After Roger Ebert died in 2013, A.O. Scott at The New York Times became probably the most respected and read movie critic in America. In 2017, he published a thoughtful book on criticism, Better Living Through Criticism: How to Think About Art, Pleasure, Beauty, and Truth. A central idea in Scott's book is that all art is criticism.
I enjoyed Scott's exercises of criticism using selected works of art and writing. I did not enjoy the dialectic chapters; these were supposed to be funny, but Scott's humor is stale.
Notes:
- Scott shoehorns a quote from Greek poet Hesiod into this thing—it is completely unnecessary, but I read it a couple times to savor its prose: “Never by daytime will there be an end to work and pain, nor in the night to weariness, when the gods will send anxieties to trouble us.”
- Scott stopped reviewing movies in March 2023 and started writing for The New York Times Book Review.
- He attracted haters (and defenders) online after publishing an indifferent review of Marvel's “The Avengers” in May 2012. Indiscriminate actor Samuel L. Jackson led the attack.
- Scott's review of "Joker" was much more negative than “The Avengers.” But I enjoyed "Joker."
