Where have you gone, Siskel & Ebert? Real film critics are in short supply, these days

Gene Siskel, left, and Roger Ebert, in a 1998 publicity photo.

“Everyone’s a critic” used to be the complaint.

“No one’s a critic” may be the new reality.

Vanity Fair, the big glossy magazine that prides itself on its annual “Hollywood” issue, recently laid off its movie reviewer. The Chicago Sun-Times — erstwhile home of Roger Ebert, patron saint of motion-picture scribblers — eliminated the position in March. The Chicago Tribune, where Gene Siskel once toiled, has just done the same.

As one writer noted, if they made “At the Movies” now, it would star two empty chairs.

These are only the latest casualties in a slow decade of decimation, as American outlets have fired one arts staffer after another, relying on wire services to review everything from books to Broadway — or simply turning their backs on the beats altogether. Just in terms of regular movie coverage, I’ve seen a succession of horses shot out from under me — The Star-Ledger, The Daily News, The Village Voice.

Even Quentin Tarantino, who has had more than his share of respectful notices over the years, has given up on us, finally deciding to abandon his in-progress project, “The Movie Critic.” At first, he told Variety, he saw the subject as a challenge — “Can I take the most boring profession in the world and make it an interesting movie?” he says he asked himself. But finally, he says, he realized he could not.

“Who wants to see a movie called ‘The Movie Critic’?” he asked.

I admit, a film about a person who lives on stale popcorn, bile and emails from angry readers doesn’t pack the pulse-pounding excitement of, say, “Kill Bill: Volume 3.” If it weren’t for the existential question of how to pay the bills, there would be no thrills in this career at all. But I do wish someone, somewhere, would give us a good review.

True, the mixed notices we get aren’t undeserved. Spare me please from the summarizers — those writers who can recount the story, plot point by plot point, but are incapable of telling you anything about how it’s told. These aren’t critiques, they are grammar-school book reports — the sort of have-I-written-500-words-yet? assignments that dully recap everything, and then conclude with a hasty “I liked it a lot!” Who needs them?

Not quite as worthless but just as annoying are the snobs. I know critics have a natural tendency to praise anything ambiguous or offbeat — when you’re seeing hundreds of films a year, the unusual can be a welcome surprise. But I have no patience for any writer who can’t appreciate a good, straightforward comedy, or thriller, or Western. A pratfall can be as elegant a work of art as a well-honed witticism. Great cinema is everywhere, and some persnickety critics forget that.

But even if there have always been awful critics, there always has been — up until now — a lot of quality criticism. And so you found someone you enjoyed reading, and you stuck with them. You grew to appreciate their point of view, their predilections, and their advice. Even if you disagreed with them 100 percent of the time … well, that was helpful, too. You learned to take their warnings as recommendations.

And that kind of relationship is getting harder to find.

There are a variety of reasons. The first, frankly, is the movies themselves. Although book critics don’t need to weigh in on the latest paperback romance, and restaurant critics don’t need to critique the new Five Guys franchise, most movie critics are obliged to review all the “big” films.

It’s a lose-lose proposition, not only because there is rarely a lot to say about the latest superhero sequel, but also because readers have probably already made up their minds about whether they are going to see it. Unless you have a particularly fresh take, the result is a lot of wasted effort, for both writers and readers.

Another problem, obviously, is the sad state of journalism itself. The internet upended things — editors who once pushed to give people what they needed to know pivoted to giving them what they wanted to read. Not a bizarre idea on the face of it, but when big budget cuts brought drastic economizing, it was the high-interest, headline-driven material — gossip, crime, sports — that gained ground, not opinion, analysis, criticism.

Which leads to the biggest threat to reviewers today — the readers.

Not you, of course! Aren’t you reading this? But there has been a change in the world, a re-ordering of society in which emotion is more important than thoughtfulness, conflict a greater draw than dialogue. A Manichean, all-or-nothing view of cinema — which started slowly, let’s face it, with Siskel and Ebert’s own, Roman-emperor, thumbs-up or thumbs-down verdicts — has, thanks to the internet, taken over the discourse entirely. It is what many readers now expect, even demand.

At least the original Siskel-and-Ebert judgements always followed discussion, and debate; today, however, it’s right to the thumbs. Truly smart criticism involves weighing a variety of complicated factors — the artist’s intentions, the contributions of various craftspeople, the styles of acting, the work’s relation to earlier pieces. But a click-hungry web wants easy answers, not careful considerations; metrics-driven editors want a hot emotion they can push in a tweet and turn viral. Love it or loathe it? Fresh or Rotten? That’s all that matters.

The once contested middle-ground — where the most interesting discussions of any topic always takes place — is now off-limits.

And given a choice between thumbs-up and thumbs-down, guess which reactions studios actively (and often, expensively) court? Of course, they always preferred happy hacks to ornery pros; movie junkets have long been overpopulated with dubiously credentialed writers, eager to lob a softball question or volunteer an enthusiastic blurb. But they have been joined by an increasing number of even less talented “influencers,” shameless shills who repay every lavish trip or sneak preview with some pretty, pouty Instagram post or over-the-top YouTube video.

From a marketing point of view, I understand the shift. Given a choice between a cranky, unpredictable journalist and a dependably enthusiastic cheerleader, who would you invite to an early screening and a three-minute interview with your star?

The problem is, when everything is a rave, praise no longer matters. Writers no longer matter.

Think back on all the enthusiastic “first reactions!” that clog social media after a comic-book movie has been previewed for the professional fans. Rewatch some of those jubilant red-carpet “interviews” that pop up after Hollywood premieres. How good did those movies turn out to be, really? And how likely are you to trust any of this buzz in the future?

I have no illusions about the importance of arts critics. In the grand scheme of things, the people who haul away our household garbage are far more essential than the people opining on the latest Wes Anderson movie. (I liked it, by the way!)

But even as all of us have less leisure time to fill, we have more ways to fill it. Even as the major studios cut back, their smaller rivals rush out new films; Wikipedia lists more than 40 titles opening in September, and while not all of them will be playing at a theater near you, there will be a slew of straight-to-streaming premieres competing for your attention as well.

So how do you decide how to spend 100 hard-won minutes of your free time? How can you possibly make an informed choice?

Well, you look for someone who knows something about cinema, both in history and in practice. Someone with strong opinions, but without unexamined biases. Someone with consistent standards, and a clear and entertaining way of expressing them. You look — and you’d better look hard, these days — for a real critic.

Because everything else is publicity.
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