Movie Critic Like Me.

I’ve been pretty vocal about my love for movies, and especially how I love to talk about them and share my thoughts on them. I started doing all that here on Hive, and sometime this year, I decided to continue doing it on my social media platforms as well. I just love movie communities and also TV show groups where all we do is talk about our favorite shows and movies, analyzing everything as if they were real life.

And that’s how it works, you share your thoughts on a movie or TV show, and people give their honest takes on your thoughts. They either agree with you or they disagree. Just people of like minds and like interests bonding over something that connects them. That’s why I especially enjoy it, especially on Facebook. There are really immersive communities where people take their time to analyze and dismantle movies, going into the tiniest details and littlest motivations for certain characters to do certain things.

But then, one thing that I’ve found lacking though, is genuine communities dedicated to analyzing and critiquing Nigerian movies. Not like we don’t have enough Nollywood lovers, we very much do. I’m also a fan of Nollywood because I watch our movies regularly as well. But many times, when I want to talk about it, I search for communities, and what I end up finding is never really encouraging for me.

Of course, there are communities and groups that are dedicated to Nollywood fans, but most of the time, they’re more or less focused on talking about the actors, Nollywood gossip, and less about the movies. Other kinds of groups will come under the banner of Nollywood movies, but it will only be a cesspool of content creators promoting their own videos and movies. That’s just how bad it can be. You won’t see a community that’s just focused on critiquing and analyzing movies.

Now, this doesn’t mean that we don’t have Nollywood critics, we very well do. And many of them are active on social media, and they’ve amassed quite a following. I just hope that we can have a community as well, where you can do and say what you want, while also knowing that you’ll be heard.

And then, one last but fairly important thing about Nollywood. There is a reason we don’t seem to have a lot of critics, because most of the time, the producers and even the fans don’t know how to take criticism. Many see criticism as a personal attack on their brand, they’ll forget whatever message you’re trying to pass and then demand that you go instead to make movies of your own. At a point, it can get really toxic. So, not everyone is willing to share their thoughts when they could be faced with such backlash.

And so, it goes on and on. Well, for now, I’m trying to see what I can do. I’m still growing my social media brand, it’s not easy, but I’m making it happen. One where I can tell stories and talk about movies and TV shows, something that has always been my passion. Maybe later on, I’d consider building a community where anyone and everyone can freely analyze and critique Nollywood movies. We have them for Hollywood films, we have them for Kdrama, Chinese shows, Japanese… why not Nollywood? It’s only a matter of time.

Well, let’s see how it goes.