Reviews (Do you care?)

In my journalism class, we've been working still on basics, learning to answer the primary questions any reader will want to know when reading any article, and one that caught me when thinking of reviewing old movies was the question, "Who am I writing for?". I thought people that wanted to know of a movie before they see it, but then I thought about why people review old movies. If I'm talking about the old Super Mario Bros movie, what would a journalistic review offer as opposed to a forum commentary? What reviews matter that don't come from experienced directors? I get that any sort of criticism requires some credentials, because I wouldn't take my little brother's recommendation of a movie with any seriousness, but there isn't really any set standards of what constitutes credibility in terms of escapist reviews, reviews of movies, games, books, and so on. This case seems to be one where every coin has two sides. One could say my review of an old game means nothing because I'm a kid with limited game creation experience, another could say my review means more because I represent the body of people the game is marketed towards.

I don't bring this up to talk to myself, I genuinely don't know. I take other people's criticisms and recommendations of games and movies seriously while considering their credibility and general opinions, but not every one does, and watching random reviews is much different than writing successful reviews. So, whether you're a close friend or acquaintance reading this, or someone who stumbled dickfirst onto this blog, please comment on this post with your opinion and pseudoanalysis of reviews in general, so as to give me some external perspective on what people look for in them.