Introduction

This section focuses on the primary data I have collected and analyzed from the Rotten

Tomatoes online community involving movie critics, and consumer critics and readers, and the

claims I have developed from my analysis; to supplement my own analysis, I have incorporated

the data gathered from the interview I conducted. The website is used as a display for all of the

movie and tv show reviews composed by the community’s members. The website’s name is

derived from the rating system used, which displays a tomato next to each film and tv show with

a corresponding numerical rating. Films and tv shows that score a sixty percent or higher have a

red tomato next to them to indicate that the content is “fresh”, which is indicative of a good film

or tv show, while those below sixty percent receive a green splat and are considered “rotten”,

indicating the film or show is poorly received; anything scoring above seventy-five percent is

considered “certified fresh” which requires the content maintain this rating after a set amount of

reviews, including at least five from top critics. Finally, there is a popcorn image that represents

the consumer audience score for a film or show, which changes appearance based on their rating.

The community separates critic reviews from the consumer reviews with the critics on top and

the consumers below. From there, they are further divided into two categories: critics who have

met particular criteria are labeled as “top critics” with an orange star and the title next to their

name while regular ones do not have any label; the same applies with consumers except the

criteria is different and the label reads “super reviewer”.

Claim, Data, & Analysis 1

From the first set of data I collected about the critic reviewer, Anthony Lane, I

formulated the following claim: film critics build ethos by using the rhetorical strategy of
figurative language, using techniques including imagery, metaphors, similes, symbolism, and

alliteration.

Beginning with the interview, I had Josh read two reviews, one from each of the two film

critics I am analyzing. Starting with the film critic, Anthony Lane, I had him read Lane’s review

of the film Suburbicon. The questions relevant to the first claim included asking him how he felt

about Lane’s use of language and sentence structuring. He responded by giving specific points of

the review that he felt Lane managed an excellent job in elaborating his viewpoint, one of which

was “I enjoyed the part with his remark about suburbs being the dark belly of the American

middle class.” His positive response to this point of the review points to Lane’s usage of

figurative language, in this case symbolism, which he uses throughout his review to emphasize

certain areas of his review. Furthermore, Josh had pointed out Lane’s detailed language that he

used to describe the setting of the film and particular scenes within it, specifically, “The part

where Lane describes the houses as pristine and shining lawns really gave me the ability to

picture the setting of the film without seeing it at all.” This not only reiterates Lane’s strong use

of figurative language (imagery here), but also his ability to use eloquent language that readers

can still understand, as my interviewee had pointed out that his review was easy to follow from

the beginning to the end.

The findings I collected from my own analysis furthered the data from the interview in

which I discovered Lane using figurative language that made his review an interesting read and

easy to follow. Below I will insert the excerpt of his review discussed above in the interview and

explain Lane’s rhetorical strategies:

“As a seasoned moviegoer, you know what to expect. Whenever your gaze is led down ranks of
immaculate houses, from lawn to shining lawn, you brace yourself for a glimpse of the dark
underbelly of middle-class America. (Rhetorical strategy-imagery-Lane is illustrating a
picture for the reader to imagine the setting of the film, using particular lexis that
resembles what the scenery appears to be on screen. Adds emphasis to the scene through
the use of “gaze” which implies the watcher is drawn into the setting. “immaculate” and
“shining” connect together, with the pristine lawns being connected with the beautiful and
clean houses. Another rhetorical strategy is also employed-symbolism/satire-the
“underbelly” resembles the stereotype that suburbs are a symbol of middle class American
workers, and satire is seen when he makes the remark that a beautiful suburb is, of course,
expected to resemble the unpleasant side of middle class workers). (Anybody wishing to see
the belly itself, or clinging to the now scandalous notion that some folks who dwelt in the belly
led decent and untraumatized lives, will have to rely on a secret stash of sitcoms.)- (A little
satire here-Lane pointing to the film’s opposite vision of a suburb). And here comes the
darkness. (Metaphor, which signals a connection to his previous remark about the “false”
sense of security a suburb holds). “Nicky, there are men in the house,” Gardner whispers one
night, adding, “They’re going to take what they want, and leave.” Wrong. They’re going to
chloroform the whole family, and, in Rose’s case, overdo the dosage. The next thing you know,
she is out of the picture, and Margaret, who must have gone to see “Vertigo” the year before,
steps smoothly into her shoes” (Satire here).

