# Capalert and other clueless film critics

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capalert-and-other-clueless-film-critics/283566>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [January 7, 2005, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capalert-and-other-clueless-film-critics/283566 "2005-01-07T15:13:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2005, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capalert-and-other-clueless-film-critics/283566/21 "2005-01-09T19:41:57Z")

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Although she’s retired now, Rita Kempley of _The Washington Post_ was a truly terrible film reviewer. She was already writing when I started reading the paper in the 1980’s and just retired a couple of years ago. In the 1980’s she was so bad that I had to wonder why any major newspaper would shame itelf by hiring such a bad writer. She would do film reviews that consisted of making a couple of jokes about the film and pretending that was a considered opinion on the movie. By the time she had retired, she had gotten slightly better and was merely a waste of space.

I actually like Bob Mondello. I think the problem is that he has a limited range of films that he can speak on usefully. He’s also the drama critic for _The Washington City Paper_. He’s probably better at the sort of film that came from literature or drama.

Stephen Hunter of _The Washington Post_ isn’t a bad reviewer, but he’s overrated. He and Roger Ebert are the only two film reviewers to win a Pulitzer Prize. Hunter writes clever stuff, but he doesn’t have very deep insights on the films. Interestingly, for the first couple of years after he came to _The Post_ (from _The Baltimore Sun_), he was making interesting insights on the films, but then he started slacking off.

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**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\
**Post date:** [January 10, 2005, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capalert-and-other-clueless-film-critics/283566/22 "2005-01-10T03:42:28Z")

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[Back to School Special.](http://www.capalert.com/backtoschool/backtoschool.htm)

Where Carder explains why various symbols, including the peace sign and the Star of David, are Satanic.

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