Your favorite reviewers/critics?

For games, it's easily Ralph Panebianco aka SkillUp. With only limited exceptions, if he loves a game, my gaming friends group and I almost certain to love it. This is obviously highly subjective, but it has been uncanny so far.

However, I've noticed that that reviewers often get genre/trope/trend fatigue far sooner than non-reviewers, which makes sense since they consume far more content than an average person, so I tend to disregard complaints that are some version of 'It's been done before' unless I already know I'm sick of that style of content (looking at you Ubisoft sandbox).

I used to be a big Doug Walker fan back in the day, but over time I just kinda fell off of his content because it just became a series of skits and self referential comedies rather than reviews. Then the change the channel stuff came up, and I was pretty much done.

I don't really pay attention to internet critics anymore. If there is something I'm interested in, I might get a read from a few opinions online, maybe check it out for myself if it seems appealing.

When I was watching a lot of TV shows a few years ago, I liked Alan Sepinwall.

For books I've been following Books and Bao for the last couple of years or so since I got back into reading, they've got a blog and a YouTube channel both of which I enjoy immensely.

Covers mainly queer and progressive stuff along with Japanese literature, which is what caught my interest, but they've also got me into other books I'd have never thought to pick up. Really rekindled my passion and love of reading after falling out of the habit for like almost 10 years.

Lindsey Bahr over at the AP is probably my favorite modern film critic.

I also read Chris Evangelista over at SlashFilm from time to time. Alissa Wilkinson over at Vox also isn’t bad. Richard Lawson from Vanity Fair is more hit and miss with his taste but he’s a pretty good writer (and I’m a sucker for the older Gawker crew).

Lindsay Ellis is one of the original video internet critics, and one of the originators of Breadtube, which is technically a form of critique. Her new stuff is on Nebula, and while its not worth the price of admission on its own, its nice to be able to see her new stuff.

Those hack frauds at redlettermedia

It's unfortunate, but I don't care about critics anymore. Reading old Roger Ebert is always fun, but the basic function of critics is to guide an audience to a product (or away from it) and I don't need them for that. To me, comments on Tildes, Reddit, IMDB, or my friend's opinions more than suffice.

I do find value in analysis, which is a different thing. For example, the YouTube channel Every Frame a Painting is quite brilliant.

I'm a huge fan of Action Button Reviews.

https://youtube.com/@ActionButton

It's less of a review (although it's a lot of review) and more of a story of how this piece of entertainment influenced the reviewers life.

Me! very non-pc https://www.youtube.com/@trumpstalk/videos dont be put off by the name its about making top trumps decks out of movies and shows

MistaGG is one of my favorite reviewers by a decent margin. Some other youtubers are Nathan Zed, Jacob Geller, NakeyJakey, and Eddy Burback, but they don't fit into the specific box of a "reviewer" or "critic". However, Jacob Geller's incredibly high-production and meticulous documentary style videos, my favorite of which is Fear of Cold, Burback and Jakey's commentary/documentary style and Zed's conversational style are all enjoyable in their own right.

My favorite reviewer for movies is Dan Murrell on YouTube. https://m.youtube.com/@DanMurrellMovies
He goes in depth and has some very good insight on movies and the box office. I also think he is pretty fair and unbiased on his reviews.

Games - I really like the whatculture.com reviews, in particular the weekly podcasts with Scott, Josh and Jules. Really chill vibe and the Geordie accents makes it a bit more relatable vs American centric ones like IGN etc.

Special shout-out to the two lads over at 'SwitchUp' on YT, great content / helps avoid the eshop bloat.

Food - Bourdain obviously has to get a nod here, although I'm not sure he'd have taken kindly to being referred to as a food critic..

Three YouTube channels that enhance my appreciation of movies are:

Like Stories of Old
ThomasFlight
StoryStreet

These are mostly video essays that sometimes use movies to illustrate some deeper truths about life or society, sometimes talk about some aspect of movie making or some creator.

Some examples I find interesting:
Lies of Heroism – Redefining the Anti-War Film
The Surprisingly Powerful Reality of Time Travel
Understanding the Films of Terrence Malick
Why Do Movies Feel So Different Now?
In Praise of Subtle Performance
Just Another Video about Everything Everywhere All at Once

I'm going to mention Michael Fisher here, who uses the screen name "Mr Mobile", because he mostly reviews mobile phones. He specialises in reviewing foldable phones and flip phones, because, like me, he misses the days of clamshell phones (and he's a Trekkie!). I got to know him through his "When Phones Were Fun" channel, which looks back at phones of the 2000s (pre-iPhone), when... umm... phones were... umm... fun.

For music, if I'm looking for an in-depth review, I go to The Needle Drop. I usually don't pay attention to his numerical score, because it can be biased IMO (not necessarily a negative, just something to be aware of), but his review of the themes, instrumentation, production, etc. is extremely detailed and mostly objective.

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Richard Brody, Michael Sicinski, Mike D'Angelo, Peter Labuza, Bilge Ebiri, Scott Tobias, Keith Phipps, Willow Maclay, Noel Murray, Emily Nussbaum, Glenn Kenny, Alan Sepinwall, A. O. Scott, Wesley Morris.

Most of the critics I listed are film critics, but they sometimes, albeit rarely, do write about other cultural things. I also have a couple of TV critics mixed in.

Writing this out made me realize I follow only a couple of woman critics. If you have any suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them.