JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
In the new movie "The Critic," Ian McKellen plays a 1930s theater reviewer who is, let's say, not always kind.
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GEMMA ARTERTON: (As Nina Land) Over the last 10 years, you've compared me to livestock, creatures of the sea and an extinct bird. It's going to stop.
IAN MCKELLEN: (As Jimmy Erskine) Oh, you're retiring?
SUMMERS: "The Critic" set our own critic, Bob Mondello, to musing about karma. Critics are paid to dish out criticism. Can they take it?
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: Near the start of the 1973 horror movie "Theatre Of Blood," the head of a critics' guild is lured to a vacant house and attacked by a mob. Bleeding from multiple stab wounds, he staggers to the policeman who brought him and watches in horror as the cop peels off makeup and a wig and spouts lines from "Julius Caesar."
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VINCENT PRICE: (As Edward Lionheart) O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth.
MONDELLO: Vincent Price as a Shakespearean actor the critics' guild had humiliated two years earlier.
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MICHAEL HORDERN: (As George Maxwell) But you're dead.
PRICE: (As Edward Lionheart) No, another critical miscalculation on your part, dear boy. I am well. It is you who are dead.
MONDELLO: Payback most foul and on the Ides of March, too.
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PRICE: (As Edward Lionheart) Friends, Romans...
MONDELLO: Most of the critics' guild will be dead by the final reel, dispatched in the manner of Shakespeare's tragic heroes because this actor is an artist and, as critics, they are but walking shadows. You could say the same about critics in most movies - leeches, know-nothings, frauds and still more respectable than TV's comedy show critics, who mostly did riffs on thumb-masters Siskel and Ebert in "Living Color's" wildly effeminate...
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DAVID ALAN GRIER: (As Antoine Merriweather) Men on Film.
DAMON WAYANS: (As Blaine Edwards) Ole.
GRIER: First up is "Black Widow" starring Theresa Russell and Deborah Winger.
WAYANS: (As Blaine Edwards) Hate it.
GRIER: (As Antoine Merriweather) Hate it.
MONDELLO: Wayne and Garth has a we're-not-worthy metalhead variation on "Saturday Night Live."
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MIKE MYERS: (As Wayne Campbell) "Jurassic Park" - oh, man. I loved it.
DANA CARVEY: (As Garth Algar) Yeah. And Laura Dern - boy, she's a babe-asaurus.
MYERS: (As Wayne Campbell, vocalizing).
MONDELLO: Not to mention "The Muppet Show's" Statler and Waldorf.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As Waldorf) Oh, now why can't they do numbers like that?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As Kermit the Frog) We just did.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As Waldorf) Yeah. So you did.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As Statler) Wasn't very good after all. Ooh.
MONDELLO: Also Jon Lovitz, in an animated sitcom called "The Critic," about a film reviewer humiliated by the things his producers make him do.
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JON LOVITZ: (As Jay Sherman) On the shame-o-meter (ph), this film rates an absolute zero.
MONDELLO: That inspired this meta moment, getting reviewed for real by Siskel and Ebert.
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GENE SISKEL: If "The Critic" is going to succeed - and I hope it does - it desperately needs to refocus itself on the movies and for Roger and me to write some of the scripts.
ROGER EBERT: Well, I'd be happy to give them some free advice.
MONDELLO: In on the joke - that's television. When movies take on critics, it's not really a joke. Take the 1950 classic "All About Eve." The first voice we hear is an upper-crusty intellectual sounding very full of himself.
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GEORGE SANDERS: (As Addison DeWitt) To those of you who do not read, attend the theater, listen to unsponsored radio programs or know anything of the world in which you live, it is perhaps necessary to introduce myself. My name is Addison DeWitt. My native habitat is the theater. In it, I toil not, neither do I spin. I am a critic and a commentator. I am essential to the theater.
MONDELLO: He is, whatever you make of his taste, a jerk, and he's typical of how critics are generally depicted, which makes a certain kind of sense. You have to love an art form to devote all your time to writing about it. But tell that to the artist who spent years on a project and then had reviewers critique it overnight. It no doubt feels as if there are preconceptions and maybe even malice involved, which is how it was depicted in the Oscar-winning "Birdman." A washed-up movie actor and sometime superhero is about to make his stage debut when he encounters an influential theater critic in a bar, and she tells him...
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LINDSAY DUNCAN: (As Tabitha Dickinson) I'm going to destroy your play.
MICHAEL KEATON: (As Riggan Thomson) But you didn't even see it. You know, did I do something to offend you? I am so sorry.
DUNCAN: (As Tabitha Dickinson) As a matter of fact, you did.
MONDELLO: It's his Hollywood connection that frosts her. She views film actors as untrained and unprepared to even attempt real art.
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DUNCAN: (As Tabitha Dickinson) Handing each other awards for cartoons and pornography, measuring your worth in weekends. Well, this is the theater, and you don't get to come in here and pretend you can write, direct and act in your own propaganda piece without coming through me first.
MONDELLO: The contempt is mutual. He grabs her notes and sees nothing but labels, nothing about structure, about intentions.
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KEATON: (As Riggan Thomson) You write a couple of paragraphs, and you know what? None of this cost you anything.
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KEATON: (As Riggan Thomson) You risk nothing - nothing, nothing, nothing. I'm an actor. This play cost me everything.
MONDELLO: There was a time in the 1960s and '70s when critics were both esteemed and influential - contrarian Pauline Kael, auteur-minded Andrew Sarris, filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard. But it's been decades since anyone had similar sway, and with aggregator sites like Rotten Tomatoes reducing everything to a number, most movie-goers now turn to critics less for analysis than for consumer advice.
There has been one bright spot for my profession on screen - "Ratatouille" in 2007. At that time, no Pixar film had even had mixed reviews, let alone bad ones, so perhaps the writers of this tale of a rat who was a chef were feeling generous. They created a food critic in the classic mode - snooty, full of himself. And then he tasted the title dish and described it and the critical profession with an eloquence that brought this critic close to tears.
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PETER O'TOOLE: (As Anton Ego) In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends. Last night I experienced something new - an extraordinary meal from a singularly unexpected source. To say that both the meal and its maker have channeled my preconceptions about fine cooking is a gross understatement. They have rocked me to my core.
MONDELLO: On the aggregator site Metacritic, which compiles reviews from magazines and newspapers, "Ratatouille's" critiques are among the most glowing for any Pixar movie - tied for first place, in fact. I'm sure that's just a coincidence. I'm Bob Mondello. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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