Friday

There was a cinema critic critic in the newspaper the other day. She was accusing some film journalists of not fully committing to the task assigned them, sometimes not even seeing the movies they are reviewing. This is quite astonishing. How, or why, would they do this? The extent of human laziness and incompetence never fails to amaze me. Her prime, and perhaps only, target was Johnny Vaughan, the writer for the Sun newspaper (incidentally, or maybe not, the one that draws the largest audience). She claimed that he had not been seen at press viewings of films for a long time, yet reviews appeared weekly in his paper. She claimed that his readers deserved better. His argument was that he had special arrangements with film companies. The film companies denied this. She also targetted regional newspaper critics, and whilst I am not sure about Johnny Vaughan I would have to agree with her on this. I've noticed they are almost incapable of making negative remarks about a film, unless it is obviously terrible. I know some people simply interpret the word 'critic' to mean 'negative comments', but I believe only making positive comments is as bad as, if not worse than, this. Incidentally, the best newspaper critic would have to have been John Betjeman with his verse reviews of films.