I work at a newspaper. I tried to make a similar argument once to a top editor who was cheering on a decision to go to almost all wire reviews for new movies. I tried to explain that part of what makes a newspaper have a strong personality is its writers' voices -- that includes columnists and of course reviewers -- of movies, music, theater. When we silence those voices, we give readers less reason to pick us up. I might as well have been talking to a post. The guy justified it by saying that this gave us an opportunity to hire a reporter instead.
Reporting is very important -- but newspapers have cut so much that they're in the position of cutting into the muscle and bone, and destroying what made them great.

JE: I've run into the same thing before. Also, they don't understand the reportorial component of reviewing. I once worked for a paper that fired its TV critic and hired a TV reporter instead. Then it wound up hiring an additional TV columnist because it turned out their research showed that's what people wanted to read when they read about TV. It's always hard to explain to certain editors the difference between writing about film or TV and writing about, say, the city council. Movies and TV (and the Interwebs) may be (inter-)national, but all experience is local.

You're right when you say that the vast majority of movies are crap, but I'd also argue that there are more great movies being made now than there have been in decades. For example, twenty years ago had anyone in the West seen a film from Thailand? Now there are at least two major, internationally-renowned Thai filmmakers. So it's obvious that some sort of critical system needs to be out there not only reviewing what comes to the States, but looking for more stuff that's becoming more and more available even if you don't live within three subway stops of the Film Forum or Anthology in NYC.

That sort of global cultural effort isn't coming from print journalism, though. The arts sections of US newspapers have been cut down so much that even a good writer has to learn to write extended blurbs more than substantial reviews, and I find that I pick up the local alt weekly for the showtimes and listings more than for the writing. Sure, film reviewers are still important enough gatekeepers to alert readers to what's good, and I know that smaller art houses are particularly dependent on that publicity. But any time I go to, for example, a Thai art film, it's because I already know the filmmaker's work from reading reviews and festival reports online, and have been waiting for that particular film since it's local run was first announced. And I'm pretty sure that's the way it is for most people in the art house crowds. Anyone who's conscientious enough about current filmmaking to attend 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is more likely to have known about this film and the positive buzz from sources other than the local rags. My long and rambling point is that actual criticism needs space for a critic's writing style and his observations to be appreciated, and that's the reason why I used to read the local arts section every Friday way back when. When newspapers have basically limited the function of reviews to star ratings and a blurb, there's no reason for the cinephile to ever read the local reviews, as the internet's much more useful and comprehensive in that respect. And the internet critics are more likely to point me towards small international films that I should see even if they don't come to a theater near me. The one thing print had going for it that the internet can't really compete with is the level of writing talent that would be able to devote all its energies to criticism, but if these writers aren't going to write much anyway then there's no reason to bother.

I've wanted to be a pro-film critic for a few years, but the news has slowly trickled in that this might be impossible. I am published regularly in the Waterloo, IA paper and the local university paper, and though I love the work I do, "economic reasons" might ensure that I downgrade a passion to a mere hobby one day.

Critics used to be able to help out smaller movies in their local markets. Vincent Canby's rave review of "Stranger than Paradise" was instrumental in ensuring it's extended run at the Cinema 2 in New York. Whether his review played a bigger role than "word of mouth" is hard to tell, but "Stranger" was easily the sort of film that could have played for a week and disappeared. And likewise Jarmusch's career the type that might never gotten started. I'm not saying Jarmusch owes his career to Canby, but the review was a major factor in the film's long and happy NYC run.

Can critics still do that for films playing locally?

