Talking Movies: How Spling Became a Movie Critic

Welcome to Talking Movies… I’m Spling.

This week, I want to share how I became a movie critic…

I’ve been reviewing film since 2007 and presenting Talking Movies since 2013, but what led me to become a movie critic?

When kids are asked what they want to be when they’re older… most will say something like astronaut, pirate or pro wrestler. I wasn’t quite that young when I decided “movie critic” but it’s a pretty far-fetched idea to even think that one could say you “watch movies for a living”. Now 17 years into the dream job… I’d still love to say “I watch movies for a living”.

A romantic notion, everyone seems to automatically think this is all it entails – apart from writing the odd review. Nowadays more than ever, there’s no set financial model for being a movie critic and it’s starting to seem like we are a dying breed. Gone are the days when one could get by with one affiliated publication.

With entertainment sections shrinking and syndication thriving, it’s become more about belting out content than crafting and delivering thoughtful opinions. Movie critics have to carve their own path or be subjected to being hired on the basis of a general entertainment job title like Showbiz Ninja.

Before it gets too depressing, let’s rewind a bit. It was probably Barry Ronge who inspired me to want to become a film critic. The famous bearded film critic and entertainment journalist featured on TV, radio and had his own magazine column.

An iconic and easily recognisable public figure with a trademark waistcoat, he was prolific, respected and entertaining even if you didn’t entirely agree with his opinion. His gift of the gab, the way he wrote reviews and his multi-pronged fame made him an influential figure and the subject of my recent tribute to the film critic luminary, Remembering Barry.

Watching and pontificating about film seemed like a great idea to me, especially since I excelled at Art and English at school. The professional endeavour essentially centred on reviewing many art forms, which came together to form a single illusion.

The illusion of film, similar to the art of magic, requires careful suspense of disbelief and sleight of hand to immerse an audience in a dream state. Who wouldn’t want to be able to slip in and out of dreams all day?

My art history essay writing helped steady my art marks through school, based on the creations featured during class slideshows. Unpacking the artist’s meaning, the medium’s efficacy, the material and the method enabled me to flex both my creativity and analytical sides in piecing together an argument. Since English and creative writing were another favourite aspect of my education, I loved deconstructing creative projects through reasoning.

While I hardly ever read any of the set work books besides Lord of the Flies from high school right through university, I was able to wrestle with the themes and use external references to build a decent essay. Perhaps the dense writing of Passage to India and The Great Gatsby put me off the whole idea of novels.

Having been a keen reader of Douglas Hill, Roald Dahl and Willard Price up till the tender age of 15, maybe the prescribed academic works were a bit too… tedious. After all, I was a kid who would almost always pick visually-striking page-turners like Asterix and Tintin from the local library. Aren’t comics books too?

Based on my marks for Art and English, I was one of the outliers who ensured the presumptuous and premeditated photo of Kingswood’s bumper crop of promising young Honours students had to be trashed. It seemed like a bit of a fluke but I applied myself in my matric year working out a disciplined regime of exercise, napping and study.

While I opted to do a bachelors degree in the experimental Film, Media & Visuals Studies stream at UCT, it was only years later that I truly committed to film. Having muddled my way through a possible business information systems Masters in the productivity enhancement of speech recognition software, I quickly realised that without a proper supervisor it wouldn’t be possible. This led me to accept a job as a copywriter to pursue a more creative role.

I had acrylic paints and an easel to continue my artwork after school, but I wanted to make it more than a hobby. Having to write copy wasn’t a bad option to leverage that creative energy and after coming up with catchy product names, mailers and overseeing some of the creative from artwork to sound – I changed course and started to work from home where I was able to ply my skills elsewhere.

The days before Netflix even mailed movies, I started renting movies from the local video store and writing at my newly launched blog, spling.co.za. I named the company after myself because tying my brand to something as personal as my lifelong nickname would hopefully ensure my loyalty to its longevity.

After committing to a year of reviewing a film a day, I had convinced myself that this was something I really wanted to do. The platform proved my passion and led me to land a weekly featured review as the first author other than the editor on one of Cape Town’s most popular and widely read lifestyle blogs at the time.

This opportunity opened the door to new leads across the media landscape, organic growth and it wasn’t long before I was reviewing films with weekly written and spoken reviews both online and on air, which is how I started presenting Talking Movies on Fine Music Radio.

For movie reviews, interviews and previous Talking Movies podcasts visit splingmovies.com.

And remember, Don’t WING it, SPL!NG it!