A few interviews from 8th Graders at North Shore Middle School and Steven Snyders responces. Got a question for Steve? E-Mail your quetions to movies@zertinet.com

1. What got you into this buisness?

Interesting question. Lots of things. It started in high school, when I started seeing a lot of movies and wanted to write my opinions for the school paper. I was then made editor of the high school paper, which indicated to me that my writing was better than average. I believe all of this led to freshman year of college, when I took an introduction to film study class, saw some of the greatest films ever made, and spent almost an hour after every class period with my teacher, Mr. Jenneman, talking about movies. He encouraged me to write for my school paper at college, which encouraged me to contact some hometown papers around Milwaukee, and the more I wrote the more people wanted more.

Getting journalism jobs depends on clips, and now I see my future to be somewhat limitless due to the 400+ clips I have accumulated. A big chunk of my future success is owed to my friends, who have always encouraged me to keep writing, to my parents, who always insisted that I could do anything I wanted, and to my internship at USA Today, which can be traced back to columnist Craig Wilson, editor Anita Sama, University of Minnesota coach Gary Wilson, and Arrowhead High School Athletics Director Geoff Steinbach.

2. What are your favorite types of movies?

I really don’t have a specific genre that I favor. I like any movie that keeps its characters in mind and dares, if even mildly, to do something original and creative. I don’t like many slasher films because they fail to do just this.

3. What do you think of horror movies?

Horror movies are a fun genre, but please realize that most horror films have been consumed by the slasher genre. A horror film is about bleak situations, impending danger, life on the edge – things like that. The slasher genre, however, is just about the act of murder, and the grotesque nature of death. I like horror films like “Psycho.” I detest slasher films like “I Know What You Did Last Summer.”

4. Can you list some good horror movies?

Some of the better horror movies: The silent “Nosferatu,” which is the first vampire movie. “Psycho.” “The Shining.” “28 Days Later.” “Scream.” “Silence of the Lambs.” “Hannibal.”

5. Do you like sequals?

Usually not. Too many movies are made into sequels that really only have enough material for one feature, if that.

6. Do you like prequals?

This is a new notion. No, not really. Say a movie is successful. Why do filmmakers then want to go back to BEFORE that movie to continue a story? Well, I know why: profits.

7. Do you like gory or extremly violent scenes?

If it serves the purpose of a film. Anything that adds to a film I enjoy. Thinking of an example, I was perfectly comfortable with the climax of “Hannibal,” where a serial killer feeds a victim part of his own brain. In this instance, it played into the issues of revenge, protection, and metaphor that I liked about the movie. However, in another movie like “Pay It Forward,” where a child is murdered in order to inject some artificial emotion and weight, I am offended.

8. Do you like remakes?

Usually not. Again, give me something new – something I can use. If it has been done before, you better have a damn good reason for thinking you can do it better.

9. Do you like original stories?

Yes, yes, yes. I want original stories. I want to see something new. I want something to connect with me and make me think more about life and myself. I want to leave a movie changed and affected, rather than just as a person who has sat there, eyes wide and mouth open, mindlessly consuming.

10. Do you like surprise endings?

Again, it depends. There are no real “rules” when it comes to the movies. In “The Sixth Sense,” a “surprise ending” made the movie better and added depth to its story as every scene became about more than what it appeared to be. But in other instances, like “Sphere” or “Gothika,” the surprise is meant to distract you from the fact that the movie has not made sense, or was not very good. I need an entire good movie, not simply a big twist and some flashing lights to distract me at the end.

11. What gets a movie a 4 star rating?

Roger Ebert has said that a great movie is a movie that has 3 great moments and no bad moments. I guess my spin on that is that a 4-star film is a film without a flaw that then goes “to the next level.” This can mean a great many things. It really comes down to a connection or breaking new ground. If a film does something, from acting to directing to story to genre conventions (what all action movies do, what all thrillers do, etc.), then it rises to that place of a film which deserves recognition. But there are other films, like “8 Mile,” which just connected to me. They touched me, moved me, and it is here where subjectivity comes into play. We have our experience, it is our own, and we have to be honest about what we think is a film of the highest caliber.

12. What makes a movie a "classic"?

If it can sustain the test of time, grow on a viewer over time, affect everything that comes after or achieve a notable status in one regard. That can be acting, writing, story, special effects, etc.

13. What do you do as a movie reviewer?

I see lots of movies to give me a strong background in the medium. Then I see lots of modern movies, tell people whether they’re any good, explain why or why not, and attempt to see every movie that comes out to be an “expert” on what is available. I am also responsible for knowing what is going on in a given area, what unique works are coming to town, and for helping build an arts community, with intelligent, savvy moviegoers.