By the way, Jim, I observe with not even the slightest bit of resentment then when I open my Delaware County Daily Times (or perhaps it was the Philadelphia Daily News) wondering whether or not I might convince them to pay me a pittance to write reviews for them, I see a smarty-pants critic named "Jim Emerson" has already beaten me to it. How many papers does that greedy bastard need to write for anyway!!!! :)

I would say that about 20 percent of the time, my want to see a movie is based on what a critic actually said about the film. I find that I can pretty much figure out what's good and what's not from watching the trailers and reading the advance buzz. As someone whose dream it is to one day review films for a living, I read film criticism to get zingers, have a laugh, and ultimately get guidance on how to actually do it. There's not a class in college that tells you how to write film critique for a newspaper (granted, we learn to write about them academically, but that's not nearly the same as a 500 word review for the Friday edition.)

It saddens me that in our era of conglomeration and cutting corners, along with the advent of the Internet where everyone can be a critic, the era of the conventional movie critic that does nothing but that for a living is dying. Working at a newspaper, I found that sometimes for jobs such as entertainment reporters, it is alot easier to hire freelancers who can cover a wider variety of stories for less pay than it is to have someone on staff. But I think having people who do specific criticism is important or otherwise, like you said, it will be a bunch of crap reviews churned out by a bunch of talking heads. I'm still not that skilled at writing reviews myself, but I hope that the profession remains prominent, because even in our age of critic resistant movies, there's nothing I love more than watching a really great critic trash a really bad movie.

Nathan Lee, you will be missed.

Jim: I followed the discussion over at The House Next Door and The Reeler, and this is an excellent addition to the discussion. I especially enjoyed your astute comments on "critic-irrelevant" films and your theories on the "influence" (or lack thereof) of reviews on box office performance.

Also, I strongly agree that regular readers of criticism form a relationship with their favored critics that causes them to want to read reviews of anything. Count me as one of those folks who will read Roger Ebert or Stephanie Zacharek or a number of other critics regardless of my intent to see the film that's up for analysis. But having said that, this reveals a contradiction with your comment that "in most cases" it isn't worth a critic scrambling to review a film that wasn't initially screened for critics once it opens to the general public. Now, I grant you that most of these movies weren't screened for critics for a reason. But if I enjoy my dose of Ebert, then I want to read his review of, say, The Avengers whether it appears on the Friday of the film's release or comes two weeks later. Likewise, if the upcoming Superhero Movie just plain isn't worth a review, then I don't want to see column inches wasted on it this Friday just because it's new.

I realize that my take here is based on ideals and forgets for a moment that a newspaper or magazine is a business (and a failing business in many cases). If reviews of the upcoming mega-release sell ad dollars, then newspapers are slaves to those ad dollars. But isn't that the justification that the Village Voice is using here? That publication and others that have made similar layoffs recently are saying that the average reader doesn't care who writes its review. Thus it doesn't pay for the publication to care either. I'm not supporting this logic. I'm saying that if we're going to think about the ideal we should do so across the board.

Count me in as one of those people who finds great pleasure in entertaining and sometimes superb unpaid criticism found on many blogs. As a writer and blogger myself (and the son of a newspaper reporter), sure, I'm disheartened by the reality for Nathan Lee and others: Lee has not only lost THIS job, but his prospects of finding another paid reviewing gig are slim to none. But at least, as a reader, I have blog criticism to fill the void. The main obstacle there is that, as you suggested, sometimes the only method of finding new writers is to click through blogroll after blogroll. How many great bloggers am I missing now? How long will it take me to discover them? Trees are falling all over this cyber forest without me hearing them, and that makes me angry. That's where established publications should be able to step in and help. Back to that ideal again: there should be a sense that a professional publication will offer unique criticism that's worth being paid for (and certainly many publications fall short there, regardless of how many critics they have on staff).

One final note of interest: As paid movie critics have become an endangered species, within the past year there's been a recent boom in online sports analysis. For exampleA: ESPN.com was already an online sports heavyweight, yet in the past year or so it's hired a number of reporters away from their newspaper jobs, in many cases to provide niche coverage. Wouldn't you think that an entertainment magazine or newspaper or straight online publication would make a bold effort right about now to become the go-to destination for film criticism?

