Help me teach 'review writing' - best written critic

March 11, 2017 1:41 AM

As a lead up / sideline to helping some folks learn the art of reviewing things (learning critical / positive / incisive / insightful / constructive / sharp writing), I want to have on hand some stellar examples of reviews of 'all the things' to show and talk about. Movies, music, TV, comics, books, websites, products, businesses, ideas, visual art - please share with me the best examples of well written reviews of any and everything that you know of. Reviews you share can take any form (videos / written / audio / webcomics / websites and beyond).
posted by infinite intimation to Education (12 answers total)

Dorothy Parker on Emily Post.
posted by Diablevert at 3:24 AM on March 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

Roger Ebert on Jack Frost, one of the all-time classics in exploring unused potential in a concept.
posted by johngoren at 3:32 AM on March 11, 2017

In general, I think the book reviews in the London Review of Books are great; they're long but always thoughtful and nuanced and usually take the author's own intentions and project seriously (even when they are ultimately critical of the project or its execution).
posted by Aravis76 at 4:13 AM on March 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

Here's a handful off the top of my head:

Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses by Mark Twain

Roger Ebert's review of Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo

Zero Punctuation retrospective review of Psychonauts by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw [video][probably nsfw]

John Updike, Champion Literary Phallocrat, Drops One; Is This Finally the End for Magnificent Narcissists? by David Foster Wallace [possibly nsfw]
posted by doctor tough love at 7:09 AM on March 11, 2017

Teju Cole- his column in the New York Times: On Photography

This piece by Sunanda K. Sanyal about Chris Ofili

Also- this book:A Short Guide to Writing about Art by Sylvan Barnet
posted by momochan at 7:11 AM on March 11, 2017

Wesley Morris writes some fun movie reviews! I think he used to write for the Boston Globe and now for Grantland. Apparently he is the NY Times' "Critic at Large" now, whatever that is!
posted by benadryl at 8:32 AM on March 11, 2017

Any review by Dorothy Parker. Seriously, any one of them. Doesn't matter if it is a play review or a book review. I have owned The Portable Dorothy Parker for over 20 years, and I keep returning to it....the worst of her reviews are golden....the best of her reviews are ethereal vibrations captured in ink on paper.
posted by W Grant at 9:46 AM on March 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

Slate's Music Critic, Carl Wilson, wrote a book length critique of/cultural anthropology exercise about Celine Dion's Let's Talk About Love that's well-worth reading, though probably too lengthy to assign to a class that's more about short pieces.

He also teaches classes on writing criticism, so you might try reaching out to him on Twitter and see if the'd be willing to share resources.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:18 AM on March 11, 2017

I'm a big fan of the way Briallen Hopper at The Los Angeles Review of Books blends review and personal essay.
posted by book 'em dano at 10:37 AM on March 11, 2017

Johnathan Gold won the Pulitizer Prize in Criticism, the first food critic to do so. Link has 3 of his reviews.
posted by Homer42 at 6:23 PM on March 11, 2017

Pete Wells on Guy Fieri
posted by athirstforsalt at 3:21 AM on March 12, 2017

My English Literature professor in university said something that really stuck with me. He was talking about how one of his first jobs was to review books for a literary magazine. He found it very difficult until he focused on two questions:
1. What did the author say?
2. How did the author say it?
I am certainly not any kind of expert on literary review, but it seems to me that you could cover a lot of ground with just those two questions.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 6:13 AM on April 3, 2017