Ever notice that film critics who ply their trade on the TV infotainment circuit seem to love everything they see? In the past few years the Today Show s Gene Shalit has gushed over such forgettable clunkers as the universally panned Fantastic Four ( Fantastic Four . . . everyone! ) while over at Reel Talk, Alison Bailes raved about big-budget flops like Beowulf ( I was gripped and on the edge of my seat! ).

Why would these critics be willing to risk their credibility by championing bad movies? To be fair, TV reviewers tendency to speak in sound bites highly suitable for movie ads is, to some extent, based on the limitations of the medium they work in. Fast-paced entertainment shows spare scant seconds for coverage of anything; you ve got to get to the point and make it snappy. Ebert & Roeper at least allowed for extended, even passionate, discussion of films up for review.

But TV personalities have to worry about furthering their own brand themselves. Thus, they tend to play it safe by embracing middling fare or worse. So the next time you hear Larry King praise such low-chuckle-count fodder as Monster-in-Law as hysterically funny, you ll know to take his opinion with a barrelful of salt.

If you really want to know what you re in for when shelling out for the next megahyped blockbuster, it pays to learn the fine art of reading movie ads. The good news for consumers is that most reputable film marketers have cleaned up their act in recent years, no longer cherrypicking words and phrases from reviews so that a magnificent waste of time reads on the poster as Magnificent! You can thank the overzealous ad execs at Sony who, it was discovered in 2001, had created a fictional critic, one David Manning, to churn out enthusiastic blurbs for the films of its subsidiary Columbia Pictures. (In August 2005, Sony agreed to refund $5 to anyone who saw Hollow Man, The Animal, The Patriot, A Knight s Tale, or Vertical Limit between Aug. 3, 2000, and Oct. 31, 2001.)

But there are still a few useful tricks: When deciphering film ads, use the law of three that is, every ad should boast full sentences from at least three media sources you ve heard of. If you re considering a sci-fi or horror flick and the ad offers up blurbs only from genrespecific publications, pass on it. Finally, if the ad crows something like America s No. 1 Comedy! don your skeptic s hat: What, if any, other comedies were released the same week?

When asked her take on the Academy Awards, Salon.com film critic Stephanie Zacharek dismisses them as useless, overrated, while The Washington Post s Ann Hornaday calls them selfcongratulatory, fatuous but admits the annual telecast is an irresistible guilty pleasure.

The fact is, the job of critics and the interests of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have little to do with each other. But by understanding their antagonism, you can hedge your watercooler Oscar bets. Film critics dote on quality (no matter how exotic their idea of quality may be), whereas the Academy tends to reward monetary success. At the Oscars, stellar filmmaking is routinely eclipsed by sentimental favorites. Which helps explain, for example, how Rocky beat out Martin Scorsese s classic Taxi Driver in 1976.

Still, critics can help you pick the winners. Veteran reviewers will tell you Oscar tends to tumble for actors laboring under ugly makeup (Charlize Theron in Monster) or playing victims (Jodie Foster in The Accused). Reviewers are also helpful with Best Picture bets if only by accident. Scan critic picks and top-10 lists at www.metacritic.com; if most really liked something, it s best to bet against it.

An attractive young publicity person leads you to a private room in one of Manhattan s finest hotels, where, along with a handful of other writers, you are met by Russell Crowe, who shakes your hand, asks your name like he really wants to know, then spends a good hour answering questions about most anything within reason. And that was only the beginning of the junket for Twentieth Century Fox s 2003 epic Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. Some of the journalists in attendance had seen the film; others had yet to see it. None left the hotel with their objectivity intact.

Not all junkets lay it on quite so thick as that one did; nonetheless, many responsible critics have begun avoiding them. Says Salon.com s Zacharek, it s a conflict of interest. Once you talk to these people, you realize that they really are trying to communicate something, she says. But reviewing someone s film after meeting them is just too weird. Many daily and weekly papers are likewise rebelling against junkets; Baltimore City Paper s arts editor Bret McCabe says, I won t green-light an interview until I or the writer has seen the movie.

Even ardent cineastes will sometimes come across a review so steeped in jargon it seems written in another language. Which, in a way, it is. For example, readers may be surprised to discover that 2006 s The Devil Wears Prada wasn t just a lighthearted comedy, but a roman clef (aka a film using thinly veiled fictional surrogates for real people and events). You may also find yourself tripping over a discussion of mise-en-sc ne (a vague term that can refer to everything from the way actors are placed in a scene to the choice of camera moves).

Aside from these perennial favorites, schadenfreude (pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others) is particularly popular right now, while formalism doesn t refer to a film about a black-tie event, but rather is an academic term for work that calls attention to its own artificiality (think the opening of Moulin Rouge, where the curtains part to reveal a conductor starting up the film s music).

