My Kingdom For A Critic

Critiques help audiences dig deeper into the art they love, so why are they always so hated?

September 25, 2023

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The Critic(s)

In college I had a dream that one day I could be a professional record critic. I had a gig reviewing CDs for Punknews.org (not gonna link it but you can find over 200 pieces of my early works there if you really wanna get sad and read some bullshit) and I thought “hey, this is a job people have professionally, right?” Well.

Well…

Okay, sure. Technically we still have a professional critic class, only, most of those slots are filled by the same people who have been doing it since before I left college. And I’m not too surprised. No one buys things anymore. In a lot of ways, that’s an incredible deal for the consumer. For the price of one album, you now have access to hundreds of thousands, wherever you have good signal on your phone. No more crate digging for elusive Alice Coltrane imports. No more forking out a stack of cash for a special edition reissue of The Replacements’ Tim if you already own the original. At the same time, the utility of the professional critic was greatly reduced. Siskel and Ebert had an incredibly successful run with At the Movies because people were going to spend their hard earned cash at the theater that weekend and they didn’t want to drop a day’s pay to see some drivel. But Ebert’s thumb put in overtime with his print reviews.

That’s because the role of a critic is two-fold. One: help people make smart purchases. Two: provide cultural context for art from a professional background. As a writer, Ebert often had insights about decisions a director made based on previous work, or helped outline a new film’s reflections of movies past. Whenever I watch a movie I’m not sure about, I can usually find a review archived on rogerebert.com that sheds some light on the stuff I was hung up on. And aside from a particular insight about, say, why an actor turns in a performance that they did, I also get to read about that particular film framed in the year it was released. For example, I recently watched the excellent Mississippi Masala which is an incredibly directed romantic drama from filmmaker Mira Nair. Ebert’s review, however, has complaints about the side action distracting from the main love story. Framed in a 1991 where Denzel Washington is poised to be one of the biggest leading men around, it makes sense that Ebert would be centered on Washington as a romantic lead. But 32 years later, the film holds better context with its in depth examination of Indian immigrants forced out of Uganda and how that cultural clash is exacerbated in their new hometown of Greenwood, Mississippi. Ebert’s review doesn’t have to be right—reading his review still solidified my thoughts and feelings about how I was affected by that piece of art.

I’m also a big fan of watching Tom Colicchio on Top Chef. In an era dominated by the mean reality show judge (a conceit that I fucking hate so much), Colicchio spends his time at the judges table talking frankly about the food he ate, why he liked it, or why he didn’t think the dish worked. It’s a fascinating, clinical breakdown of some of the most beautiful food we ever see on TV. I might not have been the biggest Josh Ozersky fan overall, but he made some incredibly salient points about food on TV when he critiqued Rene Redzepi of Noma: for as much as we knew him to be a celebrity chef, his food was absolutely inaccessible to viewers at home. It’s not quite a 1:1, but on Top Chef we’re stuck starting at plates instead of tasting them. Most reality competition shows are based on things we can assess with our eyes (fashion, cake decorating, etc.), so when Tom Colicchio breaks down what he was tasting and why it works (or doesn’t), we, as the audience, get to fully experience what went on at the dining table. He eschews bon mots and barbs for direct assessment in a way that I strive to incorporate into my own work.

The role of critics in our modern society, however, gets reappraised about every year or so. Recently, Jenny Lewis’ Twitter takedown of Pitchfork restarted an entire discourse about whether we need critics at all. I don’t totally disagree with Lewis’ original sentiment (personally I’ve always struggled with Pitchfork’s holier-than-thou approach to editorial tone while being rife with factual errors), but criticism is more than “this is good” or “this is bad,” and completely writing off a whole publication for a few bad reviews (okay maybe more than a few) also discredits the good work that has happened there. If only we had a better cultural definition of what a critic is. It doesn’t help that Jay Sherman was inundated with bad movies so incessantly that he had to coin his catchphrase.

It’s easier to understand where a critic is coming from when you get to see or hear or read about all the works they love before they talk about ones they don’t. And that’s a big reason why I’m obsessed with the Blank Check Podcast. Hosted by The Atlantic film critic David Sims and actor/comedian Griffin Newman, the show’s format follows director’s filmographies with in depth examination of each film over a podcast that’s often longer than the movie itself. And their enthusiasm is infectious. Sims and Newman tend to pick directors whose work they love, so when they dig deep into a movie (with the help of an extensive dossier prepared by researcher JJ Bersch), you get to hear a lot of the why a movie is so good, and how that came from decisions made by the filmmaker (or circumstances in which that film was made). Recently, the podcast covered the oeuvre of Korean director Park Chan-wook, and midway through watching Oldboy for the first time, I was excited about finishing it so I could listen to the Blank Check episode covering it. I knew I didn’t love the movie (similar to how I felt conflicted by Squid Game), but I also knew there was stuff in it that I was really drawn to. Listening to pros break down the techniques Park Chan-wook used to create the movie gave me an appreciation for what drew me to what was on the screen even if I didn’t want to rewatch Oldboy ever again. And knowing that both of them also have similar issues with the movie helped me work through my own hang ups about it.

