"Far from being elitist, movie critics are actually a pretty good barometer of popular taste." That's the verdict from Slate.com's Erik Lundergaard. His exhaustive analysis shows that, despite popular opinion, movies the critics like usually perform very well at the box office. The reason some ordinary big-budget films do so well is that they are released on to more cinema screens than critically praised art-house films, which usually take more money per-screen.