Is anything not a spoiler these days? Newspapers, blogs, even sports reports put big disclaimers on their pages: "spoiler alert." And it puts movie critics, in particular, in a tough spot. How do you do intelligent criticism of a film without giving away anything too important. Peter Howell is the movie critic for The Star in Toronto, and did a piece recently on the sometimes unbearable amount of spoiler alerts:

I have to ask this question: Why? Why does it matter so much if you know going into a movie the basic contours of the plot?

As a movie critic, I am keenly aware that one person's spoiler is another person's essential background information. I strive mightily to avoid being either a blabbermouth or a mime, and I know most other critics do the same.

It's a real tightrope walk, and while I don't begrudge doing it, I don't always succeed. There's always going to be some ostrich out there who is annoyed, for example, if you tell him that the ship sinks in Titanic. (Sorry if that's news to you.)

I can't tell you how many times I've seen The Wizard of Oz, The Godfather or Caddyshack. But my enjoyment of these films has little to do with knowing whether or not Dorothy gets back to Kansas, Don Corleone survives the assassination attempt or the gopher beats Bill Murray.

Obviously with all the Tivos, fan sites, and delayed events out there, it's a whole lot easier to ruin a twist ending or the final score than it was when we only had three broadcast networks. But to borrow Peter's question: Who cares? Does it really ruin your experience of the film or game if you know what happens?