The Guardian just announced the winners of its annual young critics' competition.

The overall winner, 15-year-old Rebecca Grant, won the judges over with her demolition of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, which she described as a "beautifully eccentric odyssey" reduced to "disgusting dregs". "She managed to be witheringly critical without sounding as if she was grandstanding," said Liz Forgan, the chair of Arts Council England. Rebecca will win a trip to a film screening with a Guardian film critic, and get the chance to write about it in g2.

And this year, the Young Critics' Workshop, a class I teach with Teen Tix (and privately call FUCA: Future Unemployed Critics of America) received a record 20 applications this year from kids all around the city. It always shocks me that any high-school kid would voluntarily sign up for an extra class in the winter for which they get no academic credit—but some kids apparently nurse dreams of being (future unemployed) arts critics.

Who knew?