Sophomore Liero Marchesi is a pretty laid-back guy.

He likes basketball, hanging out with friends and watching movies. But since March 2016, Marchesi has developed what he calls “a little bit of an obsession” with the latter.

Marchesi is referring to “thefancycritic,” an Instagram account where the communications major has reviewed over 114 films and TV shows. Spanning different genres, Marchesi has critiqued just about everything from “Suicide Squad” and “A Walk to Remember,” to “The Infiltrator” and “Zootopia.”

Marchesi doesn’t discriminate with what genres he reviews, although the idea for his account did come to him while watching a sports drama film last March.

“I was watching ‘Warrior’ starring Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton, and I just decided that I wanted to share my thoughts on it with everyone else,” Marchesi said. “[Now] whenever someone comments, I get happy because I get to share my opinion even more and debate with them.”

Half a year later with over 740 followers, there are plenty of audience members to share Marchesi’s opinions. And much to Marchesi’s liking, there are also plenty of followers to debate him.

“The biggest disagreement I got into was about ‘Batman v. Superman.’ I hated it the first time I watched it because it was not what I expected,” said Marchesi. “But then I watched it a second time and I liked it. A random follower got really mad at my positive opinion on the movie. I said I understood where he was coming from, but I understood where the director was coming from the second time I watched it.”

One of Marchesi’s qualities that makes him stand out as a critic is his graciousness. Marchesi rarely gives bad marks to films but says this partly because Instagram has limited vertical text space in the bio section where he lists his rubric. A+ Heaven; A- Loved it; B+ Liked it; B Enjoyable; B- Okay; C+ Just bad; C Torture; C- I’m so sorry. Also included in the rubric are details like writing quality, concept and re-watchability of each film.

“I don’t ever want to say a movie’s bad, because I completely understand how hard it is to make a movie,” Marchesi said. “I totally understand what bad movies have to offer, because some movies have good editing but bad writing. So if I’m on the fence with a movie, I always like to give it a better grade.”

Marchesi’s followers are a mix of people he knows and people he doesn’t, a factor which has played into Marchesi’s friends accepting the side project. Marchesi says his friends have warmed up and now they love the account.

“As a lot more people started following me, [my friends] realized how cool it was,” Marchesi said. “Now sometimes people ask me if there are any good movies out, and they’ll check the page. It’s just a fun and quick way to see any cool movies that you might want to watch.” 

In the future, Marchesi says he may want to go into PR or become a sports editor at a magazine. For now though, the writer is committed to “thefancycritic”, saying that he updates the account because he’s on a roll and it’s fun. Although, there is one humorous quirk to the life of a movie critic, Marchesi has discovered.

“After watching a movie, I always want to knock out a review,” Marchesi said. “But my friends get pissed off because I’m ignoring them or not talking to them. That’s happened about a thousand times, but I want to write while the movie is still fresh in my mind.”