I'm not going to go as far and say that Stephanie Zacharek doesn't like any movies. I vaguely recall a few positive reviews about this or that over the past year. However, lately it seems as if she's been drifting a bit from the actual focus of the review - the movie - to tangents related to whatever it is she's ranting about at that moment, at the expense of the actual movie review.

In this review, for example, she takes it a bit too far. There's what, a paragraph about the new Pink Panther movie in here, amidst a two-page review? The rest of the space is spent discussing another movie that is vaguely related to the one she's complaining about by virtue of its stars, and a dissection of "where Steve Martin went wrong" by touching on many of his past movies.

I think Stephanie Zacharek needs to lighten up for one, but secondly she needs to spend a little more time providing content and commentary about the reason most people actually read movie reviews - the movie itself.

I agree with abbymiles - it'd be nice to see some movie reviews from a reviewer who actually seems to like movies. All I have to do is see a deprecating headline about a movie on Salon and I know it's a review by Stephanie Zacharek. What a chore it must be for her to have to suffer through viewing such atrocities of film.

Her multiple admonishments of 'preachy infotainment' in this movie - which I disagree with, I don't see how they could have avoided making it a message movie other than not mentioning it was based on real history - make me think she has a few 'diamonds in the closet' herself - whose source she'd rather not think about.