Back during my “basic training” for a journalistic career as editor-in-chief of my college newspaper, I was approached by an eager-beaver-type chap who said he wanted to write movie reviews. Since this would-be critic could show me nothing in the way of previous work, I asked him to provide us with a sample.

A couple ofdays later, he was back with some ecstatic prose in praise of whatever film was currently playing at the local cinema, ending in the unforgettable line “It is a very good movie…