Lane’s second sentence utilizes imagery in order to paint a picture for the reader to

understand the setting maintained throughout the film, which in this case, is a suburban

community. By doing this, Lane is adding context to the film’s title, Suburbicon, and to his

additional usage of symbolism within the same sentence. Lane is emphasizing the point that

many films flip the idea of a suburb, which is usually associated as a safe place to live and

juxtaposing the idea of safety with the film’s creation of a suburb that is an unpleasant place to

live. This foreshadows to the reader that the film’s content is going to involve an unpleasant

outcome. Lane then signals a transition with another metaphor, “And here comes the darkness”,

which makes it clear to the reader he is going to explain the film’s dark aspects and does so in a

way that is not mundane. Lane’s lexis not only builds his figurative language, but makes it more

effective because he chooses words that connect: “immaculate” and “shining” connect the houses

to the lawns and “ranks” let the reader know there are many of them, making the imagery clear

to the reader to visualize what is on screen; “dark”, “darkness”, and “underbelly” establish the

foreshadowing effect that the film’s plot has many dark aspects.
 Transitioning to the second critic, David Ehrlich, Josh read his review of the Netflix

original film, Bright. The questions asked about Lane’s review were applied the same way for

Ehrlich but turned up strikingly different results. Keeping in mind that both reviews were

negative responses to the film reviewed, Josh had more difficulty accepting Ehrlich’s use of

language and sentence structure, finding much of it ineffective to explaining Ehrlich’s

viewpoints. The main issue Josh discovered was how Ehrlich established clear viewpoints but

did not elaborate on them in order to establish reasoning as to why he believed a certain aspect of

the film was lacking in quality: “His review just sounds like a rant about how bad the movie was

with little offering of positive points or at least suggestions on what to improve.” Another

consumer reading the review on the website left a similar remark: “Was your journalistic

integrity enhanced by politicizing the beginning of a rant that clearly doesn’t begin to match the

majority of those who have watched the movie?” (Jon, 2018). Josh found a lack of balance in the

review, with the majority of it being all negative assertions without any substantial feedback as

to why (besides the mentality of “because I say so”). Furthermore, within his points, Ehrlich

recurrently used profanity and other harsh language that came across as disrespectful and

insulting to the point where Josh was losing his interest in reading the review. Nonetheless,

similar to Lane, Ehrlich used clear language that was easy to understand, using specific words

that emphasized the points he was trying to make, and had a piece of figurative language. To

make this clearer, I will share an excerpt from Ehrlich’s review:

“The film’s lazy refusal to explore its conceit any deeper than that is truly staggering, but
director David Ayer is only willing to make so much room for the heightened genre elements,
lest any of that nerd stuff infringe on his well-documented infatuation with (or fetish for?) the
LAPD.”

Here Ehrlich is conveying that the director of Bright, David Ayer, should have added

more depth to the science fiction fantasy mashup that the film revolves around as he believes it is
lacking in depth for the audience. This offer of criticism would be an appropriate response;

however, Ehrlich’s use of certain lexis here detracts from his own credibility. The first word,

“lazy”, assumes that Ayer intentionally left out details, and while this may be true, he has no

additional details to reinforce this idea. Secondly, he incorrectly used the word “conceit” instead

of “concept” to indicate the movie’s lack of depth in its plot. He then proceeds to insult Ayer in

the rest of the paragraph by saying he is obsessed with the LAPD. The approach Ehrlich took in

this paragraph, and many others in his review, reflects the points that Josh had brought up in the

interview. Ehrlich insults the film’s production crew recurrently, and when sharing criticism, he

adds in little to no reasoning as to why a particular aspect needs to be critiqued.

Claim, Data, & Analysis 2

Lane’s ability to use figurative language to emphasize his points as well as the structure

of his reviews led me to my second claim: film critics build ethos by structuring their film

reviews to sound like a narrative for their audience.

In the interview, Josh had remarked that the review’s structure allowed him to easily

follow each of Lane’s points. “At the beginning, it really felt like he was giving background

information on each aspect of the film.” He was able to easily identify where Lane was

discussing characters, plot, setting, and criticism.

