On criticism
I’ve had a fair few people tell me that critics are useless because, hey, how can Roger Ebert know what I’ll think about a given movie? He can’t. So fuck that guy, amirite? I mean, amirite??
I suppose that position would hold water if all Roger Ebert did were list a whole bunch of star ratings. Ratings are basically the headlines of the review business — they don’t carry near enough information for you to understand the whole story, but they give you the proper context to evaluate what the review is going to say. And it’s the job of a reviewer not just to rate things but to explain why he’s done so. I’ve liked a fair few movies Ebert has rated low, and I’ve disliked a good many he’s rated highly. But that doesn’t make his work useless to me, since there’s plenty of text there that I can read to find out whether or not we’ll agree.
Now, I’m a critic myself, so you may say that I’m just making excuses. And, hey, if that’s your thing, be that way. But there are a lot of movies and books and video games out there, and there’s just no way you can sift through them all by hand. Having a trustworthy source evaluate them for you is a major advantage.
So you need to know how to identify a trustworthy critic — someone you won’t necessarily agree with, but someone you know isn’t feeding you a bunch of bullshit for personal gain. As in, somebody who isn’t being paid by the people whose products he’s reviewing. All I’m saying is, when you’re reading a 10/10 review (of, say, Metal Gear Solid 4) on Gamespot, and the window background and sidebars are papered with ads for that same game, well, think long and hard before you take that 10/10 at face value.
Decent reviewers aren’t on the payroll of the people they review, like Roger Ebert or Dan Rutter or, hey, me. When I tell you Super Mario Galaxy is great, it’s not because Nintendo told me to. It’s because it is. So, what, I’m a big man now? I’m saying I’m better than Gamespot? Come on, seriously.
Have you ever known me not to say a thing like that?