Imagine if Metacritic didn't just gather reviews into one place but actually put several big-name critics (or small-name ones) under the same masthead. Imagine if there were enough critics under one roof so that all new releases would be covered without wasting a single reviewer's talent by having him/her review three dreadful February releases for the same Friday. Thus imagine that an A.O. Scott or a Manohla Dargis wouldn't just be stuck in the new but could lend their talents to the old, the cherished, the overlooked, the misunderstood. I'm sure I speak for many when I say that my favorite element of RogerEbert.com is the archive of Great Movies essays, written not in a hurry for a Friday publication but years later, in greater context.

I write that not meaning for it to sound like some Obama-esque ideal. I write that as someone who is truly shocked that, say, Entertainment Weekly isn't already attempting to do this. Anyway, the death of the paid (and talented) film critic is a tragic thing, don't get me wrong. But at least it doesn't have to mean the end for (talented) film criticism. I just wish the two could get along.

Being that I am a reporter/film columnist who operates his own film review web site with the hopes of eventually breaking into reviewing for a newspaper or magazine, this post is pretty disheartening.

I've seen so many regional critics (nationwide) replaced by wire services and an overall attitude by publications that film critics are interchangeable. I live in New York and feel lucky to still have the ability to read great city-based critics like Hoberman, Dargis and AO Scott. But I worry about the future (?) of film criticism.

And I completely agree with you, Jim, that while there continue to be great films every year, the so-called 'mediocre' ones are almost more intolerable than the bad ones.

Lousy money...

Brilliantly written, you've summarized the frustrations I've felt since I heard this news.

Nathan Lee is a great critic with a great voice. He's that rare reviewer able to pick moments of gold out of worst of films, and one of the few who doesn't completely dismiss the modern "horror" film output. This is quite the loss. I can only hope his writings on film will continue in some form I have access to.

Reading what posters have to say about film critics on rotten tomatoes (see the posts under the news about Nathan Lee) is disturbing. Many seem to forget that critics bring world cinema and marginalized film to our attention. How else am I to hear about a film like 'Chop Shop'? It’s not just advertising, it’s a public service.

I fear more and more like film is going the way of the "feelies" Aldous Huxley spoke of in 'Brave New World', a book I'm finding more and more frightening as years pass.

Although I think that the notion of art (and especially film) as 'product' is at the core of this, another major component is the overall erosion of confidence in authority figures and in the idea of (capital 'T') Truth in general. I am often surprised at the smugness with which people express disdain for critics of all kinds. The only truth that many people accept is their own, and the only opinion that many people will diegn to listen to is their own.

If a popular critic agrees with their own estimation, they take that as proof of how smart and film-savy they are. If a critic disagrees, they take that as proof of how 'those critics don't really know anything.' The entire idea that one person's opinion on matters of art can be, not necessarily better, but more informed, seems to have fallen by the wayside entirely.

I know I stopped reading my local paper here in Oklahoma because they went to almost completely wire reviews. I thought “What’s the point of paying for the paper when I could read everything in it online?” so I canceled my subscription.

I read Ebert’s reviews of any movie I want to go see (or have just seen) or any movie that he gives either 4 or less than 2 stars. Jim, you’re absolutely right about people liking to read Ebert’s writing because of him and not just caring about what he’s writing about. I mean where else could a review start off:

This sucks on so many levels. --Dialogue from "Jason X" Rare for a movie to so frankly describe itself. "Jason X" sucks on the levels of storytelling, character development, suspense, special effects, originality, punctuation, neatness and aptness of thought. Only its title works.

That’s just great writing, and fun to read.

I have two young children so my wife and I don't get a chance to go out to the movies for ourselves that often. We have to try to make it a good one when we do. I read many reviews as film criticism is so subjective that the only way to see if the film is something you may like without actually seeing the film is to read as many different viewpoints as possible. You get to know the particular affinities and aversions of each critic you read repeatedly and in that way, you can gauge whether a complaint about a particular film is something you would consider or even indulge.

