I wish that Jeff Vice, the movie critic for the News, could somehow find it in his heart to add something to the reviews/ratings he does for the Friday "Weekend" section of the paper to make the reviews a bit more valuable for his Salt Lake audience.
I started going to that section religiously to help me determine which movies to attend when Chris Hicks was the critic. Very seldom was his star rating very far off from what the community seemed to feel. When he gave a movie a two-star rating, that movie was generally an average movie in all respects. When he gave it a three- or four-star rating, one could be reasonably sure to enjoy it.
But I have found that I cannot trust Vice's ratings, not so much for those he gives three- and four-star ratings to, but to those he gives two-star ratings. And it is not that be rates them too high, it's that he rates some really good movies much too low, especially for our community.
For example, he gave "The Other Side of Heaven" two stars, saying in the review that it was "too squeaky clean." I have not talked to anyone who didn't feel that the movie was great. And he gave "The Count of Monte Cristo" two stars, saying that the main character was weak. He must have been looking at a different clip than the one I and the sold-out audience saw. I don't question his ability to literally evaluate movies; what one person likes, another will dislike and sometimes for the same reasons. But he should by now be able to tell what kind of shows people in this valley like
Fred Ash
Sandy