In my own analysis, I was able to distinguish the different points Lane made due to his

explicit transitional lexis (examples: “And so to the second chunk of story;” “Meanwhile”) and

due to the structural pattern in his review. Lane essentially establishes background information

on one aspect of the film, and then explores it further, adding in his own criticism and/or praise

about each point, and reinforcing them with connections to the film as well as making

comparisons to films across other genres. This structure, along with the figurative language and
certain lexis that Lane uses, transforms his review into a narrative, resembling that of a short

story. The excerpt below resembles the narrative-esque format that Lane utilizes throughout his

review:

“This consists of a sour little parable about man’s inhumanity to man. The year is 1959, and the
man in question is Gardner Lodge (Matt Damon), whose name sounds like a motel (figurative
language-rhetorical strategy). He has a wife called Rose, who has a sister called Margaret, and
both of them—one blond, the other brunette—are played by Julianne Moore. Rose and Gardner
live with their young son, Nicky (Noah Jupe), in Suburbicon, a haven so upbeat and sun-blessed
that, in spirit, at least, it surely abuts Lumberton, North Carolina, the setting for “Blue Velvet”
(1986). Even the waving fireman, from the start of David Lynch’s film, is mirrored in Clooney’s
prologue, a cheery faux commercial for Suburbicon.”

In this portion of Lane’s review, he is establishing background information for the reader

to get a glimpse of the film’s main characters and setting. Rather than just simply stating the

names of the family and the place where they reside, Lane formulates the family’s description

into a little story, similar to how an author may reveal their main characters’. Lane keeps himself

out of his review by telling the reader about the film without adding his own emotions, even

when giving his criticism and praise, by remaining in a third person perspective for the majority

of the review. Even when Lane brings himself into the review— “Taking a wild guess, I get the

feeling that, in Clooney’s opinion, the United States, in the epoch of Eisenhower, had a problem

with racism. Jeez, who knew?”—he does so to add his own humor in the review (See end of

excerpt in Appendix A).

Contrastingly, Ehrlich does not structure his review into a narrative as there is no

direction in which he discusses his points nor are there clear transitions, and while he does write

in third person for most of his review, his voice is still prominently heard throughout. Josh

noticed that Ehrlich’s paragraphs alternate back and forth: “he goes from criticism to then

providing background information and back to criticism.” This was evident in my textual
analysis where Ehrlich offers a piece of criticism and then transitions to background information

about the film. However, I further discovered that in providing background information he still

adds critique within those areas as well. Here is an excerpt from his review that reveals this

pattern:

“The last 2,000 years have played out more or less as we know them, but all sorts of magical
species have stuck around in the margins of our history books. Modern day Los Angeles is
almost identical to how it is in real life, except that elves are the one percent and orcs are the
systemically oppressed underclass. (Background information on movie’s setting) The film’s
lazy refusal to explore its conceit any deeper than that is truly staggering, but director David
Ayer is only willing to make so much room for the heightened genre elements, lest any of that
nerd stuff infringe on his well-documented infatuation with (or fetish for?) the LAPD. (Criticism
of director-Ehrlich’s voice noticeable here) Needless to say, the only remotely believable
conflict in “Bright” is between the “grittiness” of a police drama and the fantasticality of a plot
that revolves around the search for a magic wand” (Background information on plot
w/criticism).

Ehrlich begins discussing the film’s setting then proceeds to criticize the lack of depth in

the film’s exploration of its genre mashup, and then back to background information on the plot,

but with criticism still apparent by his remark of “the only remotely believable conflict.” This

structure is seen recurrently throughout his review with the occasional deviation to connections

he makes to other film genres for comparison against Bright. Following this format, Ehrlich

offers no transitional lexis like that found in Lane’s review making it more difficult for the reader

to follow each of his points.

Lane’s structure maintains the reader’s interest throughout his review by making the

review resemble the feeling of reading a novel while Ehrlich’s resembles more of a list of ideas

that do not maintain the reader’s attention because the structure lacks organization when

compared to Lane’s, making the review’s readability more difficult.

Claim, Data & Analysis 3

 One aspect I found throughout both of Lane and Ehrlich’s reviews are the connections

they made to the film as well as to other films in order to reinforce their points. From this I

speculate that film critics establish ethos by utilizing language from each film they review,

including referencing specific scenes, cast members, director, and screenwriters, and comparing

films across other genres, connecting everything back to their points.

