In a 12.23 Film Threat interview to promote The B List: The National Society of Film Critics on the Low-Budget Beauties, Genre-Bending Mavericks, and Cult Classics We Love (De Capo), co-author John Anderson is asked to differentiate between A-List and B-List movie journo-blogger-critics.

“Can we boil it down to pros vs. wankers?,” Anderson replies. “There are a lot of alleged critics out there trying to prove that the internet was created to unleash the untalented, untaught and probably unwashed” — the leading voice in this camp is Time‘s Richard Schickel — “but those people exist in print too. The most marked difference, I have learned, between what’s in ‘the B List’ and what’s generally available on blogs is the quality of the writing. There’s no comparison. Some of these NSFC people are scarily good at what they do.”

As long as Anderson has brought it up, can we see some reader selections for those journo-blogger-critics who squarely belong on the pro or wanker lists? I would put Anderson at the top of any pro list, but not that’s not a very ballsy call, is it? The more I think about it, the fewer people I can think of who really deserve to be called wankers. It’s very hard work to bang good stuff out every day. I’m inclined to give anyone a pass as long as they’re coming from a place of passion and commitment and the use of spell check.