NYT Movie Critic Abandons Career Because Movies Suck

It's difficult for me to believe that he lived through the Braveheart, Titanic, Robin Hood, Forrest Gump, Independence Day era and he only NOW thinks that movies suck.

The 1990s had a lot more variety, but I don't think a more varied output of vanilla studio product is somehow better than what we're seeing now, which is all superhero studio product.

I am a daily listener of The Daily OP, and that was a bittersweet episode.

I agree with Scott and with you too about the current state of movies, but I thought he downplayed the role that streaming has had: (a) that people who would have been making indie films in the 90s are now making TV series and (b) Netflix buys a lot of indie films but does nothing to promote them, so they just sort of disappear into the ether and never get any notice.

His story about why he became a film critic is great: he was living in Paris for a few months-- his mother was working there---and he was 15 and knew no one, so he'd go to small cinemas to watch old classic American movies.

He had no one to discuss them with afterwards so he started to look up reviews of the films and would have imaginary conversations in his head with Pauline Kael, Vincent Canby and others.

Which is why he regards film criticism as a conversation not a dictate.

I've been a film buff since birth - loved watching even very old movies (including silents) when I was 6 or 7 - and I have absolutely zero interest in 99% of today's movies. They're a completely different animal than they were even 25 years ago.

R1, you took the words right out of my mouth.

I sat here and thought (in my groggy, early morning state) about the last movie I saw that I really liked, and it was 2020s Nomadland (I know, I know -- but I love motorcycle road trips and I found it romantic in an odd kind of way). There's simply nothing made anymore that I actually want to see.

That said, there have been some fairly recent TV series I've really enjoyed. I liked Maid, The Cleaning Lady (the original from Argentina), Severance, Mare of Easttown -- there have been a few. But I've pretty much given up on movies, especially since I faithfully read the DL reviews.

Thanks for the post, OP.

I was a film critic for about a decade and you're not going to want to hear this, but most film critics are not paid to write good reviews. They're manipulated into writing good reviews.

The film review system is such that you do better if you're a suck-up. Studios and their publicity machine favor outlets who give them good reviews, so outlets favor their critics who give these big movies good reviews all the time, because they will then get access to more movies and more pre-release publicity. Places like NYT shouldn't need to worry about it, but the mid-size online-only sites really need Disney or Paramount or whoever to send them pre-release publicity, so they can get hits from the articles they write about it. They also like the free passes and such.

Then when awards season comes, their critics will be more likely to get award screeners if those critics have routinely given out good reviews.

This is even true for Blu-ray releases from boutique distributors, or indie movies, or low-budget fare. I was writing for an online streaming service and the editor, Kristen Lopez, told me to either write nothing but good things about every film I was assigned, or get fired. I got fired. She's editor at The Wrap now, so you know what that means.

I would write reviews for Warner Bros. made-on-demand DVDs for a website that reviewed only old films, and the Warner Bros. publicity lady would consistently send me nasty emails, and once even told me that some right-wing blogger who would write "this Humphrey Bogart movie shows why Trump is so great" blog posts was "better" than me and "why can't you write like her?" Maybe it was political, but I'd bet it was more about the fact that the Trumpster lady always said "5 stars, best DVD ever!"

Everywhere online, people who plagiarized or wrote absolute gibberish, as long as they topped it with "5 stars!" in the title, were constantly getting free passes, awards screeners, tons of social media follows, organization memberships, you name it.

You have to play the game, and the studios and distributors decides who wins and who loses. There's a reason a LOT of good film websites went out of business several years ago. They were providing real film writing, and there's no market in that.

R2 My experience was similar in the '90s—but in Virginia, not Paris. 😬

There were so many great movies during that Miramax era, and my first job was at Blockbuster Video. The job sucked, but I had access to endless movies. I started reading Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone for movie and music reviews and ended up subscribing to them and Movieline and a variety of screenwriting magazines, and then majoring in film and media studies.

I didn't know a single person who had any interest in movies as anything but a pastime, and most people liked blockbuster summer action movies or mindless comedies, so engaging with informed and insightful written criticisms was a surrogate way to converse and process artistry.

His mother is Joan Scott, the hugely influential gender historian.

Why this hysteria, why are people acting like the only film critic just left the biz? He'd been at it for almost a quarter of a century, he got bored of it, now someone else will take his place. Just like at any other workplace.

Define "hysteria," R8. Because I'm not seeing anything remotely approaching hysteria as I understand the term.

DL has had lively threads debating both Tár and Banshees of Inisherin.

Both these movies feel like legitimate movies from the pre-MCU days. They're not perfect, but it's thrilling to me that we still get an occasional thoughtful feature film.

As the critic discussed here said, good movies provoke discussion and debate among people. Factory movies don't.