Why do critics sometimes seem to aim to confuse? Zacharek speculates that reviewers go jargon crazy out of insecurity. She says, Writers should always write to illuminate, not to obfuscate. That is, they should be more plainspoken.

When Miramax Films cochairmen, Harvey and Bob Weinstein, officially severed ties with Disney in 2005, Miramax still had a backlog of troubled films it was obligated to release. The company s solution? Dump them in theaters in the postsummer dead zone that lasts from mid-August through September. Which might explain why you ve likely never heard of, let alone seen, such fall 2005 fire sale releases as The Great Raid or An Unfinished Life.

But the tail end of summer isn t the only time of year studios like to empty their trash and when you may want to think twice before heading out to your local multiplex. There s also January and February, once Oscar hopefuls have already hit theaters. That s not to say all films opening during these down periods are dogs. One noteworthy exception: the much lauded The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, which was released in September 2007. But a look at what it shared marquee space with confirms the trend: the action dud/Clive Owen vehicle Shoot Em Up was simultaneously limping into theaters.

Want to stir people up? Ask them what they think of movie critics. Jen Davis of Louisville, Ky., is put off by what she sees as a superiority syndrome in the profession. My opinion is just as valid, dammit! she says. Tammy Ras of Pascoag, R.I., is more militant: If they say, Don t see it, it sucks, that means, Go see it, it s great. Sounds harsh, but the truth is, filmgoers need reviewers. As Salon.com s Zacharek puts it, Critics are the only thing standing between consumers and advertising. With hundreds of films released in theaters each year, Critics are more important now than they ever were, she says. There are just so many movies, so much aggressive hype.

Skyrocketing ticket and concession prices further underscore the need for prescreening. Keith Phipps, film reviewer for the satire and culture-coverage weekly The Onion, gets ticked off at fellow critics for not keeping consumers in mind. It s that good-enough, three-stars, we llgive- it-a-pass mentality, he says, that gets people to shell out for unworthy cinematic fare. The catch-22 for critics is that being harder on movies invariably results in more hate mail.

Critics have their biases just like the rest of us. For example, don t even mention Johnny Depp to The Washington Post s Stephen Hunter. According to coworker Ann Hornaday, Stephen isn t a huge fan. Such personal aversions underscore both the catty delights of being a critic hello, Rex Reed and the responsibility of not letting one s personal prejudices about particular stars, or even entire genres, interfere with one s critical acumen. That said, you can often tell if a reviewer is of use to you based on what he or she can t stand. Not down with hyperviolent martial arts films? Then Hornaday s your source. I really did not get any of the charm, she says. Zacharek, meanwhile, tends to think big, prestige Hollywood movies in general don t meet anyone s expectations.

How to use critics predilections to guide you through the thicket of releases? Try making a list of three films you really liked and three you disliked. Then go to www.rottentomatoes.com or www.metacritic.com to find reviewers whose tastes consistently agree or disagree with your own.

Connie Ogle, who was film critic for The Miami Herald before becoming the paper s book editor, always had stacks of to-be-reviewed DVDs atop her television. But what was she more excited about seeing? TV drama Veronica Mars.

And it s not just Ogle. With such reliably superior fare as The Sopranos, 24, The Office, and The Wire in recent years, television has suffered an embarrassment of riches, while the quality of feature films has been sinking steadily. Once frowned upon by Hollywood as middlebrow pap, TV is now drawing talent away from the movies. But why the migration from big screen to small? For one thing, the Hollywood bureaucracy has gotten out of hand. The entire process, according to The Washington Post s Hornaday, is compromised artistically. As cogs in a vast, slow-churning wheel, many creative minds find their jobs boil down to stomp[ing] all over other people s work, she says. They don t do that in TV. And as television production continues to siphon talent from Hollywood, how are the studios filling those slots? By hiring those who make music videos and TV spots to helm feature films which explains a lot.

Is it conceivable for a critic to see everything released in a given year while also finding time to write reviews and take the occasional bathroom break? Not possible! Ogle says. And yet a majority of critics are compelled to compile a year-end top-10 list. More troubling is the lack of access most people have to many of the films on these lists: Unless you live in New York or Los Angeles, it s highly unlikely that you ve had an opportunity to see such critical darlings as 2005 s The Best of Youth or 2007 s The Lives of Others. And yet both films made the year-end lists of critics from The New York Times and Newsweek.

Granted, the proliferation of top-10s is a flawed system defined by elitism and the trend trade winds, but it doesn t mean they re entirely useless. These lists are an excellent means of sussing out upcoming DVD releases of movies that never made it to your neck of the woods. So if you re ready to load up your Netflix queue with last year s best-loved films that virtually nobody got to see, go to www.metacritic .com/film and click on Film Awards & Top 10s by Year.