In the interview Josh pointed out many areas in which both the reviewers took language

from the films in order to clarify the point they were making. In Lane’s review he especially

found this piece of evidence insightful: “I like how he pointed out that you don’t really get to

know the Mayerses, and the film needed to address that aspect more”. Additionally, some of the

films cited by the reviewers to add context to their points about how both of the film lacked in

quality in their genre mashups was also noted in the interview.

In my own analysis I had discovered the evidence the reviewers utilized and the purposes

they served. Both Lane and Ehrlich cited previous films that had encompassed two genre ideas

into a mashup in order to point out the lack of quality in the genre mashup of both the films they

reviewed; Lane referenced the space film The Right Stuff while Ehrlich referenced R.I.P.D. and

District 9. In this instance, Lane referenced the film as an example of one that combined two

ideas into one really well, to emphasize that Suburbicon’s main issue was its genre mashup.

Ehrlich referenced R.I.P.D for the purpose of showing a film with a similar genre mashup that

Bright was aiming for, arguing that Bright was unoriginal. Looking at Lane, he felt that the

mashup of dark humor with race and drama did not work well in Suburbicon, and instead

detracted from the movie’s plot. Lane reinforces this by citing specific areas of the movie that

were lacking. As Josh had pointed out in the interview, Lane references to the film’s African

American family that moved into the neighborhood and is treated poorly by everyone living
there. Lane claims that the film does not dive into the family’s backstory, leaving the viewer

puzzled because they never learn enough about the family. To reinforce this point, he cites the

various scenes in the movie where the family appears for a short time in which they are treated

poorly, but nothing more occurs and nothing more is said about them:

“So repelled is Clooney by the response of white suburbia to African-Americans, and so keen is
he to insure that we share his outrage at what they endured, that he quite (boost neg.) forgets to
be interested in them. We learn next to nothing about Mr. and Mrs. Mayers (their first names are
a mystery), nor do we listen to their conversations. The wife is charged twenty dollars for a
carton of milk by the manager of a supermarket, and she hangs up her washing outside with a
bevy of protesters banging drums and crowing, only feet away, but, while (hedge pos.) her
dignity in the face of such taunts is noble, that’s all (boost neg.) we know of her. It’s purely
(boost neg.) in relation to white contempt, in other words, that she is granted dramatic presence.
To say that she and her husband are a backdrop would be going too far (hedge pos.), but the
black plot and the white plot scarcely (boost neg.) touch. Is that what Clooney intended (hedge
pos.)?”

Lane questions the director’s, George Clooney, decision to include the family in the film,

pondering what purpose they served other than to highlight a racial issue during the time period

the film is set in. He points out that the film does not reveal their full name or show scenes in

which they talk with others or amongst themselves, only offering occasional points in which they

are being discriminated against by the people within the suburb. Lane utilizes a great deal of the

language directly from the film itself, clarifying to the reader as to why the film lacks in this

area, but still offers criticism in a manner that is respectful towards the director by ending his

point with the question of whether or not the director did this intentionally. Lane’s respectful, but

critical points relate to Phillip Shaw’s (2009) focus on lexis usage within academic book reviews

that reveal when a reviewer is using particular lexis to boost or negate an evaluative act; Shaw

discovered that although it is typical of reviewers to tread carefully in negative reviews, there

were still a large amount of words reviewers used to “boost” the “face-threatening” (critical)

evaluations they gave while there were a good number of “face-enhancing” (praise) evaluations
that were “hedged” by the reviewers (pp. 224). Lane uses four negative boosting pieces of lexis

to add criticism while using three to hedge possible positive points of this aspect of the film.

Shaw states from his findings that “I would like to argue that they are of course saying what they

think but choose to say these particular things in this way because a disinterested genre requires

some demonstration that the writer is not merely being polite but is being balanced and truthful

as well” (pp. 224). Lane elaborates on why the Mayers are lacking in contributing value to the

film’s overall aim, utilizing this evidence as his reasoning for constructive criticism on this

aspect of the film, but does not include inappropriate language that could be offensive to the

audience or the director himself. This coincides with Shaw’s points above that a “disinterested”

reviewer should not be overly gracious in their reviews but construct a balance in their reasoning

that will exhibit integrity with their audience.

