> I'm not sure what you mean by separating review from criticism. Can you expand on that?

Let's start with applying both to "Eraserhead":

A critical approach might have a thesis on how it links with Lynch's interest in Buddhism and how those concepts surface in the film, how different events and characters in the film can be read through that lens and how the resolution of the film makes sense in a Buddhist context. Absolutely none of this tells you whether the person who watched the film was enraptured by it from the first scene or whether they got through it out of academic obligation and immediately bitched about it on social media afterwards. Criticism has a thesis about a work and defends it, which doesn't usually involve how enjoyable the work is.

A review of "Eraserhead" would tell you about the experience of watching it, whether the person writing the review thought it was a well-constructed and engaging film, and maybe some thoughts on how much sense they made of it, but the analysis wouldn't be the focus. Thumbs up, thumbs down, that's the meat.

It's entirely possible to mix the two realms, but there's a difference in focus and intent. The better YouTube channels (Folding Ideas) mix the two quite deftly, in fact, but I'd put Folding Ideas in the realm of criticism more than reviewing because he does tend to have a thesis and defends it in addition to saying how much he enjoyed (or, more often, didn't) the films he talks about.

For example, in his video about The Nostalgia Critic's review of Pink Floyd's movie The Wall (that is, his video about another person's review of a band's movie made from their rock opera album) his thesis is that the person behind The Nostalgia Critic character is creatively stalled and fundamentally lazy. He defends this thesis while lambasting the video he's talking about, but the thesis is centered. That's criticism.

TV/Film has a way of naturally dumbing things down, the making of video content can get complicated, so the way your favorite book gets butchered into a movie is a natural consequence (RIP Tom Bombadil) between the writing style tailored for the screen, meeting episode length (gotta fit those ads in the time slot) YouTube pushes towards trending content lengths - like how every 4 minute topic is stretched into a 20 minute journey of how the creator came at the 4 minutes of content... The military brigade approach that film and TV employ to get the footage they need with continuity to some acceptable level etc. Writing about complex things has fewer (yet still infinite) hurdles.

Siskel and Ebert were limited by time/format, but they did actually talk about what was good/bad about the films they covered even if ultimately it got a thumbs up/down. That's better than a lot of people bother with now which is often just a number or a percentage.

There's also Reverse Shot: https://reverseshot.org/

The Dissolve alumni are all (mostly) writing at various publications: https://thedissolve.com/

While David Bordwell sadly passed, his blog is still a great resource (books, too!) and actively updated: https://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/

> 1. House of Tabula - Essays on art and culture, with a heavy emphasis on film, old and new. https://www.youtube.com/@TheHouseofTabula/videos

Wow, great channel. Addresses[1] some of what I said with much more insight than I could.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_-t3i6ipz4