Everybody's a critic

While I'm not a real fan of either the Lord of the Rings movies or those recently produced by George Lucas, I found this satirical article very amusing. And speaking of the latest LOTR flick, Anthony Lane's description in the Jan. 6 '03 New Yorker is a classic:

In essence, the worthy folk of Edoras, under their king Theoden, have retreated to Helm's Deep, where they are beseiged by Orcs, Uruk-hai, and other evildoers who come bearing hard consonants. It is a close and vicious fight, but at last the long vowels of Theoden and Aragorn, aided by the soft fricatives of Gandalf, carry the wordy day.

Meanwhile, this Salon article discusses why we need movie critics at all.

I majored in film criticism in college. (My degree, from the Univ. of Texas, was actually in Radio-TV-Film with a concentration in film crit.) One day I had to write a paper on whether film criticism was necessary. I was in a bad mood that day, and wrote several pages about how film critics were probably mostly like me: nerdish wannabes who didn't have the guts to actually try to be filmmakers and who would rather sit on the sidelines making potshots. My professor, who was a cheerful guy who always encouraged me, was astonished at this screed and gave me a B, which, looking back on the piece, was probably more than I deserved. In fact, of the writing I saved from that period, almost all of it now embarasses me, and I'm surprised they gave me a degree at all, much less one "with honors."

I'll say one thing--it sure was a heck of a fun major. But I did learn something about writing and about film -- not enough about either, but just enough to be dangerous. I still don't think film criticism is necessary, but consider when I actually made that claim -- in 1977, when we were in the middle of a golden era of American and European film. I had a good time back then writing about the new Robert Altman and Woody Allen movies; what people write about now, I have no idea.