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The grand irony of Roger Ebert’s career is that he became an icon of the thumb, of bite-sized opinions presented as a consumer service, yet on the essential matter of voice, you couldn’t find a critic who spoke (or wrote) more urgently, more eloquently, more passionately, or with a more fascinating thrust of personality.
There’s every chance that the target audience for The Lucky One will still cry a happy tear at the end. Maybe the movie should come with a credit that reads: “Just add water.”
Every couple of years, Hollywood remembers that there’s this weirdly esoteric, fringe-group demographic — I believe the term for it is “women” — who actually enjoy seeing their lives portrayed on screen every bit as much as men do.
If there’s a lesson in the booting of Pia Toscano, it’s that criticism, when it’s offered by people who know what they’re doing, isn’t evil. It’s a force that enriches, an aesthetic helping hand, a declaration of reality that helps the best artists to prevail. Let’s hope that tonight the judges remember what they’re there for. Let’s hope that they start judging.
Owen Gleiberman eloquently explains how American Idol has proven why critics do matter.
It was obvious that Charlie Sheen found the mounting audience hostility at Radio City a little flabbergasting. He jeered at the jeerers, and often seemed to be saying, with a grimace of attitude: Why the hell are you people heckling me if you paid to see me? He didn’t seem to get that the audience was answering back: “Because we didn’t want you to suck.”
Quoth the critic: “Bieber, performing with guests like Boyz II Men, gives every number a shot of high pizzazz. If this is what it sounds like when a new millennium goes pop, I’ll take it.”