It helps that Blank Check is also very funny—Sims and Newman do a great job riffing with their guests, which adds another dimension to the draw of the podcast. But I also think a lot about their episode on The Fablemans. It isn’t a movie I was banging down the door to see, and to be honest, I had a strong feeling that I was never really going to see it. When listening to Sims and Newman’s passionate breakdown of the movie’s Spielberg stand-in Sammy and how he’s almost crippled by an inane drive to understand the world through a camera, however, I became intrigued. On my own, I don’t know if I would have understood that The Fablemans is a fairly dark drama about compulsion and creativity. And even though I had the entirety of the movie’s plot explained to me over a period of three-ish hours, I feel compelled (and prepared!) to sit down with The Fabelmamns one day when I can set aside enough time to enjoy it. Because I know how much they love The Fabelmans, it was easier to dive into the things about The Lost World they didn’t like and why they didn’t work, and why that movie overall isn’t very good.

It’s not likely I’ll ever find a career as a music reviewer, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been able to immerse myself in a world of critical analysis for my day job. And while I don’t think I’ll make a living talking about how much I love a 50-year old Todd Rundgren album cut, I get to do that here. Instead, I make my living breaking down which wooden spoon is best suited for your cooking needs. And good news: people still have to buy wooden spoons. Maybe one day I’ll get to wax philosophical about cooking utensils for three hours on a podcast, but to be honest, I don’t think that tools have the same need for critical appraisal that art does.

I can help you figure out how to get the most bang for your buck when it comes to garlic presses, but we don’t need a full breakdown of why garlic presses matter in a broader, societal sense. But we do need help to understand cultural relevance of the movie Ishtar. And if you need to know why Ishtar actually owns bones, well, you can listen to Blank Check.

Read

It’s hard reading a newer work from a recently passed author, especially if it was published within a year of their death. And while The Passenger is mostly concerned with the suicide of the protagonists sister in her early 20s, it includes long, philosophical conversations between our main man Bobby Western and his dirtbag New Orleans friends. There’s a hint of an action plot as Western is pursued by some sort of government agency, but where No Country For Old Men zigs, this one zags. No one chases him down dark alleys. No one takes shots at him in an Arizona motel. Instead, his bank accounts are seized, and he bounces around a bit trying to delay the inevitable (which, he is assured by his private investigator friend, will be imprisonment). As much as death haunts Bobby in this book (his friends start dropping like flies), his evasion tactics and refusal to meet his pursuers head on becomes the core metaphor for mortality. McCarthy may have started writing this one in 1980, but it was published 42 years later and he knew, just like Western knew, that his time was running out. I can’t say it’s the most focused or riveting Cormac McCarthy novel out there, but it’s worth reading and spending time with the conversations each character has with each other and how they might relate to your own approach to life’s Big Questions.

Watch

The aforementioned Blank Check podcast just did a series on Korean director Park Chan-wook and I’m extremely grateful. Some directors have an extremely dense visual style that’s hard to break into, and Park Chan-wook is chief amongst them. Thirst is his vampire movie that’s loosely based on a Victorian-era French novel by Émile Zola, and boy it’s a doozy. It’s also one of the only vampire movies that doesn’t even pretend to belong in the horror genre. The movie starts with a potentially suicidal priest volunteering for a deadly virus vaccine program. When he (predictably) kicks it from the virus, he receives a blood transfusion that makes him into a vampire. From then on, he battles a new set of physical urges and has to square his quaint, depressed priest life with, you know, being a fucking blood sucking monster. It’s an incredible movie with some of the wildest slapstick moments during its ending, and since it’s not quite a horror flick it’s a great watch for proto-spooky season.

Listen

In the early 70s, Todd Rundgren was a do-it-all wunderkind dabbling in the early era of power pop. Soon after he formed his prog group Utopia, and after putting on an album (or two?) he took his newfound exploration of instruments back to the original formula. “Cold Morning Light” plays with half time, doubled up arpeggiated guitar parts, and a “why not a waltz” time signature shift for the chorus (triggered perfectly when Rundgren sings “dance with me”). It’s every bit as complex as the best Quincy Jones arrangement, and while saccharine-sweet, it’s a lovely little pop ballad that goes well with cooler evenings.

Consume

Okay, I know this is a chicken piccata recipe, but you don’t have to make the piccata sauce. Instead, you can make just the cutlets and use them for sandwiches or topping a caesar salad (which is what I do). The secret to the recipe is double seasoning: get a good layer of salt directly on the chicken, don't mess with any seasoning in the breading, and then sprinkle with more salt when it’s out of the fry and still hot. Protein loves salt, and it makes the flavor of the meat pop. It’s a dead simple recipe and process, and if you don't want to pound out chicken breasts you can just buy pre-sliced breasts (which are sometimes more consistent in thickness, too).

Artwork by Ashley Elander Strandquist. You can view her illustration work here and check out her printing business here.