{"id":1035,"date":"2006-07-19T06:09:28","date_gmt":"2006-07-19T11:09:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/everyones-a-critic\/"},"modified":"2006-07-19T06:09:28","modified_gmt":"2006-07-19T11:09:28","slug":"everyones-a-critic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/everyones-a-critic","title":{"rendered":"Everyone’s a critic"},"content":{"rendered":"

NYTimes movie critic A.O. Scott wonders why people go to bad movies, and why the hell he gets up in the morning<\/a>:<\/p>\n

For the second time this summer, then, my colleagues and I must face a frequently \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and not always politely \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009d asked question: What is wrong with you people? I will, for now, suppress the impulse to turn the question on the moviegoing public, which persists in paying good money to see bad movies that I see free. I don\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t for a minute believe that financial success contradicts negative critical judgment; $500 million from now, “Dead Man\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s Chest” will still be, in my estimation, occasionally amusing, frequently tedious and entirely too long. But the discrepancy between what critics think and how the public behaves is of perennial interest because it throws into relief some basic questions about taste, economics and the nature of popular entertainment, as well as the more vexing issue of what, exactly, critics are for.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NYTimes movie critic A.O. Scott wonders why people go to bad movies, and why the hell he gets up in the morning: For the second time this summer, then, my colleagues and I must face a frequently \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and not always politely \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009d asked question: What is wrong with you people? I will, for now, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Everyone’s a critic”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-gH","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":15316,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-490-alexandra-lange","url_meta":{"origin":1035,"position":0},"title":"Episode 490 – Alexandra Lange","author":"Gil","date":"June 14, 2022","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 490: Alexandra Lange \"A lot of people try to think about the geography of the mall in the context of the outside. The outside is not important. Ignore the outside and get into the center and work your way out from there.\" With her fantastic new book,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/langecomp.jpg?fit=1102%2C800&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/langecomp.jpg?fit=1102%2C800&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/langecomp.jpg?fit=1102%2C800&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/langecomp.jpg?fit=1102%2C800&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/langecomp.jpg?fit=1102%2C800&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":17574,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-642-david-denby","url_meta":{"origin":1035,"position":1},"title":"Episode 642 – David Denby","author":"Gil","date":"June 9, 2025","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 642: David Denby \"What if Jews had freedom they never had before, and they had it in the United States?\" With his fantastic new book, EMINENT JEWS (Holt), writer and critic David Denby explores the impact on American culture of Jews Unbound through profiles of Leonard Bernstein,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/denby2025comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C706&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/denby2025comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C706&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/denby2025comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C706&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/denby2025comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C706&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/denby2025comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C706&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":16581,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-573-david-thomson","url_meta":{"origin":1035,"position":2},"title":"Episode 573 – David Thomson","author":"Gil","date":"January 23, 2024","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 573: David Thomson \"Our use of television now is different than in its first 50 or so years, because it's saying to us now, 'You do realize you're alone in this world and that the sense of authority you had in the medium is not longer there.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/thomson2024comp.jpg?fit=1050%2C800&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/thomson2024comp.jpg?fit=1050%2C800&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/thomson2024comp.jpg?fit=1050%2C800&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/thomson2024comp.jpg?fit=1050%2C800&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/thomson2024comp.jpg?fit=1050%2C800&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12360,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-328-emily-nussbaum","url_meta":{"origin":1035,"position":3},"title":"Episode 328 – Emily Nussbaum","author":"Gil","date":"July 8, 2019","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 328: Emily Nussbaum \"I come out of the online community and I feel TV criticism specifically is a conversation. 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