Ehrlich offers the comparison of R.I.P.D. as well as the film District 9 in order to show

that Bright’s plot is unoriginal. However, he does not elaborate as to why Bright’s mashup

resembles those films, and instead assumes the reader has seen the two previous films or will

search themselves. Ehrlich does offer a suggestion at the end of the paragraph where he proposed

an idea from the director’s previous film, End of Watch, that he believed could have improved

Bright’s quality:

“Needless to say, the only remotely believable conflict in “Bright” is between the “grittiness” of
a police drama and the fantasticality of a plot that revolves around the search for a magic wand
(Background information on plot), Ayer cramming those two things together like “R.I.P.D.”
never happened. Something like “District 9” stands out as another clear point of comparison, but
that movie’s riff on South Africa felt so lived-in.(Comparisons to previous films w/similar
premises but no explanation) Maybe “Bright” would have fared better had Ayer repurposed the
faux-documentary approach he brought to “End of Watch,” (Critic referring back to director’s
previous film/offering constructive criticism that may have helped film) but hedging
between the film’s disparate modes results in unmitigated disaster.” (Elaboration on film’s
genre mashup issue)
 While Lane elaborated the references he made, Ehrlich failed to do this recurrently in his

review, making it harder for the reader to comprehend his viewpoints on the film. While in this

section he does give a suggestion to the director and does so in a couple of other areas in the

review, the majority of his review contains negative points about an aspect of the film with no

additional reasoning behind why the film lacked in each area (characters, setting, plot). Both

critics utilize evidence from the films, but Lane takes a step further, structuring it as a way to add

reasoning to his viewpoints while Ehrlich taps into the film’s content without expanding upon it

to add to his reasoning.

Claim, Data & Analysis 4

The three previous sections have covered how critics can build their ethos, comparing

how Anthony Lane utilizes those methods against David Ehrlich, who lacked in each area. For

my last claim, I have discovered that critics can damage their ethos through the use of political

references. Both of these critics mention politics within their reviews which has the potential to

reveal a political bias they have. In Johns (1997) article on discourse communities and

communities of practice, she discusses how members involved within a community share similar

values as that is what draws them together; however, the specific interests they hold “do not

necessarily [include] political or social views” (pp. 323). Because consumers may have differing

political ideologies from critics, critics should avoid adding any political references, either

explicitly or implicitly, other than for the purpose of explaining an aspect of the film or else they

risk offending some of their readers.

Lane is not as explicit in his political reference as Ehrlich is, but nonetheless may still

appear to be irrelevant to the reader. His first reference was to the era of president Eisenhower;

however, this reference was meant to point out the time period in which Suburbicon was set in
and the reasoning for the issue of racism in the film. In the sentence that follows, Lane asserts

that the film’s unpleasantness with racism reflects the continuing issues with the current political

administration in power in the United States: “The film’s indignation is clearly fuelled by the

rancor that has persisted into the epoch of Trump.” While Lane’s political ideals are not as overt

here, a reader may derive an implication from Lane’s reference which could result in a

disagreement with the reader and damage Lane’s ethos.

In contrast to Lane, Ehrlich’s reference is an explicit political bias he holds which can

greatly damage his ethos with his audience: “There’s boring, there’s bad, and then there’s

“Bright,” a movie so profoundly awful that Republicans will probably try to pass it into law over

Christmas break.” Ehrlich opens his review with this remark which can immediately turn an

audience’s interest away from the review and find him incredible before he even begins his

actual review. This, then, may permanently damage his ethos with many readers in any future

review he writes. There were a number of consumer comments in response to Ehrlich’s remark

that demonstrate the damage he caused by his reference:

“You brought politics into the first few sentences of your review. You are not objective. Your
narcissism has caused you to believe your pompous opinions will do more than bring an illicit
response from some troll such as me or worse. Bright is not a great movie in my opinion. I liken
great to movies that stick for generations. But it is an entertaining movie that builds an
interesting new world that I wouldn’t mind seeing more of. Did you see the centaur cop?!?! The
dragon flying above the city skyline?!?! I want to know how the rest of this world meshes! If a
movie makes you want to see more of its world, I’d count that as a win. But it’s just another
pompous opinion. At least I left out politics” (Gaijin, 2018).

“This was a great netflix movie that was heavily influenced by the Shadowrun property.
Unfortunately critics like the one are so jaded and full of self loathing that they can not actually
review anything without transplanting their political grievances, it is sad really” (D’marco,
2018).

“This review is as bad as the show. Please keep hack political jokes out of your writing. I’m
liberal, but that joke makes no sense and you open with it. Republicans will try to pass a Netflix
movie? Honestly, it’s not even a pun. I see what you’re trying to do but it’s hack and dumb. Also,
learn how to use a semicolon.” (D, 2017).

