Peck, Diane Keaton, Al Pacino, Katharine Hepburn, Alec Guinness, Grace Kelly, Vivien Leigh, Philip Seymour Hoffman

Music: Thomas Newman

Cinematography: Gordon Willis (did Woody Allen’s “Manhattan” and Coppola’s “The Godfather”)

Screenwriter: Robert Towne (Wrote “Chinatown” and “The Firm”) and Arthur C. Clarke (“2001: A Space Odyssey”)

Editor: Walter Murch (“Apocalypse Now” and “The English Patient”)