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Film critics spend their workday at the cinema, munching on buttered popcorn while watching the latest soon-to-be-released movies, then retire to their computers to criticize and dispense their razor-sharp wit. It's not hard to imagine why they're regarded by many in the film industry with the same disdain that's usually reserved for North Korean dictators and roaches. They are loathed, feared and unloved.

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IN FACT, SO TROUBLESOME HAVE FILM critics become for studios and distributors that in July 2000 an executive at Columbia Pictures decided simply to do away with them once and for all. He created 'David Manning', a friendly--not-withstanding fictional--film critic who could be counted on to write glowing reviews for films released by the studio; somebody they could quote at length (and they did!) in promotional material for their films. No matter how appalling a movie was, Manning could always be relied upon to issue nothing but abundant praise for the film, even describing our very own Heath Ledger as 'this year's hottest new star' for his performance in A Knight's Tale (Brian Helgeland, 2001). That is, until June 2001 (a full year later), when a journalist from Newsweek stumbled upon the imaginary reviewer and exposed the charade, forcing the studio to once again deal with the dreaded (and now angered) real film critics.

While amusing, what the David Manning incident illustrates is that the role of the film critic is changing. Today, film critics in Australia are facing a technologically evolving industry, shrewder studio marketing and publicity machines, the onslaught of online 'do-it-yourself reviewing', and an increasingly scorned group of Aussie filmmakers who by now must be feeling like they just can't catch a break. So what does the future hold for them and for film criticism in Australia?

PETER THOMPSON has been reviewing films for the Nine Network's Sunday program since its first broadcast in 1981. Coming from a creative family (his father John was a poet and worked in radio and his brother is actor Jack Thompson), he began his career by studying performance at Sydney's Ensemble Theatre. After graduating with an arts degree from the University of Sydney he worked at ABC Television as a film editor for four years, then began directing and producing several films including The Surfing Years (1966) and Cardin in Australia (1967). Peter thinks that the very nature of cinema and the film experience has changed dramatically in the last twenty years and film critics have had to change with it.

'When I was growing up, movies were a magical thing that happened in darkened cinemas, now they're pervasive ... they're everywhere', says Thompson. 'People have not just one television in the house but several, everything's released on DVD, and now we have pay television, which delivers movies twenty-four hours a day and has sixty to eighty movies available every weekend.' While it's great to have that access, it has diminished the mystery and the magic of movies, making them less powerful. 'We're right in the middle of quite a radical revolution where people's habits are changing. I'm not sure what the outcome of it is going to be but I think the repercussions are going to be enormous.'

Thompson, who also reviews films for Showtime Movie Greats, believes that the diversity and type of films offered at the cinemas has also changed, with a bunching around the mainstream and films targeted at younger aged audiences. He says that, because younger audiences are more interested in spectacular films and outrageous comedies, it has put off many older audiences from going to the cinemas. 'A lot of people have drifted away. They don't want to go to multiplexes, which are crowded with young people, they want to go to the movies but it's not to their taste anymore.'

Thompson argues that, while video used to be a second choice to the cinema, because everybody knew that it was an inferior experience, with home cinema and digital imaging, and because cinemas aren't meeting the tastes of older audiences, it's become a primary experience. 'You've got your own luxury cinema at home. The sale of DVDs is surprisingly high and the rental of DVDs is going through the roof. The other thing is, pay television's numbers just keep climbing and climbing.'

Thompson says film criticism has also changed with the introduction of online amateur reviewing, placing many critics in a very dynamic situation. 'I think the Internet is having a profound affect', he says. '[Audiences] can trace people and films they're interested in and it's interactive, they can actually write their own commentary.' Thompson suggests that, in the last twenty years, junk has become more respectable and there now exists a 'junk culture' which has grown up in opposition to the elite culture.

The promoters of junk culture say all you need is your own taste. I'm not a defender of elitist culture ... [but] you've got to write from a philosophical position. It's got to be based on more than an understanding of movies. It takes fife experience, a natural talent and determination and hard work.

While he recognizes that there are still a lot of talented people reviewing films in Australia, Thompson says the reason we don't see more high quality reviewing has to do with the editors of newspapers and magazines.

They simply don't pay enough to journalists and reviewers to allow those people to give it the time that it needs ... What would raise the standard of film reviewing in Australia is if editors would take it more seriously and give it more space, raising the stakes and getting more ambitious people working harder.

He says that Australia has yet to develop mature culture of creative analysis and supportive criticism. 'Naturally a lot of creative people are very defensive and they don't want to hear criticism of their work. That's a cultural problem in Australia. We don't live in a community where criticism is seen as constructive.'

Thompson is one of a handful of critics in Australia who is attempting to breach the distrust between film critics and filmmakers by refusing to review films he doesn't like. 'I feel that I swim against the tide', he says. 'I think there are so many films that are worth talking about that I would rather use my time to encourage people towards what I see as positive, enjoyable and pleasurable experiences.' He agrees that there is a role for warning people off bad films, but says you then get into a difficult area, because something that he doesn't like may very well be somebody else's cup of tea. 'I feel very strongly about treating creative people with respect and if a film doesn't work in my view, I would rather keep my opinions private.'

PAUL BYRNES, a senior film reviewer for The Sydney Morning Herald, says that because there has been an orchestrated movement driven by the Hollywood studios, which has sought to undermine reviewers and critics, the whole notion of reviewing and criticism has changed to its detriment.

'Hollywood has always hated critics and will continue to; but for a long time critics and reviewers were trusted by the public because the public distrusted the marketing ploys of the studios', says Byrnes. However, this is no longer the case; the public has been convinced in the last twenty years that marketing budgets and box office numbers are actually reliable barometers of the quality of a film.

Byrnes, a former director of the Sydney Film Festival, says that by inculcating a distrust of the critic, the studios undermine the role of the critic and their relationship with the audience. 'We're in a position now where the critics mean less than they ever did in the history of cinema, yet at no time in the last hundred years has the role of the critic been more important.'

He believes moviegoers are becoming more docile and surrendering their power to make decisions to the studios, with studios specifically targeting younger audiences, the major demographic for film-going, who are more vulnerable and easier to fool, and who are less likely to separate studio-driven opinion from independent opinion.

But I think you can only fool them part of the time. Even the most unschooled viewer has strong critical opinions about the films they're seeing. Part of my job is to try and sharpen the tools that are in their box ... by reading interesting opinions about films you develop your own set of tools to evaluate them.