Even those who did not perceive the film as fresh content still point out that Ehrlich

should withhold his political ideals from the review, and by the language in their responses, it is

clear that many readers find it inappropriate/irrelevant to his review as it evokes an emotional

response from them.

Additional Data

In addition to the two reviews I analyzed throughout the four sections above, I looked at

an additional one from each of the critics, of which both are positive responses to the film

reviewed. For Lane I looked at his review of Paddington 2, and for Ehrlich, Black Panther.

Lane’s review of Paddington 2 did not seem to deviate from the way he reviewed

Suburbicon. There is less figurative language in this review, however, it is a shorter review, and

there are still a few including alliteration and imagery. Furthermore, he continues to connect

films from other genres into this review in order to add context and emphasize his points. The

review still reads like that of a short story, engaging the reader through his explicit and detailed

language of the scenes he describes. The only difference within the review is that there are more

positive remarks towards the director, cast members, setting, and other aspects of the film in

contrast to his critical points/suggestions he gave in his review of Suburbicon. Lane’s use of

figurative language helps build his reviews into a narrative structure, aligning himself as the

narrator. At the same time, he establishes ethos with the audience through his ability to connect

lexis from the film to reinforce his points as well as draw in films from other genres to show

similarities and differences that are relevant to the point he is trying to make. Roger Cherry’s

distinction of ethos and persona gives context to what Lane is accomplishing here; Cherry (1998)
stated that the “student must create a persona appropriate for the fictional rhetorical situation, but

at the same time must create an ethos that is appropriate for the real (evaluative) rhetorical

situation” (pp. 268). Lane establishes himself as the role of a narrator, wanting his audience to

focus on the viewpoints in the review, and reinforcing them with evidence from the film and

connections to other films. Lane’s rhetorical strategies “enable[s] [him] to portray [himself] in

written text a way that contributes to the optimum effectiveness of a given text” (pp. 269), and

the lexis he utilizes from the film as well as connections to other films serves as his evidence,

which establishes his credibility.

For Ehrlich, the tone of his review changes completely in this review, with the

consideration that it is a positive response to the film’s quality. His review style does not change

much as he still follows the similar pattern in his review of Bright with the exception that instead

of many critical remarks, it is now filled with more positive responses; he provides background

information, positive feedback, and more background information. He still offers some critique

of the film studio itself, comparing its past creations to Black Panther. What does change is the

use of explicit transitions that indicate where he is shifting from one point to another as well as

figurative language including imagery and metaphors. In this review, a reader pointed out

Ehrlich’s factual error involving the age of the Marvel Universe in which Ehrlich wrote “Over

the course of three phases, 11 years, and 18 installments.” He remarked that the age is 10 years

and not 11, which is correct according to a quick google search:

“Ehrlich can’t even manage to count, yet we are supposed to take him seriously? May ’08 – Feb
’18 … that’s 10 years buddy” (Smith, 2018).

This error can cause Ehrlich to appear as lazy to his audience for not ensuring his

information is correct as he is writing towards an audience that knows Marvel Studios well.

Conclusion of Claims, Data, & Analysis

 I have covered four claims that I have discovered as a result of the textual analysis I

conducted on four film reviews as well as an interview. From all of this I have found that film

critics are able to establish their ethos through different rhetorical strategies they employ,

including the use of figurative language, stylistic writing resembling a narrative, and utilizing

specific lexis from the film they are reviewing. At the same time, they can damage their ethos

through the inclusion of political biases in their writing as well as biases against an aspect of the

film they are reviewing such as its genre, director, screenwriter(s), cast members, and more.

The comparison and contrasting of Anthony Lane and David Ehrlich serves as an outline

for how particular styles of writing can affect how a critic is perceived by their audience. Lane

manages to remain outside of his reviews by omitting any emotional tone in his reviews, and

rather provides reasoning to his viewpoints. Furthermore, he balances his critical points with

positive ones, creating a well-balanced review. On the other hand, Ehrlich provides many

assertions in his reviews which may hold substance, but there is a lack of elaboration in his

viewpoints. Additionally, he creates a clear emotional tone that reflects his voice throughout his

reviews which is evident by the inappropriate language he uses, including profanity and insults

he directs at the film. He does offer some suggestions in his reviews that he feels could improve

the film he reviewed as well as praise towards the aspects he argues were done exceptionally

well, however, these are scarcely found in his negative reviews. This points to the conclusion

that he is unable to maintain a level of professionalism in his writing in certain rhetorical

situations which may damage his credibility with his audience.

