Someone who critiques every film critic out there (or from the past… my expertise is from the 1930-70s)… It could be someone off YouTube (just as long as they were good). It could be an author, of course.
Or criticism in general of any art? Preferably someone with a populist bent, arguing on our behalf as an advocate, instead of all the “The audience is too dumb. Otherwise, I’d produce a masterpiece, but they wouldn’t get it”
Lord Byron did this in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.
Didn’t Mahler express such complaints? Though from his point of view it would be the audience and the critics who were too dumb.
Isn’t this every critic? A critic is implicitly criticizing all of the other critics they disagree with, and there is always disagreement among critics.
Or his contemporary, Jean Sibelius:
Pay no attention to what the critics say. A statue has never been erected in honor of a critic.
“Those who can, do.
Those who cannot, teach.
Those who cannot teach, critique.”
Yeah, well…Ebert never had a music notation software named after him!
Renata Adler did such a takedown of a collection of reviews by The New Yorker’s movie critic Pauline Kael that she couldn’t get the review published in The New Yorker. The New York Review of Books published it, but it’s mostly behind a paywall.
The New Yorker has been involved in a huge number of attacks and counter-attacks since it’s beginning. The original editor, Harold Ross, had a running feud with the editors at Time and Fortune. They would run an article on his magazine, he would run an article on theirs. Went on for years. Wolcott Gibbs wrote his piece in imitation of the weird inverted Yoda-like sentences Time then used, like “Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind” and finishing it with the immortal line “Where it will all end, knows God.”
His successor, William Shawn, was oblivious to the New Journalism and to the 60s in general. Tom Wolfe wrote a hilarious (and much disputed) piece called “Tiny Mummies! The True Story of the Ruler of 43rd Street’s Land of the Walking Dead!" reprinted many years later in his book Hooking Up. For that matter, Adler’s book, Gone: The Last Years of The New Yorker inadvertently makes Shawn out to be the most insufferable man in the world and in the process makes her the most insufferable woman.
She was full of great quotes… I read a book where someone asks, “Those whores. Why don’t they do the best picture they can make?” and Dorothy answered, “Maybe that is the best they can do”
There are some critics who are useful. Years ago, we had a local movie critic in our local paper. If he hated a movie, or thought it was “too complicated”, it was a near-certainty that I’d like it.
So, useful; just not in the way he thought he was.
More reasons to support populist criticism… And also, those who get paid can’t constantly say every movie sucked, even if they believed it. Especially if it made money. It seems you have to go along, and when that market is taken up, use the other side. Quid pro quo and who knows what else. I’ve read a ton of stories of people buying their way. Even buying a nomination.
Moved to Cafe Society (from FQ).
You seem to be under the impression that critics only give good reviews to unpopular movies.
Let’s look at the top five in the box office last year along with their Rotten Tomatoes Rating:
Top Gun: Maverick - 96%
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - 84%
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness - 74%
Avatar: The Way of Water - 76%
Jurassic World: Dominion - 29%
So 4 of the 5 most popular movies, the majority of critics gave good ratings.
Siskel and Ebert would often agree, but hoo-boy when they didn’t they could snipe at each other mercilessly.
I hate most movie critics but I liked Roger Ebert reviews. I frequently disagreed with him, quite vehemently, as we have very different tastes in entertainment, but I still liked his reviews because he was a good writer. Even if I disagreed with him, he still offered good insights and usually had good, thoughtful reasons for disliking a film.
No, I think they can’t constantly give bad reviews, especially to high grossing movies. 4 out of the 5 had positive reviews. I’ll give another criticism of RT. Many movies only have 3 people voting, so even if one dislikes it, that “66%” (with green color) will dissuade many. Even to a movie fan like myself. I’m stuck between what to choose, and if both stories sound good, yeah, I’ll probably pick the one with 88% over 66%.
I also have seen a lot people (some I know personally) lie, just to avoid the “Old man yells at cloud” meme.
I wonder if there is a working, paid critic out there who’s calling movies of the last 40 years junk, while extolling the virtues of movies made from the 30-70s.
Who would paid somebody to have such fantastic ignorance of the movies from the last 40 years? I wouldn’t do it with a gun to my head.
Okay, I’m completely lost now as to the point your trying to make.