The curious case of critics

The other day, film critic Rajeev Masand tweeted that there is no God if James Franco was not nominated in the Best actor category at the Oscars. In the review that followed, he raves about the movie and there is not a single negative point he has cited. And he gives it 4 out of 5 stars.
He writes:

The extraordinary cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle and Enrique Chediak, and AR Rahman’s haunting score complement Boyle’s rich and imaginative storytelling style. And James Franco who appears in more or less every scene delivers a performance nothing short of spellbinding.

Question: Can someone please enlighten me on why he refrained from giving it 5 out of 5 if, in his opinion, the movie scores full marks in all aspects?

I have watched some reality shows on Indian television where one of the judges marks a performance 21 out of 25, while the other one marks it 23/25, without any explanation on how this score was arrived at!

The wonderful guys at the fabulous Sound Opinions, rates a record as buy it, burn it, or trash it. When I heard it the first time, I didn’t get what “burn it” meant, and on reading up:

Burn it! ...There are a few good tracks here, but not worth the full price....try a downloading service, or (cough), another method.

This is kind of, I would say, innovative and "adapting to the times".

Maybe, someday, all critics would follow a thumb rule, like Siskel and Ebert did – Up or Down? Which is it?

Gene Siskel boiled it down: "What's the first thing people ask you? Should I see this movie? They don't want a speech on the director's career. Thumbs up--yes. Thumbs down--no."

PS: I attended a session by Rajeev Masand in Bangalore in 2010 and found him to be genuine. When my brother asked him what he thinks about The Big Lebowski, he more or less admitted that he didn’t get it the first time and that he is planning to watch it again. That was an honest response!

Rock Journalism, Kaufman etc.

Though Web 2.0 is feeding us with more reviews and star ratings of arts and entertainment than ever before, you have to look in the right places to find a good piece of journalism. Well, Journalism- as I heard in a movie last night- is literature in a hurry!

For music reviews, I have now narrowed down to just three sources: AV Club, Pitchfork and All Music Guide.

The AV Club review of Synecdoche, New York, drawing parallels between the protagonist of the movie and the life of Axl making the Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy album, is perhaps one of the best reviews/appreciation I've read in recent times.

Not to mention the comments section which has some gems like these:

Kaufmann can write a script about you writing an article about watching his movie and listening to an analogous hard rock album. Add some crazy time-bending thing with Axl writing the album based on a movie he thinks is going to be made in 2008...

If you think there is great music and great reviews to look forward to, read this sattire-at-its-best piece by The Onion: Pitchfork Gives Music 6.8.

"Music used to be great, but let's be honest, it's a 6.8 now at best," said Los Angeles resident Lowell Radler, 23, who admitted that he just looked at the rating rather than reading the whole review. "I seriously might never listen to music again."

Related: Roger Ebert on giving out too many stars.

Rock Journalism

Some stop discovering new music with age. I got a boost recently discovering Will Oldham aka Bonnie "Prince" Billy. I have been listening to his album I See a Darkness for the last 3 months and no other artist has stunned me like this in the last, say, five years! I was wondering how to describe his music and I came across this pitchfork review (of Billy's 2008 album):

Musically, these meticulously crafted songs give the impression of front-porch spontaneity, their purposefulness made to sound like serendipity.

I don’t know what that means, but I think that perfectly conveys what I think of his music:)