14. Do you notice bloopers or mistakes easily?

I notice when a film takes the easy way out; when it does what other films have done because it is what we want or expect. Most films simply exist to make us happy, and I notice that, and it makes me mad. Why make a film unless you are going to bring something new to the table? The mistakes I notice are ones of carelessness, apathy and disrespect. As a moviegoer, I demand that they respect my desire for meaningful films. Even in comedies, I want something fresh and alive, not the same gross-out gags, jokes, and stupid characters.

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1. What kind of movies do you like?

Any movie that is creative, intelligent and succeeds at keeping me entertained. I really don't limit this to a genre or a style. I've loved romances, horror movies, thrillers, sci-fi work. I enjoy anything that leaves me with satisfied.

2. Why?

I hope I've answered this to your satisfaction. I don't sit in the theater and analyze a movie. Rather, I sit back, watch the movie, enjoy it or don't, and try to understand why. When I take notes at the movies, I'm taking notes as to why something did or didn't work. Only after the fact do I try to assign a meaning to the film as a whole, or attempt to dissect what about it interested or bored me.

3. What's your favorite director?

A very difficult question. From the work I have seen thus far (and I admit I have a long way to go), my favorite directors include Stanley Kubrick, who strives to make his movies about more than what they appear to be on the surface, Steven Spielberg, whose creativity and imagination help us work transcend the ordinary, Woody Allen, who has a sense of humor unlike anyone else, and Kurosawa, who seamlessly blends his technical brilliance with accessible stories to make everyday movies that are hardly commonplace.


4. How can you tell a good movie from a bad movie?

Did I look at my watch? Or get bored? Or want to leave?

Could I predict what was coming? Did it seem unbelievable? Have I seen a movie JUST like this before?

It all comes down to whether or not I had a good time, and why.


5.Could you tell me at least three movies you've reviewed and your general opinion of them?

Sure.

Three movies I have reviewed recently are "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," which I thought was creative, absurd, and brilliant, bringing a shocking degree of creativity to a story about love and the mind, "Touching The Void," which I thought was a gut-wrenching and awe-inspiring documentary about hopelessness and the human ability to persevere, and "Starsky and Hutch," which managed to find a freshness in its humor that most TV-based movies fail at miserably.

You can find all three reviews on my web site: www.zertinet.com.


6.Is it difficult to review movies?

Yes. First, it's hard sometimes to be entertaining when you really want to dissect a movie and dig in. Second, you never have enough space to say everything you want to say. Third, it's hard to be fresh with every review. I'm always paranoid that I'm falling into a rut of saying the same thing time after time. Fourth, some movies just have nothing interesting about them.

And it takes a lot of time to see all those movies!



7. Is it hard to review a movie without somebody getting mad at you if that's their favorite movie?

People disagree with me all the time, and that's great. If we all agreed, this world would be a miserable place indeed. My goal is not to tell you if a movie is good or bad, but WHY it is good or bad. And from that, you should be able to see whether you would like it or not. So hopefully when someone disagrees with me, my review makes it clear that I simply saw something differently than they did.


8. What's the name of your review site? Do you appear in more than one paper?

Currently I am published in Greater Milwaukee Today Newspapers (www.gmtoday.com), which includes the Waukesha Freeman, Oconomowoc Enterprise and Milwaukee Post, among other papers. I am published in Cinestar, a monthly movie magazine in Minnesota. I am published in the Minnesota Daily and The Wake on the University of Minnesota campus. I am the weekly film critic for AM 770 in Minneapolis. I have written for USA Today, and have been cited by film critic Roger Ebert. And I the lead film writer for www.zertinet.com, as well as a film source on www.rottentomatoes.com, www.mrqe.com and www.imdb.com.


9. Who pays you for reviewing movies? Is it good pay?

Some of these outlets pay, others do not. I am not doing this for money, but because I have a compulsion to do it. If I have not written for a few days, something inside me feels weird. When I complete a truly good review, I feel a high unlike anything else in my life. The money is not good unless it becomes your full-time job. My goal is to be there by 30.


10. How long have you done this and how did you get started?


Started junior year of high school. I just love movies, and one day started telling people why I liked them. One of the big turning points for me was in high school, when I started renting Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" from the library. I would check it out for a week, watch it every night, and then check it out again. In a few months I watched it over 50 times. I suddenly realized what power movies possessed.