And speaking as we were yesterday of great moments in film criticism, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention another of my all-time favorites. But first, forgive what may appear like a digression to set it up.

Back in the 80s, you may recall, there was a really terrific magazine called Musician. For my money it covered rock (and to a lesser extent jazz) better than just about any other rag of its or any other day, and it's a damn shame that it went out of business -- like the equally lamented Spy-- just before the digital era, which is to say almost nothing of it survives on the Intertubes.

In any case, in the mag's larger record review section there was the de rigeur Short Takes box, i.e. a (usually) half page spread where various albums would be dispatched in a brief paragraph each. The guy who wrote it was the estimable critic J.D.Considine, and after a while, perhaps out of boredom, he started including one Short Take per issue that was no longer than a single line. These were pretty funny, as you can imagine, and a lot of people besides me used to open the section before the rest of the magazine, just to see what minimalist dig Considine had come up with that month.

His all-time classic? A review of GTR, the eponymous 1986 album by a ghastly supergroup of prog rock vets including Steve Hackett from Genesis and Steve Howe from Yes.

It read, in its entirety -- "SHT."

But we were talking of film criticism, and thinking about that Considine review I was reminded of something almost as pithy, in this case from Channel 5 in New York movie maven Stewart Klein, who died, too young, from an attack of snark in 1999.

Reviewing a certain 1976 comedy about a cute German Shepherd puppy who becomes a silent movie star, Klein looked at the camera, much as he did in the shot below --

-- and said, simply, but eloquently --

"Won Ton Ton is a dog. This has been Stewart Klein, Channel 5 News, New York."

Ah, there were giants in the earth in those days...