As I said, I need to weigh in on this.
I can see quite a few of my fellow critics/film writers/whatever they like to be referred to as commenting back, calmly and rationally to various filmmakers moaning and complaining about critics. From what has been thrown around the internet and mainly 'film Twitter' is that filmmakers don't like negative reviews of their films. They've worked for months, years, crafting their work only to be shot down and their work torn apart by a critic with a few sentances. Fair enough. Critics have pointed out they don't set out to write these kind of reviews, others have said they don't serve the audience, also, fair enough.
Although I haven't made a feature film, I've made a few short films, written and directed. Making a film can be the hardest thing in the world to make, even if you've got a great crew, great cast and great story, or at least you feel like you do, its still daunting. You're not performing it all yourself but you invest time and energy to something that has, at least with short films you fund yourself, very littel chance of being noticed or even appreciated. Putting your work out into the world and hoping for any feedback at all is terrifying. The fear of rejection and a negative response will always be at the front of a filmmakers mind BUT any response is better than no response. You don't make the film so that maybe one or two people will see it, you make a film because you want people to see it. If a critic sees it and decides to write about it, great! With any type of art, an artist makes their art for it to be seen which means they really need to be prepared for both negative and positives responses, no matter how much work and effort they've put in to it. Plus, people will go see a film, even if it has bad reviews, sometimes out of curisoity or because they simply want to. The film is an indie/low budget and a critic reviews/writes about the film, its publicity either way.
As a critic, especially those who aren't attached to a well known publication, they will be in the same situation as the filmmaker. They hope their work gets noticed and even though it might not be worked on for months, a good critic will take time over their writing. Commenting a piece of work is more than a couple of minutes hack job. Filmmakers have said that critics needs them than the other way around which is incorrect. If there were no critics, films would be forgotten about the second they left cinemas. Although critics have usually be portrayed in films as evil, bitter, spiteful people, critics love films or why would they dedicate their to watch so many and spend more time writing about them? Does the filmmaker ever consider this? I agree that the critic is there is serve the audience but they are also there to document the film itself, whether they believe it is bad or good. Reviews are the critic's opinion which makes an honest review even more important. Critics are also NOT filmmakers who never 'made it'. Critics understand film just as much as filmmakers do.
The artist and the critic should be friends. The film industry is made up of many parts and shouldn't be at each others throats belittling each other. We all love film, whether we make them or write about them. That's my opinion.