What the Post Says the Times Says Their Critics Do .....

It's a common point of discussion among us, especially the last few days of the week, when previews, reviews and interviews about arts and entertainment fill the pages and the aiwaves of the media ..... "Just what was that critic thinking?" ..... "Did s/he see the same movie/play/show/concert that I did?" .....

It's a tie that binds us all together, and encourages discussion among us ..... we may not know art, but we know what we like ..... and we're all happy to share our likes and our dislikes, our picks and our pans, our thumbs-up and our thumbs-down with whoever passes our desk, the water cooler, or our little corner of the blogosphere .....

Most critique of the arts can serve a useful purpose ..... I am, I think, a better film-viewer thanks to the Cinematic Eye series (thirty years ago) on PBS. This series originally included thirteen international classics - Shoeshine, La Strada, L'Avrentura, Hobson's Choice, Man of Aran, Rules of the Game, Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast, Jules et Jim, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, M, Torment, Smiles of a Summer Night, and The Battleship Potemkin. Benjamin Dunlap provided a lecture before and after each selection, that covered background information on the historical context, production data, significance, and techniques of the individual films.

That doesn't necessarily limit the scope of critique, though ..... some may believe they are nothing less than "the central arbiter of taste and culture" in their community ..... case in point, the New York Times, which found itself in the news recently for adopting that very mantle ..... a 'discussion' of said mantle is well-covered here by their ink-stained Gotham brethren, the New York Post.

Thanks to Frank at BOOKS, INQ. for the heads-up.