Decline of informed criticism

PATRICK GOLDSTEIN’S recent report on the decline of the film critic [“Critics’ Voices Become a Whisper,” Aug. 15] is just another sign of the culture’s disdain for expertise and intellectual discourse. And the fact that his piece was closely followed by your feature “Street Corner Critics” [Aug. 21] is more proof of that decline.

I don’t want to read what the man or woman on the street thinks of films, for the same reason that I don’t put any stock in Zagat reviews: In both cases they are the utterances of the uninformed.

If you never heard of Fellini, haven’t seen “Rashomon” or don’t know that “Pride and Prejudice” was a book before it was a film, I don’t want to hear what you have to say about movies. And if your all-purpose description of something you like is “amazing” or “awesome,” then you really have nothing to say.

Critical thinking is in decline in the society as a whole. That’s why Bill O’Reilly, “The DaVinci Code” and Britney Spears are wildly popular. I don’t expect the L.A. Times to contribute to that decline.

MICHAEL MOREAU

Pasadena