Might be a bit of a long shot, but are any of you guys interested in film criticsm beyond using it as a tool to help you judge which movies you'd like to see? Do you enjoy reading about ones you've already seen or even just the thoughts of interesting writers?

Sadly, Germany doesn't seem to have a real culture of film criticism, like, say France or the US do. The reviews we get in magazines, newspapers, TV shows and such seem to be done by whatever boor is respsonsible for the culture section, and as such are usually worthless.

What I'm looking for are the names of writers whose work has been published in some way, ideally on the web, or failing that, in book form. Also, it would be great if their writing was in either English, German or French (as I really have to brush up on my skills in the latter), but really, anything that might serve as a starting point for finding new material is very much appreciated.

To illustrate the kind of thing I'm looking for, my favourite critic is Jonathan Rosenbaum. Here's an example of his stuff, scroll down to about the halfway mark of the article to read a review of a movie I'm sure most of you are familiar with, Lost Highway by David Lynch.

Also, beware, ever so slight NSFW content.

http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com/?p=6673

A more recent discovery of mine is a guy called Eric Henderson. Here's a very fine review of the infamous Mommie Dearest:

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/mommie-dearest/2186

Thanks in advance for any eventual answers.

You're sure most people are familiar with a Lynch film? You're far too generous.

I enjoy Ebert's Great Films entries. His general reviews I don't really care for, but when he's going in depth on stuff he's pretty interesting.

Well, most people on here are young, media-savvy men, and this stuff is right up our alley. Also, the guy did win a bunch of Oscars.

PS: Yeah, Ebert is a great scholar.

Maybe try http://www.midnighteye.com/index.php if you're interested in japanese cinema. They've published a book some years ago with some (not much) additional material (short biographies/bg information).

Unfortunately Jonathan Rosenbaum is the only one I would have been able to contribute...

Red Letter Media is great if you like humor with your critiques.

http://redlettermedia.com/

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/escape-to-the-movies

This guy also has interesting movie reviews. Although most of the movies he reviews can be classified as a bit geeky. :)

I actually think his general reviews are quite weak. They don't really cover films in any sort of depth and they do a horrible job of communicating his opinion, to the point where I had no idea what he thought of many films until I saw the star rating he gave them.

He probably knows more about film than I'll ever know, though.

To determine whether I want to see a movie or not, I'll do a combination of my impression of the movie and the average viewer scores.

For professional critics, I like reading reviews about movies that made an impression on me to see if the reviewer will add some of his insights to my experience.

I'm particularly interested in getting outside opinions of movies that are made here (in Quebec) so yeah, I definitely make sure to read anything foreign critics (both regular viewers and professionals) have to say about those.

Movie Bob...

The man is a WONDERFUL reviewer. His reviews are just fantastic. But I disagree with him so often and on so many things that I don't even bother watching his videos anymore.