One of the best reasons to read the movie reviews of the New York Times is that they are written by intelligent, fair minded people who enjoy film and to inform an audience of what they're going to see when they walk into the cinema. Their standards aren't to low as to recommend everything, but they aren't so high that the critics seem like snobs (for that, read the movie reviews in the New Yorker). And they critics act like critics, by taking the film apart and addressing the aspects that did and did not work.

But really, the best reason to read the movie reviews is that someone decided to mimic the MPAA's habit of describing why a movie has a certain rating at the end of each review. These can actually be more entertaining than the article itself, and shows where the true stripes of the writer.

For instance, this week for "Idlewild" we have:

"Idlewild” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). The film has female nudity, adult language, hooch and suspicious-looking clouds of “cigarette” smoke.

It's the quotes around "the cigarette smoke" that makes me smile.