10 Things We Think About Movie Critics by Kathleen Murphy

MSN's homepage today had this article on why movie critics are so evil and how they need to stop being so nit-picky about superhero films and other terrible films (in my opinion) that we waste money to make.
To me, Kathleen Murphy, the woman who wrote this article, sounds like a teenage boy with her terrible grammar, her use of slang and warped taste in what "good" cinema is. She thinks that she is "stickin' it to the man" when in reality, she just sounds ignorant. I realize that she is attempting to relate to the "everyman", but come on; these guys (the critics) have been around so long and are so "ancient" because they know what they are doing - simple as that. Do they put kindergartner's' finger paintings in the New Yorker? I don't think so. The critics are the polished educated ones (and they are dwindling in this country), the "elite" as she calls them, because they don't relate to the stereotypical image of what the "everyman" is watching. If we wanted a review that related to general society's perception of what a good film is, I'd ask my eleven year old little brother to write it - and he could probably do a better job than someone of her "Dude, like Tropic Thunder was a waaay good flick" mentality would.
Maybe I'm on a high horse, but I loathe stupid movies - I don't dare call them films - because they are not. They are a waste of time and money, and I'm really quite angered by the fact that she belittled films (that are masterpieces!) like Brokeback Mountain and No Country for Old Men. I have one final thing to say and that is this (it was a bumper sticker I saw one day): "Read a fucking book."

"Not everybody has to go up Brokeback Mountain or into some country that's not for old men to get all sad and soulful. I mean, Batman's parents got murdered, his girl's blown to smithereens, and now the Joker's all up in his face with, "You complete me." How heavy is that?"

"You gotta realize you aren't writing about Shakespeare or Picasso here -- just consumer reports on what lots and lots of regular folk use to kill time over the weekend. Some of you write so dead-serious it's like you think someone's grading you, or civilization as we know it hangs on your every word."

"Why waste my time showing off how much you know about the film's director or what genre it's in and how it measures up to the last 40-something examples of that genre or how the movie fits into the grand scheme of things cinematic?"

"Mostly we don't pay much attention to you anyway -- we already pretty much know what's hot and what's not, from ad raves and RottenTomatoes.com blurbs and "Entertainment Tonight" reports. Jacked directly into the action, we don't need snobby critics for middlemen."

"Some critics are frustrated teachers, looking for a captive class. They claim we need them because they're more educated, more informed, about movies -- as if we care. They go all gaga about "the sensual and aesthetic joys of movies -- the interplay of light and shadow, composition, movement, faces, color, sound, music, language, acting"! Is this dude trippin' or what?"

http://movies.msn.com/movies/moviesfeature/dvd/critics/?GT1=28101