A.O. Scott observes that, before the Web was cheapening criticism and destroying an honorable profession, television shows like the Siskel-and-Ebert franchise were allegedly doing the same thing. “The circumstances in which the art of criticism is practiced are always changing, but the state of the art is remarkably constant. Which is to say that, from a certain angle, the future of criticism is always bleak and the present always a riot of ill-informed opinion and boisterous disputation.”