Just My Opinion

Armond White asks the question "Do Movie Critics Matter?"

I think they do. They only have limited power to effect the size of audiences in mass-release films. It's true critically popular films tend to do better by genre than unpopular ones, but that's mostly because they're generally reflecting popular taste. As such, they're part of a wider publicity apparatus, even if they act independently.

But for small films, they can be life and death. The audience that goes to art houses is far more likely to read criticism, and be influenced by it.

It's the long run where critics matter most, though. After the first run, and the video release, films stay alive because people talk about them. The audience does that, too, but critics are more organized and (I would hope) more thoughtful about it.

Which leads to a second question: just who are these critics? It used to be easy to name them--they had jobs at newspapers and periodicals. But now they're on radio, TV, and above all, the internet is lousy with them.

They may have very different interests and audiences, and be of vastly different quality, but the important thing is they're keeping the discussion going.