Just googled him - (I am R2)

He is much older than I would have thought --he's 56---and also looks nothing like what I thought.

I don't pay any attention to most of the marvel and DC movies but sometimes I would see their rotten tomatoes scores and be surprised by how well they scored. I wondered why the critics were so impressed. At best, like black panther, they are fun action flicks in passing but hardly worth stratospheric scores and praise. I think a big factor are younger critics who are likely more accepting of corporate movies. It's what they are used to.

When I was a teen I felt so grown up because I watched ivory merchant movies or indies that introduced me to up and coming actors like Daniel day Lewis and Gary Oldman. Sure I watched the big mainstream fare too but it was mixed in with "serious" cinema.

It's bewildering that 30 years later, my generation is watching marvel movies in large numbers. These movies aren't making a billion just from the kids.

Since no one goes to the movies 🎥 anymore- no one cares

"He said he finds it unnerving in that audiences no longer think independently but rather follow and consume all they are given ..."

what the fuck - his whole job was to provide content for people to follow and consume what they were given.

what he means, of course, is that the times' opinion of a movie is utterly irrelevant, and he's too pretentious to be irrelevant.

It's funny that he likes the dialogue of these superhero movies because, whenever I've seen an ad for one of them, there was something about the humour that really rubbed me up the wrong way. Maybe it's the way they occasionally use jokes and dialogue which sound like something from our world and are thus out of place in the fictional world? It just seems really half-arsed to me.

[quote]It's difficult for me to believe that he lived through the Braveheart, Titanic, Robin Hood, Forrest Gump, Independence Day era and he only NOW thinks that movies suck.

Being a critic for decades wears you down. You have to see so much (or read so much, hear so much), and much of what you see starts reminding you of things that were similar and better. If some of those '90s films had never existed and they were released today, he'd probably view them through a jaundiced eye.

I believe movies in the 2020s are approximately as good as they were in the 1990s, but I'm much more selective in what I see now. There's a lot I sat through in the '90s that I'd never pay for today, and may not even want to watch for free.

[quote] It's difficult for me to believe that he lived through the Braveheart, Titanic, Robin Hood, Forrest Gump, Independence Day era and he only NOW thinks that movies suck.

There have always been bad movies and money-grab movies, but back then, those were not *all* the movies.

Titanic came out in 1997. So did Good Will Hunting, Jackie Brown, The Fifth Element, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, LA Confidential, As Good As It Gets, Seven Years in Tibet, The Devil's Advocate, 12 Angry Men, Into Thin Air, fucking EVE'S BAYOU. And also scores of assorted-quality movies, high and low budget.

Meanwhile, the past decade has been totally dominated by comic book movies.

I go to the movies with my dad during the Christmas holiday and the multiplex always has 2-3 theatres dedicated to each comic book movie, and comic book movies are 80-90% of what is playing. It doesn't leave much to bother with. We saw Bombshell, the Lifetime-caliber false biopic of Megyn Kelly, one year because everything else in the theatre was a CGI extravaganza.

Pauline Kael had a taste for trash movies, but the trash she enjoyed was completely different from the trash of today, which is just vacuous studio product. Kael's trash had charm and vitality. (Her essay, "Trash, Art, and the Movies" is peerless and includes this great line: "I don't trust anyone who doesn't admit having at some point in his life enjoyed trashy American movies.")

Every once in a while, an interesting movie comes out. FWIW, I liked Chappaquiddick (2017) and, a decade earlier, Zodiac. Otherwise, I'm sticking with pre-1970 flicks. The good stuff! Dana Andrews and Audrey Totter. Dirk Bogarde. Astaire and Rogers. Ahhh....

I agree with Scott. Films no longer have anything new to say. Watching movies is no longer a transformative experience that leaves you thinking.

[quote] When I was a teen I felt so grown up because I watched ivory merchant movies

Oh dear

A lot of rubbish film were made in the 1990s. Too many to count.

But I do recall going to the movies once a week back then and during the summer, sometimes more often.

LOL

A lot of trashy and bad films are made in EVERY era.

There's a huge audience for that.

Sort of why James Patterson novels top best seller lists

True but there are very few masters of the cinema working today. The trashg quotient has increased.

Enough said.

R5. I think people will find that's true of essentially every kind of rating institution or agency, regardless of industry/field.

If you create a rating "free market", people are going to gravitate towards those who can best cater to their demands.

Most film criticism these days is just a form of advertising and sadly most moviegoers are fine with that.

That much said, most of the films nominated for Oscars this year were not formulaic or unoriginal (Top Gun Maverick excepted).

R23, my comment was aimed at posters saying there were trashy big budget movies in the 90s so clearly that era sucked.

Be prepared for his inevitable book about the industry and what's wrong with it.

