Everybody's a Critic

I have no idea what is going to happen with the...review biz. The Web has created this false sense of authority, in which everyone believes his or her opinion is equally valid. Witness blogs. Witness the e-mail I get, in which my correspondents rip me a new one each day.

So emails a working critic and acquaintance of the Siren, a deft and witty writer who reviews for a living. At the time the Working Critic had no idea the Siren blogs. The Siren does not share her blogging vice with just anyone. Some people aren't interested in blogs, and even those who are interested can't possibly read all the blogs that are out there. (Sometimes the Siren envisions a dystopian future where we all have blogs, and nothing else. We've retreated to little corners of the Web, communicating only via the occasional journal entry, as actual contact withers and dies.)

The Working Critic's lament came after she heard the following remark: "I never listen to critics. Why should their opinion be listened to more than anyone else's?"

The Working Critic says the Amazon and IMDB comments pages, and blogs, enable some badly educated and tasteless people to give an inflated rating to their own opinions. It's difficult to argue with that. While some people in those forums write from a careful consideration of what they have read or seen before, others rant, ramble and cannot even bother with spell check. There is a definite streak of anti-intellectualism in the anti-critic school of thought, too. Critics are snobs, rage the IMDB chatboards. What do they know? I'd rather listen to someone just like me.

Some critics, however, have devalued themselves. The movie studios get sycophantic, third-rate members of the press to write "HANG ONTO YOUR SEATS!" or some such about their latest ghastly shoot-'em-up, and after a while even the word of a writer for a major daily carries a great deal less weight.

The Siren often jokes that a good critic is one she usually agrees with, but that isn't entirely true. Much depends on a critic's writing style, which is part of why the Siren still reads Roger Ebert, who has perfected a fluid, easy, journalistic approach to film writing. She also reads and admires Kenneth Turan, David Denby, J. Hoberman and others.

But there is an awful lot of bad writing about film, and often for major dailies, too. When the late, much-missed George Fasel picked a fight some time back, he revealed that his own mind and writing style were far sharper than the nationally known critic he was drubbing. In fact, lately the Siren is far more likely to turn to her blog roll that she is to open a paper and check out the review index.

Her own motivation for blogging isn't complicated. Writing, like any other skill, grows dull and flaccid when deprived of practice. Here in Toronto, away from her usual haunts and old friends, it is good for the Siren to exercise the old brain cells. It keeps her off the streets and has fewer potential drawbacks than cornering people at the local video rental place to insist that they unhand "Constantine" and try out "Lola Montes." And the Siren is constantly delighted that people actually come here and read this thing.

So, since you're here, is the Working Critic right?

Are critics endangered if, with a click of the mouse, N.E. Oldbody can post a review of "Citizen Kane" that will be read by thousands? Are we bloggers chipping away at their authority?

If we are, is that a good thing, or a bad thing?