I've always had a bit of a problem with food critics. Because you can say that something wasn't prepared according the the receipe, but you can't say that it didn't taste good. Or, more accurately, you can only say that you didn't like it. Who knows what the next person will like.

Media critics, as well, can only really say that they enjoyed a movie, or that they thought it was good or bad or the best movie of the year. It's all opinion, all subjective. It is frequently not presented as opinion, but fact.

Well, there's according to the recipe, and there's authentic, for instance. If a restaurant makes a mockery of Jamaican food, I'm not going to go there for a taste of home, and I don't mind knowing that up front.

If I'm in the mood for a nice adventure movie, and something being sold as one fails to meet genre criteria that the critic tells me about -- I've been done a service.

Ita-true, and I shouldn't have. (That's what comes of switching back and forth between this board and another where I've been arguing about Bushonomics.) Still, I think the word used in the phrase "entire class of people" takes on a different meaning, as if I was oppressing some historical minority group.

I can't apologise for what you inferred from it, since those are the words I meant to use, and I don't get that subtext from it.

Well, sure, ita. But you'd have to know the critic to take their opinon, wouldn't you? On food, film, fun.

I wasn't looking for apologies, from you or Sean. I was merely expressing my general disdain for professional film critics. I suspect that is a minority view around here-though apparently not entirely a solitary one.

But you'd have to know the critic to take their opinon, wouldn't you?

IME you can tell a lot by reading between the lines--also, a good reviewer will tell you things like how authentic a restaurant is to an ethnic cuisine or how seriously a historical romance takes the history side of the equation. With movies, if there's any doubt over whether or not I want to see it, I read a selection of reviews--I figure 10 minutes getting a feel for critical consensus is worth it if it saves me wasting money or time on a crap movie, or gets me to try something good where the premise and previews alone wouldn't have hooked me.

But you'd have to know the critic to take their opinon, wouldn't you? On food, film, fun.

Absolutely. Just like I need to know your taste history before I can know how relevant your opinions are to my potential future enjoyment.

If I'm going to make a decision on what to partake of, and what not ... I have to take someone's word for quality. Evaluate the critics, to help me ration what I sample.

Hmm.

You know, we do *have* people who do reviews as more than just a hobby on the board. Just a thought.

Well, sure, ita. But you'd have to know the critic to take their opinon, wouldn't you? On food, film, fun.

I'd just have to have some knowledge of the critic. I wouldn't take Joe Critic's word for something unless I'd previously read Joe Critic's work, found that Joe Critic and I agreed on things X, Y, but not Z, and then made my will I or won't I based on a combination of what Joe Critic had said before and my own pre-existing opinions about the subject or food type.

I'm not asking for an apology, ted, I just don't understand why film critics are any more or less worthy of contempt (again, your word) than you, or me, or anybody else who reviews a film.

Is it because they have an opinion, or because some of them get paid to give it?