film criticism by maryann johanson | since 1997
As critic turned filmmaker Gerald Peary’s documentary demonstrates, the field has been chock full of personality clashes, political posturing, conflicts of interest, and damned opinionated voices since forever.
Every week my browser gets cluttered up with tabs for stuff that I stumble across and figure I might be able to use as a Question of the Day or a WTF Thought for the Day or grist for some other post. And inevitably, I end the week with most of that material unused. But … more…
Thomas Doherty in The Chronicle of Higher Education Review is lamenting how “serious writers on film feel under siege, underappreciated, and underemployed”… which is something I not only sympathize with, I live it. It’s unbelievably disheartening to be looking for work — as I’ve been — and find only ads for “voluntary” jobs, or ones … more…
Sasha Stone at Awards Daily wants to know whom we should legitimately consider a film critic, and whom we shouldn’t: What makes a film critic, one has to wonder. Nowadays, anyone with a blog who sees movies is called a “critic.” I really think that should be amended to use the term “blogger” or “industry … more…
Following up on yesterday’s question about the ongoing mass extinction of local newspaper film critics, if you’re interested in this issue, you should be checking out the regularly updated list over at Movie City News over the last 121 (at the moment) critics who made their full-time living from reviewing movies. My question today is, … more…
So, Roger Ebert reviewed a movie after seeing only eight minutes of it, and people are talking. Some are objecting to the fact that Ebert does not reveal he saw only eight minutes of the film, Tru Love, until the end of his review. In Ebert’s followup blog post defending his decision to not only … more…
