"One can almost hear the anticipatory echoes of something like Yelp in the context of José Ortega y Gasset’s
The Revolt of the Masses (1930). The multitude, he wrote, once “scattered about the world in small groups,” now appears “as an agglomeration.” It has “suddenly become visible, installing itself in the preferential positions in society. Before, if it existed, it passed unnoticed, occupying the background of the social stage; now it has advanced to the footlights and is the principal character.” The disgruntled diner, now able to make or break a restaurant through sheer collective will. Against this leveling of critical power, the old guard fulminates. Ruth Reichl, the former editor of
Gourmet, recently harrumphed that “
anybody who believes Yelp is an idiot. Most people on Yelp have no idea what they’re talking about.”"—
Star Wars, by Tom Vanderbilt, in
The Wilson Quarterly [more inside]
posted by Toekneesan
on May 5, 2013 -
38 comments
PUCK MAN HAD HIS NAME CHANGED IN TRANSLATION TO PREVENT IT BEING DETOURNED INTO "FUCK MAN".
This is the key to everything I know. From this point on, I cannot help you.
A1reviews, the eminently quotable tumblr where
thecatamites (previously
1,
2) reviews videogames (er, sometimes).
posted by juv3nal
on Apr 15, 2013 -
23 comments
The Omnivore's
Hatchet Job of the Year rewards "the angriest, funniest, most trenchant book review of the past 12 months," with the winning critic taking home a golden hatchet and a year's supply of potted shrimp. 2013's
winner: Camilla Long, for her devastating
review of Rachel Cusk's divorce memoir,
Aftermath. Among other things, she described it as a nasty, bizarre memoir written by a "brittle little dominatrix and peerless narcissist."
(Via) [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Feb 18, 2013 -
71 comments
Dale Askey is a
librarian. He
blogs. In August 2010, Dale was a tenured associate professor at Kansas State University, where librarians are granted faculty status. There, Dale
blogged about the quality, and prices, of publications from Edwin Mellen Press. Edwin Mellen Press
has served McMaster University (Dale's current employer) and himself with a three million dollar lawsuit, alleging libel and claiming aggravated and exemplary damages.
[more inside]
posted by Wordshore
on Feb 9, 2013 -
60 comments
For the release of the Hobbit,
Lindsay Ellis of the Nostalgia Chick (
previously) has decided to look back at all the LOTR films in order to analyze how they changed genre film-making, expected movie length, extended cuts, the problems of adaptation, and why Eowyn and Merry are made for each other. (
Fellowship Of The Ring,
Two Towers,
Return Of The King Part 1,
Part 2) Still need more? Then why not watch Kerry Shawcross and Chris Demarais of Rooster Teeth (
previously) try to walk the 120+ mile journey across New Zealand from the filming location of Hobbiton in Matamata to the filming location of Mount Doom, Mount Ngauruhoe in
A Simple Walk Into Mordor.
posted by The Whelk
on Feb 1, 2013 -
29 comments
"I was never threatened covering the cops beat nor while reporting on a big Mafia trial, but I was threatened – twice – for writing negative reviews of two restaurants.
Shows where the passion is, I guess." Restaurant critics write about (and link to) their most negative reviews and discuss the measured and reasonable responses they received after their publication.
[more inside]
posted by the young rope-rider
on Dec 27, 2012 -
54 comments
Real actors read Yelp reviews:
Chris Kipiniak #1,
Chris Kipiniak #2,
Therese Plummer,
Brian O'Neill,
Greg Hildreth,
Brian Hutchinson,
Amanda Leigh Cobb,
Ashlie Atkinson,
Danny Deferrari,
Marsha Stephanie Blake,
Darren Goldstein, and
Tina Sloan.
posted by MaryDellamorte
on Dec 6, 2012 -
12 comments
"To deride Mr. Fieri for opening his restaurant there as if he’d taken a dump in the Louvre is silly. He pooped on a pile of bright shiny poop, Jeff Koonsian poop, Guy Debordian poop." The New York Observer
reviews Guy Fieri's latest restaurant, Guy's American Kitchen and Bar.
posted by roomthreeseventeen
on Oct 25, 2012 -
214 comments
Diamanda Hagan is an obsessive Dr. Who fan in scary makeup. She posts extensive, entertaining, and exhaustively nerdy rants on some of the worst episodes of Nu Who. Behold!
The Beast Below,
Voyage Of The Damned,
Victory Of The Daleks,
Fear Her,
The Next Doctor,
Planet Of The Dead,
The Doctor's Daughter, and
The End Of Time (The Whole Damn Thing) (NSFW language)
posted by The Whelk
on Aug 31, 2012 -
299 comments
In the wake of their grunge-y breakout hit
"Creep" and the success of sophomore record
The Bends, Thom Yorke and the rest of
Radiohead were under pressure to deliver once more.
So they shut themselves away inside the echoing halls of
a secluded 16th century manor and got to work.
What emerged from that crumbling Elizabethan castle fifteen years ago today was a shockingly ambitious masterpiece of progressive rock, a visionary concept album that explored
the "fridge buzz" of modernity -- alienation, social disconnection, existential dread,
the impersonal hum of technology -- through a mosaic of
challenging,
innovative,
eerily beautiful music unlike anything else at the time.
Tentatively called
Ones and Zeroes, then
Your Home May Be at Risk If You Do Not Keep Up Payments, the band finally settled on
OK Computer, an appropriately enigmatic title for this
acclaimed harbinger of millennial angst. For more, you can watch the retrospective
OK Computer: A Classic Album Under Review for a track-by-track rundown, or the unsettling documentary
Meeting People is Easy for a look at how the album's whirlwind tour nearly gave Yorke
a nervous breakdown. Or look inside for more details and cool interpretations of all the tracks -- including
an upcoming MeFi Music Challenge! [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Jun 16, 2012 -
66 comments
Those Americans who are familiar with the name Claude Lanzmann most likely know him as the director of “Shoah,” his monumental 1985 documentary about the extermination of the European Jews in the Nazi gas chambers. As it turns out, though, the story of Lanzmann’s eventful life would have been well worth telling even if he had never come to direct “Shoah.” In addition to film director, Lanzmann’s roles have included those of journalist, editor, public intellectual, member of the French Resistance, long-term lover of Simone de Beauvoir and close friend of Jean-Paul Sartre, world traveler, political activist, ghostwriter for Jacques Cousteau — I could go on, but it’s a good deal more entertaining to hear Lanzmann himself go on, and thanks to the publication in English of his memoir, “The Patagonian Hare,” we now have the opportunity to do so. (previously)
posted by Trurl
on Apr 16, 2012 -
6 comments
All told, Updike has published more than a million words on books. ... In Picked-up Pieces (1975), Updike’s second collection of essays, he lists his rules for reviewing... Without coyness, Updike renders a stern judgment based on telling quotation. He builds toward his findings in plain sight, earning him an authority that is based on his presentation of a plausible case. [more inside]
posted by Trurl
on Dec 11, 2011 -
6 comments
"But when a saga popular with pre-adolescent girls peaks romantically on a night that leaves the heroine to wake up covered with bruises in the shape of her husband's hands — and when that heroine then spends the morning explaining to her husband that she's incredibly happy even though he injured her, and that it's not his fault because she understands he couldn't help it in light of the depth of his passion — that's profoundly irresponsible."
MetaFilter's own Linda Holmes on the "psychosexual horror-show" that is
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1.
[more inside]
posted by davidjmcgee
on Nov 18, 2011 -
274 comments
