mitch f. anderson

I am not anti film critic. I love film criticism. It is essential to have smart brains giving real analysis on the most dominant art form of our lifetime. However, the field is muddled with groupthink and ideological dogma, not to mention a mass infestation of Dunning-Krugerism. Politically the line starts left of center, and only grows more acceptable as the graph goes left. It's bad for movies but, more importantly, it's disconnected from half of the country, if not the world. I doubt all of these credentialed critics are as party line as their collective would make them out to be. They are under the same pressures of being cancelled as any other job, if not more due to the need for readership. But there's no excuse. You chose to to be a public voice, and if you calibrate one word of it to placate employers, audiences, and your paycheck out of repercussions, you are the sellout you accuse many filmmakers of being. Film criticism is very important work. It frames the mass hallucination of our time - moving images - and the basic rule is to keep it honest. The most honest person in the room is often the least popular. They exist, they are few, and yes, they are unpopular. Anyway if your thinking is groupthink, either you don't have the skill to realize it, surpass it, or you're faking it.