Comments for CyniCritics

Comment on REVIEW: Dark Shadows by Dan

Dan — Thu, 24 May 2012 14:07:21 +0000

It is disappointing to hear such negative reaction to the film coming in from all quarters. I haven’t seen the film but I thought it looked good from the trailer and was looking forward to another good Depp/Burton collaboration. However, it seems that well has run dry…I didn’t enjoy Alice in Wonderland so perhaps Burton is on the downward slide.

Comment on Director Vanity: Stars That Look Like Their Directors by Christopher Nolan and the maze of storytelling « Alec Nevala-Lee

Christopher Nolan and the maze of storytelling « Alec Nevala-Lee — Wed, 02 May 2012 14:45:56 +0000

[...] central figure clearly based on the director himself. Many viewers have noted the rather startling visual similarity between Nolan and his hero, and it’s easy to assign roles to each of the major characters: [...]

Comment on REVIEW: Shame by Review: Shame | Lukas Miller

Review: Shame | Lukas Miller — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 23:44:28 +0000

[...] Read full review here. [...]

Comment on 2012 Oscar Nominations: Matt’s Picks by Complete Oscar Coverage 2012 | Lukas Miller

Complete Oscar Coverage 2012 | Lukas Miller — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 23:43:58 +0000

[...] Matt’s Picks [...]

Comment on ARCHIVE REVIEW: Titanic by Christopher Conway

Christopher Conway — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 06:26:08 +0000

James Cameron’s Titanic (1997) is an Edwardian soap opera to which one of the world’s most glamorous catastrophes has been appended — mostly to demonstrate the force of the beleaguered couple’s ardor. Disaster flicks are forever being pilloried for their profusion of stereotypical supporting players and lack of a dramatic center. There will be no such attacks on Titanic. You can count on your fingers the characters with more than five lines. The familiar portents of the 1912 ship’s doom — the failure to provide enough lifeboats, the reckless decision to go full speed ahead to get to New York early, the captain’s blase disregard of iceberg warnings, the lack of even one pair of binoculars to scan the horizon are dramatized perfunctorily. It’s as if Cameron (who also wrote the script) assumed we all knew the legend already. He doesn’t want to divert our minds from Rose, the upper-crust but secretly debt-ridden beauty reluctantly affianced to the swinishly rich Cal, and her wooing by the poor-but-imperturbable artist Jack. In short, everything in the project is just right. Cameron stays on the side of true love, but he never underlines the social injustices outlined on that fateful morning in April 1912. Yet, if the climactic disaster itself were less massively realized, there would not have been enough emotional energy in the aftermath to produce the sweet music of devotion and redemption.

Comment on Writers by Christopher Conway

Christopher Conway — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 06:11:03 +0000

Conformity is necessary for a group to exist.

Comment on Writers by Mandy

Mandy — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 06:26:55 +0000

YOUR SHOT-BY-SHOT DECONSTRUCTION OF CITIZEN KANE WAS COOL!

Comment on Writers by John

John — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 05:51:00 +0000

Critical thinking is self-guided, self-disciplined thinking which attempts to reason at the highest level of quality in a fair-minded way. People who think critically consistently attempt to live rationally, reasonably, emphatically. They are keenly aware of the inherently flawed nature of human thinking when left unchecked. They strive to diminish the power of their egocentric and sociocentric tendencies. They use the intellectual tools that critical thinking offers — concepts and principles that enable them to analyze, assess and improve thinking. They work diligently to develop the intellectual virtues of intellectual integrity, intellectual humility, intellectual civility, intellectual empathy, intellectual sense of justice and confidence in reason. They realize that no matter how skilled they are as thinkers, they can always improve their reasoning abilities and they will at times fall prey to mistakes in reasoning, human irrationality, prejudices, biases, distortions, uncritically accepted social rules and taboos, self-interest, and vested interest. They strive to contribute to a more rational, civilized society. At the same time, they recognize the complexities often inherent in doing so. They avoid thinking simplistically about complicated issues and strive to appropriately consider the rights and needs of others. They recognize the complexities in developing as thinkers, and commit themselves to life-long practice toward self-improvement. They embody the Socratic principle: The unexamined life is not worth living, because they realize that many unexamined lives together result in an uncritical, unjust, dangerous world.

Critical thinkers are by nature skeptical. They approach texts with the same skepticism and suspicion as they approach spoken remarks. Critical thinkers are active, not passive. They ask questions and analyze. They consciously apply tactics and strategies to uncover meaning or assure their understanding. Critical thinkers do not take an egotistical view of the world. They are open to new ideas and perspectives. They are willing to challenge their beliefs and investigate competing evidence.

Critical thinking enables us to recognize a wide range of subjective analyses of otherwise objective data, and to evaluate how well each analysis might meet our needs. Facts may be facts, but how we interpret them may vary.

By contrast, passive, non-critical thinkers take a simplistic view of the world. They see things in black and white, as either/or, rather than recognizing a variety of possible understanding. They see questions as yes or no with no subtleties. They fail to see linkages and complexities. They fail to recognize related elements.

Non-critical thinkers take an egotistical view of the world. They take their facts as the only relevant ones. They take their own perspective as the only sensible one.

Comment on Writers by John

John — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 05:40:13 +0000

You’re groupthinkers. Iriving Janis defined Groupthink as “A mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.” The primary negative cost of groupthink is the loss of individual creativity, uniqueness, and independent thinking. You try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative ideas or viewpoints. It is the mode of thinking that happens when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives. Group pressures towards consensus lead to concurrence-seeking tendencies. The first symptoms of groupthink, include illusion of invulnerability, collective rationalization, stereotypes of outgroups, self-censorship, mindguards, and belief in the inherent morality of the group. The second, typically identified as symptoms of defective decision-making, involve the incomplete survey of alternatives and objectives, poor information search, failure to appraise the risks of the preferred solution, and selective information processing. These combined forces result in extremely defective decision making performance by the group.

Comment on CLASSICS: The Godfather by Christopher Conway

Christopher Conway — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 10:37:53 +0000

The Godfather 1902-1959: The Complete Epic was spectacular. It combines the entirety of The Godfather and The Godfather Part II with 15 minutes of outtakes from the two films, recutting the material into chronological order (clarifying the complex structure of The Godfather Part II, which jumped back and forth between events that occurred before and after the narrative of the first film). The Godfather 1902-1959: The Complete Epic tells the tale of the Corleone Family, from the arrival of Vito Corleone in the U.S. as a boy and his rise to criminal power as a young man to the decline of his empire decades later. While some of the original material was censored for television broadcast, when The Godfather 1902-1959: The Complete Epic was later released on home video, the altered footage was restored to its original content.