The Critic: Ultimate Time Manager

By Linda Dimond

Is it worth it? That’s the question I ask when I seek the advice of a critic. The role of the critic is to inform the masses if a book, a movie, a meal or anything is worth your time and money.

When your friend tells you what a amazing book “Freakonomics” was, they are essentially a critic. But there is an art to the review. Honesty is the key to good criticism. No one wants to read a gushing review about how great “Made of Honor” was, written by Patrick Dempsey’s aunt who doesn’t want to hurt his feelings. We want to hear what the average person, someone like ourselves, thinks of it. The critic provides honest information about a subject, from the perspective of a common person.

Not only does the critic provide us with the truth, but they provide us with thorough information. They take into account that different people are interested in different things, and criticize every aspect of a piece. I pay attention to cinematography in a movie. You may focus more on acting. A good critic should touch on all areas of the subject, so that their review is useful to all readers.

The bottom line is we live in world that is saturated with media, overflowing with restaurants and theaters and still growing. There is no way for a person to be able to absorb everything around them and so we must choose carefully where we invest ourselves. This is where the critic comes in and weeds out the worst, so we can spend our time and efforts on only the best food, entertainment and art. They answer our question “is it worth it?” and explain why.

So thank you, critics, for saving my time and money, because “Snakes on a Plane” really didn’t deserve it.