The Future of Criticism

EPISODE 73: Wesley Morris on taste.

Today’s guest, Wesley Morris, happens to be the only person in the history of journalism to win multiple Pulitzer Prizes for Criticism.

Wesley first won the award in 2012, with The Boston Globe. And he then won it again, in 2021, nine years later, with The New York Times, where he still works as the critic at large. (Great title.)

And, yes, I’m still trying to move past awards as a marker for self-worth.

But what I really wanted to talk to Wesley about — ahead of the 96th Academy Awards on Sunday! — was his job, actually. The craft of movie criticism. What good taste even means, and how one develops it.

How the modern era of Rotten Tomatoes and Twitter and personalized algorithms forever changed what a professional critic does. Or not.

ALSO: Russell Wilson; this class I took in college; the year in cinema; why Stephen A. is camp; what happened to all our movie stars; Real Housewives; and being two percent gay.

DKN/YOUTUBE SPOILER ALERT:

Edibly,

Pablo