The movies from the 70's are crap. And then there was Dirty Harry. Formulaic? And the spaghetti westerns.

Studios claim audiences viewing habits have changed. They say that in oder to get people into theaters to watch a movie on the big screen, it has to be an "event" and be big and splashy and have lots of visual effects. So they blame us. LOL!

1970s were a high point for American filmmaking, Network, Dog Day Afternoon, The Exorcist, many others

I stopped watching contemporary movies almost completely about a decade ago (around the time The Artist undeservedly won almost every award imaginable and that pretentious POS The Tree of Life received rave reviews). Luckily there's still thousands of older good movies (and an occasional decent new release) worth seeing so I'm not afraid of running out of good films anytime soon.

This doesn't even list all my favorite movies from the 90s, and it has some really brilliant movies.

Snowflake "Critic" Hates His "Job" Getting Paid to Watch Movies All Day

I have been on a movie binge, watching older films from the 30's to the 80's. No films now , with a few exceptions like Moonlight and Banshees of Inisheram, come close to these. I have pretty much stopped going to the movies in theaters because they are showing either comic book films or propaganda like Maverick. Also, there are no actors who can compare to Cary Grant (anything from light comedy to heavy drama}, Paul Newman, Barbara Stanwyck, even Bette Davis, although sometimes too mannered. Whom do we have now? Brad Pitt? Margot Robbie? Paul Mescal? Tried liking the wunder kid's Babylon, which was a steaming pile of crap.

Any decade that produces The Goodbye Girl sucks.

HATE PULP FICTION. HATE PEOPLE WHO LOVE PULP FICTION. Love Jackie Brown,a masterpiece.

Journalist for paper that sucks more each year doesn’t want to review movies that suck more each year.

Music reviewers nowadays just lick the ass of every mainstream artist as well

I am now an older person. I refuse to see movies in a movie theater and will only watch movies at home or on a computer.

Watching movies on a computer screen is just sad.

The golden age of the movies ended long before the 90s.

Well given that it's still 1987 on Datalounge...

r41 So is paying $20+ to see a lousy comic book movie.

Young people don't see movies in movie theaters, ask them.

There aren't any young people here to ask.

The vast majority of Hollywood product is and has always been bad, derivative and unnecessary but I thought it was the job of the critic to elevate new and interesting talent.

The Marvel Universe is not for everybody but wasn’t the point of “Sullivan’s Travels”, Preston Sturges’s satire of a movie director who decides he wants to make socially conscious ‘art’, that these silly films bring a lot of joy to people and that in and itself should be respected?

I like to check out the nominees from the Independent spirit awards and usually find some good stuff. I also check out the movies on the film festival circuit. only a handful are commercial Oscar fast track movies. Most are good quality but lack the budget or the influence to get the kind of marketing the bigshots get.

Young people today are all about manifesting.

Let's manifest them!

Young people! Young people of the world! Hear us now! Appear to us!

We have a matter of dire urgency!

Young people: Do you go to movie theatres or just watch Netflix?

They will come.

Manifesting is a real thing.

Manifesting works. And these laws of attraction exist.

We only watch 15 second tik tok videos that steal all our "private" information for the Chinese.

Is there a 15 second version of Larry of Arabia?

R51 All you need to know about Arabian Larry! RACIST.

History is so racist!

But it's not after Ron DeSantis edits out all the parts that make us feel bad!

Old movies from the '80s are problematic.

Ban old movies up through 2012, when The Avengers came out and the good movie era began.

Breakfast at Tiffany's is ICONIC but PROBLEMATIC.

She ended up DNFing it.

Whatever that means.

It means Did Not Finish, R55. I think. I wouldn't take advice from that person anyway.

I always intended Lawrence of Arabia to be seen on a 3-inch phone screen.

R56 She was talking about the novel, and I read the novel and liked it a lot.

I'm perplexed that students today are taught to completely ignore all cultural context and differences that occur over time and instead just condemn anything that is not an activist manifesto.

So many shit movies made in the 1980s. A real low point for filmmaking. But many are "so bad, it's good" and deserve to be watched on this basis.

All the movies are now is comicbook dumbass shit and the occasional pretentious Oscar bait flick. TV's better now.

I agree, R59. There are so many great movies from the 1930s-1970s and then again in the 90s, but the 80s has so few great movies.

Rolling Stone places Die Hard and Raiders of the Lost Ark among the top 20. Not an era of high art.

I'm a working movie critic and there are still a lot of good movies that still come out today - you have to try harder, look to foreign and obscure stuff. But that's our jobs - to dig through the endless junk and find the gems. It's fucking exhausting and I get why Scott's exhausted by it. I would be fine never sitting through another DC heap of garbage for the rest of my life.

