You can also count on Roger Ebert to overpraise films by black directors or about black characters. He’s got a touch of jungle fever. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Put a large breasted black woman in a movie and you’ve definately got the man’s attention.
But I always like to read his reviews, since he tends to be fair. Sure, he sometimes likes crummy blockbusters, or doesn’t get quirky comedies, but I’m sure some of you all wouldn’t like everything I like either.
I was really liked Gene Siskel. He seemed like such a nice guy, and he was involved with many charitable things I didn’t even know about (nor did anyone else, he didn’t seek notoriety for his charity). It was like a family member passing away when Gene died. So young, so talented, so full of life. What a tragedy it was to lose Gene. 
And yet he liked The Crow, which was nothing but 90 minutes of wall-to-wall violence and brutal killing. And far more disturbing in its violence than Texas Chainsaw Massacre because it was trying to be “serious”.
I disagree with this. You don’t have to be a writer in order to say, “if the movie did this instead of that, it would have been a better movie” (or in other words, “I would have liked it better”). I mean, I do that myself and I’m neither a movie writer nor a movie reviewer. But just because I couldn’t sit down and write an entire movie from start to finish doesn’t mean that I can’t legitimately say what could be changed to make one better. I’m not a cook, either, but I can still say that I’d like the soup better if it had less salt.
Which brings me back to the OP. As a couple of others have said, there is no such thing as “right” in this context. It’s just opinion, it’s all opinion. I think that Citizen Kane is boring crap. That most (all?) professional movie reviewers think it’s the best movie ever made doesn’t make them right and me wrong, it simply means that we have different opinions. Mine may be a small minority opinion, but that doesn’t make it “wrong” in any sense of the word. There is no objective way of saying a movie is “good” or “bad”, it’s inherently a subjective thing.
RE: Ebert and violence:
He doesn’t seem to mind violence when it’s in aid of a story, even a bad one. The only times I’ve read reviews where he’s panned the violence is when that’s what the movie is about. He saw the TCM remake as nothing more than a porno with violence instead of sex and gave it a similiar kind of panning.
Or so I think after reading many of his reviews.
Read his review of The Crow: http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/1994/05/919962.html. He readily admits that there isn’t much of a story. He says, “The story exists as an excuse for the production values of the film, which are superb.” So in this case, apparently, the violence is ok because the movie looks good. The violence in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is not ok because they didn’t spend as much money on the movie.
This is one of the problems I personally have with movie reviewers: They have different criteria than I do for deciding whether a movie is good or bad. To me, The Crow and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre are equally as bad because they are equally devoid of any interesting story and equally filled with nothing but violence.
That’s also why what I want from a movie reviewer is a reasonable summary of the plot, and an explanation as to why they liked or disliked the movie. I want to know whether their criteria behind their decision is a criteria that I also have or not.
James Berardinelli is possibly the most thoughtful critic I have ever read. His website ( http://movie-reviews.colossus.net/main0.html ) has over 3,000 movie reviews and he is constantly updating. It is one of the rare websites that I get enough value from to read almost daily. My tastes happen to coincide with his, so I may like him more than others, but I highly recommend taking a peek.
-Steve
I recommend Teddy Durgin. I subscribe to his free email service and enjoy reading every review and interview.
What’s best about Teddy?
He’s honest. His reviews read like a email from your best friend. He isn’t fancy or up-tight. He is real. Each review will tell you what was good and what was bad, whether you should pay to see it or rent it later.
He gets excited about movies. They are not just his job.
He reviews the major movies (like LOTR) and then later puts out a second spolier review so he can really talk in detail about the movie.
He puts out a 10 Best and 10 Worst list every year with special “Teddy” awards which is a blast to read.
As a special touch at the end of each review, Teddy writes a small paragraph (usually) about the rating. Why was it PG-13 or R? Was is violence? Nudity? To help parents, he usually sets his own age limit for kids - like “kids 6 and under might find it scary, but 7 and up should handle things just fine.” He even will say something like “animal lovers beware! There is a scene containing animal cruelty.”
And maybe the coolest thing about Teddy… email him and he will email you right back. Got questions or concerns? Want to know something about a future movie? Teddy just likes to talk movies.
So check out Teddy at http://www.flickville.com/about.html.
I agree with Prez2032 about James Berardinelli.
http://movie-reviews.colossus.net/master.html
He’s a very discerning intenet reviewer who does a good job of covering foreign and arthouse films as well as the mainstream stuff. He doesn’t just slam a film or a director just for the heck of it. I agree with him 95% of the time. But it really bugs me that he gave 3 stars out of 4 for Once Upon a Time in Mexico. He even calls the film a “mess” and still gave it three stars.
If I want reviews of action or horror films, I go to a reviewer who really loves those genres: Joe Blo. http://www.joblo.com/index.php
Though I wish he wouldn’t put so much crap on his front page, it can take forever to load. But he is a very honest reviewer. For example, when he saw From Hell in the theater, he hated it. Maybe he was just in a bad mood that day. But he when he reviewed the DVD release, he admitted that he’d been wrong and changed his opinion. I’ve never seen another reviewer do that. His opinions are honest, with no fake intellectual pretensions.
Both of these reviewer are honest and independent.
I do not trust reviewers in the news media. Most of them either hate everything, follow the mainstream consensus, or are puppets of the media corp that writes their paychecks.
I’d have to say ‘The Critics’ were right about Lost In Translation. I saw it last night, and I’m going to see it again. The list of movies I’d compare it to is very short and is full of movies that are so good you’re not supposed to compare any new movies to them. 