Jonathan Kirshner, reviewing a collection of books on the '70s heyday of critics like Roger Ebert and Pauline Kael, thinks not:
The blockbuster model was … a terrible blow to the critical enterprise. With movies opening everywhere at once, aggressively marketed and highly dependent on the first few weeks of box-office receipts, filmmakers and viewers relied little on the opinions and influence of serious critics. The relationship between the movies and their audiences was changing.
The Dish 