And everything r5 says rings true, too - the big movie sites are full of ass-kissers who live off access. They don't get paid exactly by the studios but they do get flown to sets and to hang out with celebrities and that's as good as pay.

I have a second job, otherwise I'd never survive off what I make reviewing, but at least the sites I do write for let me write what I think and shit on whatever I want to. That much is a privilege.

[quote] Specifically, he says that the movies are criticism-resistant because they're not self-contained, and because they've intentionally cultivated obsessive fandoms who do not accept the idea of honest reviews and criticism. Questioning any choices or expressing any dissatisfaction with any aspect of any MCU-type movie immediately results in personal attacks and accusations of being a 'hater.' He said he finds it unnerving in that audiences no longer think independently but rather follow and consume all they are given, and he said he worries that the corporate influence over movies, and the eager acceptance of it, is contributing to an acceptance of authoritarian leadership that demands people follow and never question decisions made by those of their respective factions.

Sounds like K-pop.

[quote]The movies from the 70's are crap. And then there was Dirty Harry. Formulaic? And the spaghetti westerns.

That's okay if you prefer Wonder Woman and Borat. But you're an idiot.

All reviews today are paid for and god help you if you give a negative review to something that has black actors attached to it. No one will dare say how they honestly feel about anything today for fear of a lynch mob.

[quote] She ended up DNFing it.

Please speak English. You’re part of the problem.

[quote] The film review system is such that you do better if you're a suck-up. Studios and their publicity machine favor outlets who give them good reviews, so outlets favor their critics who give these big movies good reviews all the time, because they will then get access to more movies and more pre-release publicity. Places like NYT shouldn't need to worry about it, but the mid-size online-only sites really need Disney or Paramount or whoever to send them pre-release publicity, so they can get hits from the articles they write about it. They also like the free passes and such.

This makes a lot of sense.

They’re still giving plastic bags out in the suburbs while cities have banned them. The rich are not going to go bagless like the poors.

I agree with all of Scott’s points about the state of the industry, though I suspect his retirement is probably more age-related coincidence than anything. No way is a 40-year old person giving up that gig at the NYT, no matter how many MCU slogfests he has to sit through. Age 56? Makes more sense.

Some of his work:

[quote] When reviewing Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, Scott wrote "Maybe not everyone who is white is a racist, but racism is what makes us white".

🙄

[quote] It's funny that he likes the dialogue of these superhero movies because, whenever I've seen an ad for one of them, there was something about the humour that really rubbed me up the wrong way. Maybe it's the way they occasionally use jokes and dialogue which sound like something from our world and are thus out of place in the fictional world? It just seems really half-arsed to me.

This is written like Jennifer Coolidge pretending to be British.

It's not unheard-of for Times arts critics to move to book criticism when they get tired of having to keep up with the weekly pressures of their previous beat.

[quote] His mother is Joan Scott, the hugely influential gender historian.

He looks just like her in a wig and a beard.

[quote] His mother is Joan Scott, the hugely influential gender historian.

He looks just like her but with a wig and a beard on.

It's not like he's going to be making less money as a book credit.

LOL - book CRITIC

R5 Can you spill a little more about Lopez? She always seemed like a real pill.

"I was thrilled to see this because it validated MY opinions!"

R43, Datalounge wasn't around until the 90s.

You know, there are good films out here. They may not be well known or "sexy" in terms of their marketing budget, they may not have the force of the MCU or DC or whom ever, but there here. And what this critic saying to me, is that he's pissed off because the movies he wants to review don't get enough attention, and consequently, neither does he. He ought to find a niche for himself and do his thing if he really does love movies.

[quote] You know, there are good films out here.

A handful, R80. And a handful does not sustain a critic if they're writing year round.

Scott is right to get out. Even Pauline Kael thought most movies sucked, and she truly was writing in a golden age of movies. She saw them getting worse as the years went on.

R5 she looks like a troll, not in the internet sense, but an actual troll doll.

R5 of course she does a “Queer” podcast. Does she walk with a cane? She looks like she would walk with a cane.

Called it, her Instagram has #disability

R84 I thought she was in a wheelchair. I always get her confused with that awful SassyMammaLA or whateverthefuck her Twitter is. I read some of the latter's reviews one time and couldn't believe how bad they were. It felt like something I would have written in middle school. And yet she's always on Twitter bitching about how no one will hire her.

I don't blame AO Scott for leaving. Most of the people who have actually made it as critics have a trust fund to fall back on, as the jobs pay absolute shit now. People just look at audience scores and overall ratings like Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic. Reviews went out with the newspapers.

Yes Kael gave up movie reviewing because she was sick of seeing movies she hated. But as well she was getting old and was not well.

Being old and unwell only added to the situation. She had limited physical capabilities, and she knew the movies weren't worth the effort.