 References

Cherry, R. (1998). Ethos versus persona. Written Communication, 15(3), 384-410. doi:

https://doi.org/10.1177/0741088398015003009

Johns, A. (1997). Discourse communities and communities of practice. In E. Wardle & D. Downs

(Eds.). Writing about Writing: A college reader (pp. 319-338). Boston: Bedford/St. Martins.

Shaw, P. (2009). The lexis and grammar of explicit evaluation in academic book reviews, 1913 and

1993. In K. Hyland & G. Diani (Eds.). Academic Evaluation: Review genres in university

settings [ProQuest Ebook Central] (pp. 217-233). London: Palgrave Macmillan UK. Retrieved

from

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/auth/lib/fjpw/login.action?returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Febo

okcentral.proquest.com%2Flib%2Ffjpw%2Fhome.action

Ehrlich, D. (2018, February 6). Black Panther Review: Ryan Coogler delivers the best marvel movie so

far [Review of the film Black Panther, 2018]. IndieWire. Retrieved from

http://www.indiewire.com/2018/02/black-panther-review-ryan-coogler-1201925524/

Ehrlich, D. (2017, December 20). Bright Review: Netflix’s first blockbuster is the worst movie of 2017

[Review of the film Bright, 2018]. IndieWire. Retrieved from

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/12/bright-review-netflix-will-smith-max-landis-david-ayer-

worst-movie-2017-1201909960/

Lane, A. (2018, February 15). The Insult and Paddington 2 [Review of the film Paddington 2, 2018].

The New Yorker. Retrieved from https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/15/the-insult-

and-paddington-2
Lane, A. (2017, November 6). Suburbicon and Last Flying Flag [Review of the film Suburbicon, 2018].

The New Yorker. Retrieved from https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/06/suburbicon-

and-last-flag-flying

D’marco, D. (2017, December 23). This was a great netflix movie that was heavily influenced by the

Shadowrun property. Unfortunately critics like [this] one are so jaded and full of self loathing

that they can not actually review anything without transplanting their political grievances, it is

sad really [Comment]. Retrieved from http://www.indiewire.com/2017/12/bright-review-netflix-

will-smith-max-landis-david-ayer-worst-movie-2017-1201909960/

D. (2017, December 22). This review is as bad as the show. Please keep hack political jokes out of your

writing. I’m liberal, but that joke makes no sense and you open with it. Republicans will try to

pass a Netflix movie? Honestly, it’s not even a pun. I see what you’re trying to do but it’s hack

and dumb. Also, learn how to use a semicolon [Comment]. Retrieved from

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/12/bright-review-netflix-will-smith-max-landis-david-ayer-

worst-movie-2017-1201909960/

Gaijin, J. (2018, January 7). You brought politics into the first few sentences of your review. You are

not objective. Your narcissism has caused you to believe your pompous opinions will do more

than bring an illicit response from some troll such as me or worse. Bright is not a great movie in

my opinion. I liken great to movies that stick for generations. But it is an entertaining movie that

builds an interesting new world that I wouldn’t mind seeing more of. Did you see the centaur

cop?!?! The dragon flying above the city skyline?!?! I want to know how the rest of this world

meshes! If a movie makes you want to see more of its world, I’d count that as a win. But it’s just

another pompous opinion. At least I left out politics [Comment]. Retrieved from
 http://www.indiewire.com/2017/12/bright-review-netflix-will-smith-max-landis-david-ayer-

worst-movie-2017-1201909960/

Jon. (2018, January 10). Was your journalistic integrity enhanced by politicizing the beginning of a rant

that clearly doesn’t begin to match the majority of those who have watched the movie

[Comment]? Retrieved from http://www.indiewire.com/2017/12/bright-review-netflix-will-

smith-max-landis-david-ayer-worst-movie-2017-1201909960/

Smith, S. (2018, February 6). Ehrlich can’t even manage to count, yet we are supposed to take him

seriously? May ’08 – Feb ’18 … that’s 10 years buddy [Comment]. Retrieved from

http://www.indiewire.com/2018/02/black-panther-review-ryan-coogler-1201925524/