Do movie reviewers ever actually watch movies?

This past weekend I saw two movies. 'Lady in the Water' and 'My Super Ex-Girlfriend'.

They are both getting terrible reviews. But I must have seen different versions of these films than the ones shown to movie reviewers, as I enjoyed them both immensely.

Which prompts the question.

I believe much of the problem is that movie reviewers become jaded and grow to resent that which they once loved. (I refuse to think that someone who never liked movies would become a movie reviewer.) They learn the 'secrets' of the storytelling form and know what to expect at certain points in the narative. When they're right the film is predictable, when they're wrong the film is a directionless mess...

I truely believe that our local reviewer no longer truely watches new movies. He routinely gets plot elements wrong, misinterprets character motivations, and generally cannot be bothered to follow what's on the screen. However, if you get him while he's talking about an older film, his honest love of the medium comes out. He knows things! He knows the ins and outs of the cast, the director, the producers, and the details and history of the script. He can hold discourse about the intricate meanings of small passages of dialogue and the interplay of the characters. All this leads me to believe that he has seen too many movies and, knowing that they will not be the same, dismisses new films out of hand.

So if many, or most, reviewers are jaded old farts or snobbish young artistes out of step with the movie going public, why do we read their reviews? Well, every once in a while you may be able to distill some random information about the film from their viscious diratribes and superficial meanderings. But I believe it is more akin to a train wreck; no matter how horrible the scene, you simply must look. A friend of mine takes perverse pleasure in our local reviewers ability to infuriate him. Over and over again he will seek out and read the reviews just to cringe and deride the fact that the reviewer missed the point...

The truth of the matter is that the only persons opinion that matters is yours. Nobody can tell you what you like, you have to go see for yourself. But then you've already spent your money and waisted your time... and the movie reviewers job is based on the fiction that it dosen't have to be that way.

And in the end, the whole system is perpetuated by the simple, unavoidable fact that however distant and cynical a reviewer becomes, sometimes they're right.