I’ve had a fair few people tell me that critics are useless because, hey, how can Roger Ebert know what I’ll think about a given movie? He can’t. So fuck that guy, amirite? I mean, amirite??
I suppose that position would hold water if all Roger Ebert did were list a whole bunch of star ratings. Ratings are basically the headlines of the review business — they don’t carry near enough information for you to understand the whole story, but they give you the proper context to evaluate what the review is going to say. And it’s the job of a reviewer not just to rate things but to explain why he’s done so. I’ve liked a fair few movies Ebert has rated low, and I’ve disliked a good many he’s rated highly. But that doesn’t make his work useless to me, since there’s plenty of text there that I can read to find out whether or not we’ll agree.
Now, I’m a critic myself, so you may say that I’m just making excuses. And, hey, if that’s your thing, be that way. But there are a lot of movies and books and video games out there, and there’s just no way you can sift through them all by hand. Having a trustworthy source evaluate them for you is a major advantage.
So you need to know how to identify a trustworthy critic — someone you won’t necessarily agree with, but someone you know isn’t feeding you a bunch of bullshit for personal gain. As in, somebody who isn’t being paid by the people whose products he’s reviewing. All I’m saying is, when you’re reading a 10/10 review (of, say, Metal Gear Solid 4) on Gamespot, and the window background and sidebars are papered with ads for that same game, well, think long and hard before you take that 10/10 at face value.
Decent reviewers aren’t on the payroll of the people they review, like Roger Ebert or Dan Rutter or, hey, me. When I tell you Super Mario Galaxy is great, it’s not because Nintendo told me to. It’s because it is. So, what, I’m a big man now? I’m saying I’m better than Gamespot? Come on, seriously.
Have you ever known me not to say a thing like that?
August 2nd, 2008
Posted by
Darien |
Games |
no comments
Just petulance, apparently, if you’re a highly-paid superstar who can’t endure the last grueling two months of your $180M contract. Not that I’m talking about anybody in particular, mind; I’m just sayin’.
Speaking of money, I was talking to Dave the other day, and he was complaining about baseball’s financial policies making it impossible for poor teams to contend with rich teams. Setting aside for a minute whether or not that’s bad, I gotta say I just don’t see a lot of evidence that it’s even true. Dave’s a Red Sox fan; I think a lot of it comes from his unique view of baseball as The Struggle Against The Yankees. To be sure, the celebrated Red Sox — Yankees axis is definitely a case of "my Goliath can beat up your Goliath," and frequently boils down to a situation where the two teams engage in an intense skirmish to see which one gets to go to the postseason as division champion and which one has to settle for being the wild card.
But this isn’t the case this year. This year, both Red Sox (#4 salary in baseball) and Yankees (#1) are fighting just to stay alive in a division dominated by an unexpected powerhouse from the cheap seats (Tampa Bay, #29), while at the same time dealing with a strong wild card threat from a Minnesota (#25) team supposedly in a rebuilding year. There is a very real possibility that this year’s ALDS won’t contain either the Yankees or the Red Sox, both Goliaths having been slain by some of the lowest-payroll Davids in the majors.
In fact, you have to go down the payroll chart to #5 (Chicago White Sox) before you find a team that’s leading its division — and it’s just barely holding on to a half-game lead over aforementioned Minnesota. Numbers 6 (Los Angeles Angels) and 8 (Chicago Cubs) are doing very well, to be sure, but #3 (Detroit) is barely .500, while #7 (Los Angeles Dodgers) and #9 (Seattle) are hovering at "a bit below .500" and "on track for a hundred losses," respectively.
What’s the bottom 10 look like? Two division leaders: #29 (Tampa Bay) and #23 (Arizona). Two teams in very close contention: Minnesota and #30 (Florida), trailing by .5 and 1.5, respectively.#22 (Texas) isn’t terrible, though impossibly far behind the sure-we’ll-get-120-wins Angels, and #28 (Oakland) had a good first half and then gave up and sold all of its players. Everybody else is pretty bad, but, hey, let’s not forget that the worst team in all of baseball — the dreadful Seattle Mariners — is in the top ten by payroll.
So I’m just not seeing this grand corrolation between payroll and success. The Yankees, at the top of the chart, have a few players who cost more individually than the entire Florda Marlins payroll. And the Yankees are beating the Marlins by, oh, two games or so. And losing by 5.5 to the next team up the money ladder. Sure, money’s definitely one tool that a team has available to it. But if there’s one thing that the Yankees’ zero championships so far this century should tell us, it’s that it does not trump all else.
(Payroll figures from espn.com)
August 2nd, 2008
Posted by
Darien |
Baseball |
2 comments
