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• Sunday, April 23, 2006 02:03 PM

  Rotten Tomatoes, Indeed

  If you need a consensus to form your opinion, I don't envy you. Zacharek is a critic who makes it clear how ludicrously stupid a site like Rotten Tomatoes is. Her reviews are never "Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down;" I've often seen a quote of hers on that site labeled with a "splat," when I felt the review was relatively positive.

  Consider this quote about Friends with Money from Bruce Newman of the San Jose Mercury News: "I think I liked Aniston's old friends better." Now, does that actually tell me anything? I could go read Newman's full review, but what would that mean, if I've never read any of his others?

  The best thing to do is find critics whose writing you find consistently engaging and worthwhile, so that you know from what angles they approach their reviews. Then you can make your own decisions from there. For me, those are Zacharek and O'Hehir. That's why I come to Salon. If you don't like their reviews, why read them? I even keep up with Roger Ebert, even though I rarely agree with him, because I've read him long enough to understand his approach. In today's blog culture, it seems, no one is willing to consider opinions that don't mirror their own.

  Besides, I can't take any rating seriously if it factors in Peter Travers, the most tone-deaf reviewer I've ever seen.

  —michaelrudd Read michaelrudd's other letters
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