Cleghorn:

Your research would surely just confirm that critics can send people to a small film, but publicity sends them to a big one and only when the big one is an out and out stinker and word of mouth comes in after the first weekend does the big one actually fail.

That's exactly what I was thinking throughout the whole article. Generally I have found that critics are too picky/snooty for my taste. The only time I give them a thought is when it comes to the genre of drama or artsy films.

Most of the time I'm pretty accurate in my perception of how good a movie will be just based upon the preview. Then I listen to word-of-mouth and see how the movie holds up (of course being aware of the taste's of the people supplying the review).

Basically, if the preview looks good and word of mouth is positive, I see it. Critics hate it? I dont care. Then comes those out-of-nowhere, never-heard-of-it-til-movie-aw­ards-season movies, that are very dramatic and artsy. They get a lot of critical acclaim. My interests are peaked a bit, and perhaps I'll rent it. That's about as much credit as I give to critics.