Jim Sterling;s career is all due to popularity of the nerd critic. For decades people have loved angry nerds bashing mediocrity in entertainment. Whether that was Siskel and Ebert unanimously panning a Hollywood Turkey or Music Critics trashing a lousy album. When it's done well an angry nerd is just hilarious to watch because it's fun to see a grown adult act like a mediocre Disney movie is quite literally the worst thing in the world. This is one of my favorite pieces of old media, a segment of The Dick Cavette Show where author Erich Segal has a heated conversation with critic John Simon. It's a great debate because it's two very well educated men heatedly arguing over the merits of entertainment that's made implicitly for the masses, the "Hoi Polloi" as they both refer to it as.
But there's a fine line between critic and cynic, and critics have to know what they value in media in order for their critiques to not inevitably descend into miserable nerd nitpicking and autism. Siskel and Ebert would devote almost every episode of their show to a film they loved, whether that was a new release or a film classic, I love this short video Ebert wrote towards the end of his life on the greatness of Citizen Kane. Citizen Kane is a somewhat infamous movie because for all the praise critics praise heap upon it a not so controversial opinion is that it is in fact a boring movie. But in this short video Ebert should be able to make a Citizen Kane hater understand why this movie holds such high acclaim.
The only thing in this world I think Jim Sterling loves is himself. He's turned into a drag queen Ignatius Reilly.
