Matt Zoller Seitz on Bill Melendez

What I miss most about academia is good criticism. Everything else is easy to find in the rest of the world.

There are people who think that all critics are simply destructive. These people are idiots. There are people who think that criticism is the real thing, and that Emily Bronte was a moron compared to F.R. Leavis. These people are idiots.

Good critics, as has been pointed out many times, are the true amateurs, a word that comes from the Latin word for love. Good critics love what they write about, but are no more starry-eyed than someone in a long-term relationship: they see the flaws, but they're sticking around anyway. And they stick around because they know there's something worthwhile going on.

Here's the best example of good criticism I've come across recently. Matt Zoller Seitz blogs regularly at The House Next Door, where he posted this appreciation of Bill Melendez.