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Reviewing Movies for Dummies - Kosmos - Jun 15, 2013
Reviewing Movies for Dummies
![[Image: jk24me8.png]](https://i.imgur.com/jk24me8.png)
Introduction
There is quite a big difference between writing film reviews and posting about a film you just recently watched. When I first saw this section, I wanted to write movie reviews. I was hoping to see more of them to work from and compare my own work to, but most of what I see are threads showing one YouTube video and a few sentences. The standards and quality of this section are nearly the same as The Lounge. This needs to change, and I am hoping that this helps guide every single one of you in that direction. It is not hard to write a review, and it should not be a forceful "project" in order to gain reputation. Do it on your own time, speak your mind, and the most important thing of all, speak your mind in your own words. If I see any plagiarized reviews in this section that are taken from other people, I will report your thread as low quality. Let's get started, shall we?
Basics
When you are writing a movie review, you are going to want to have an image to represent the movie and have a link to the IMDb article so the readers can find out more information about the movie you are reviewing. To be clear, the images can be box art or the movie release poster. Here is an example of a movie release poster from one of my movie reviews:
![[Image: 4FLzzVf.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/4FLzzVf.jpg)
Once you have this down, you can start giving the readers a summary of the movie in your own words so they can have a basic idea of what it is about. If it involves a spoiler, you should warn them about it. You do not want to ruin the movie for them. You want to gain their attention. After you give a summary, you want to give as many details as you can on the movie (the MPAA rating, run time, genre, director, writer, screenplay, main actors starring, studio, distribution, and the release date) and a movie trailer. Once you are finished with giving the details, you can move onto the review.
Reviewing
After you have given all of the necessary information on the movie, you can move onto the actual review. As I said above, if it involves a spoiler, you are going to want to warn the readers. Before or after the review, you can give a rating out of five to show what you thought of the movie. When you are giving the review, you can give your opinion in any way that you like. You can be short and sweet or you can be thorough. It doesn't matter as long as you get your opinion(s) out there. I said this in the introduction and I will say it again: If I see any plagiarized or paraphrased reviews in this section that are taken from other people, I will report your thread as low quality.
If you want a simple template to just fill out for your movie review, feel free to use this one:
Spoiler (Click to View)
Ending Notes
I am looking forward to seeing a rise in quality of movie reviews from people who have taken this advice. Change is needed in this section, and that change can only happen if each and every one of you become the change you want to see.
* - Soulmate - Jun 15, 2013
Very nice guide. I agree that this section isn't the greatest but it never has been. Whenever I write reviews, I usually just post my opinion and I try to include everything that's on my mind, but I might start writing summaries also.
* - Feynman - Jun 15, 2013
Nice job, Kosmos. This should serve as a decent guide for anybody looking to make reviews.
* - SoLilyKweez - Jun 15, 2013
Beautifully written tutorial, Kosmos. It looks visually appealing and should definitely help clean up some of the low quality review posts that are commonly seen around this section.
* - Revenge - Jun 15, 2013
I hope it will help to improve the section and people will put a little bit more thought about their own opinions of the film into it. It's a good guide Kosmos, keep it up.
* - Kosmos - Jun 15, 2013
Thank you for all of the feedback. It's well appreciated. I really do hope that people take a chance to read this before posting about movies they have seen.
* - edwardj7337 - Jun 15, 2013
In our "own" words? Why?
You're telling people on a forum that deals with hacking and unethical stuff, not to plagiarize...
Why not just go into every section and write an outline as to how you want everything to be done... Sorry, I just don't see this as a helpful tip, I see this as more of a, "do it this way," thread, when it shouldn't have an outline in my opinion.
Don't get me wrong, I see where you are trying to go with, just think the fact that someone did something like this is silly, and yeah, I know where you are trying to go with this.
My opinion, your opinion, eh.
* - Kosmos - Jun 15, 2013
(Jun 15, 2013 11:41 PM)edwardj7337 Wrote: In our "own" words? Why?
You're telling people on a forum that deals with hacking and unethical stuff, not to plagiarize...
Why not just go into every section and write an outline as to how you want everything to be done... Sorry, I just don't see this as a helpful tip, I see this as more of a, "do it this way," thread, when it shouldn't have an outline in my opinion.
Don't get me wrong, I see where you are trying to go with, just think the fact that someone did something like this is silly, and yeah, I know where you are trying to go with this.
My opinion, your opinion, eh.
This is completely understandable, but this is not a thread enforcing others to do this. It is written as a tutorial on how to effectively write a movie review and how not to write a movie review. It's a start, but there's much more that is needed to be done in this section.
* - SoMuchMudkip - Jun 16, 2013
Here's my first attempt at following this sort of guideline.
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
* - «§~ Crunchy ~§» - Jun 16, 2013
One more thing I'd like to add:
Try reading Roger Ebert's (R.I.P) reviews as they are a pretty good baseline for what a person reading a movie review expects.
* - Kosmos - Jun 16, 2013
(Jun 16, 2013 12:35 AM)Kn1ght Wrote: Here's my first attempt at following this sort of guideline.
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Glad to see this has inspired some. Thank you everyone for the feedback.
* - Feynman - Jun 17, 2013
(Jun 16, 2013 11:28 PM)Kosmos Wrote: Glad to see this has inspired some. Thank you everyone for the feedback.
I might try my own if I can find the time this week. 👍
* - Kosmos - Jun 18, 2013
(Jun 17, 2013 08:46 PM)Feynman Wrote: I might try my own if I can find the time this week. 👍
This movie review will be great then, knowing you. I'll look forward to it.
* - Clique - Jun 22, 2013
Thanks for the review template!
Nice guide, Kosmos. Hope this will improve this section!
* - Kosmos - Jun 23, 2013
Thanks Clique. That's the direction I'm heading for. 👍