Many blog critics are guerrilla reviewers, going for a quick laugh or contriving attention without real depth.

Film is the most versatile medium of art today as it can do so much in little time, at relatively low expense to the viewer and is usually readily available to everyone. Try finding good modern art museums in some areas!

The loss of this particular voice and others will be felt.with wire and blogs, there will be dilution of actual critical excellence and an overabundance of people which will lend itself to the most contrived or the most outrageous being the one heard, instead of the most insightful.

Think of the films just this year that inspired good discussion; There will be blood, No Country, Juno, I enjoy reading the reviews even after I see the films just to see what's out there. When I see people writing sophomoric bilge like "anyone who enjoyed this film clearly knows nothing about film" I know the writer knows nothing about film. Sadly, this kind of contrivance will be too common in the years to come.

If there's no room at newspapers for film criticism, I predict that it will adapt in the same way that literary criticism has -- into a profession financially supported by the institution of academia, and disseminated in its most accessible forms on the web. Academic writing is slow, slow, slow, and blogs are fast, fast, fast, but over the next thirty years I think you'll start to see a lot of people who are really good at expressing their insights in both worlds.

Entertainment Weekly reviews read like advertisements; Rolling Stone like plot summaries: the critics may be vigorous and distinctive in person, but in print they are generic and vague.

I also dislike the space restrictions of a print column; yes, that's what David Bordwell and Stephen Prince books counterbalance, but they don't release books every week, covering every new release: which is why I usually read Salon.com, which appears to leave the length of the review at the discretion of the reviewer. A shallow Adam Sandler movie gets a shallow 5 paragraphs; but a controversial Michael Moore film can span several pages.

The same way the /b/ forum at 4Chan is funnier and more full of unrestrained wit than anything on TV and most movies, Internet reviewing is far more intellectually liberated and insane than modern print.

I wish the old days of a 10 page, 19th century Moby Dick review, in which dozens of paragraphs are quoted directly and analysed, still existed: but that sort of ubiquitous scholarship is now confined to specialty literature, and no longer the standard of all printed language.

Jim - I know Chris Long was joking but his joke raises an interesting issue. That is to say, how can one decry papers using syndicated columns when the decryer in question is in fact syndicated? I am assuming that you have no control whatsoever on where your writing ends up and if a paper chooses to go the wire route I would hope that they would go with you and other critics I admire anyway. So my question here is not concerning your choice in the matter but the popularity of the critic in general.

I recognized Hoberman's name long before I knew of Nathan Lee. So does a critic getting fired have to do with how easily he is syndicated? If Hoberman is bought up by more papers than Lee is that what influences the decision to give him the ax?

I wonder if film criticism will begin to suffer, if it doesn't already, from a form of sensationalist competition wherein the paid critics' opinions will become more extreme, more polarized, more acerbic, more condescending and more vitriolic in an effort to get enough readers and syndicated columns to avoid the ax?

Christopher, Jonathan: I don't know if Hoberman (who recently celebrated his 30th year at the Voice) is syndicated to papers outside the Voice's chain of weeklies, but I imagine any of the papers they own (the Seattle Weekly, for example) have access to his stuff.

My reviews, interviews and features were syndicated over Knight-Ridder for years when I worked for the Orange County Register, too. Then, as now, I had no idea who ran any of it, and I didn't get a penny extra for it. Most papers consider staff writing "work for hire" and they have the right to do whatever they want with it. (And then the editors who print the stuff in their local papers are free to slice and dice and fit the pieces into whatever hole they need to fill.) Right now, while Roger is recuperating, the Chicago Sun-Times still needs movie reviews, and I'm happy to chip in, to help keep things going until Roger returns.

But I do think syndication serves a purpose for papers that don't have a "second-string" critic or freelancers on call. It just isn't possible (Roger's superhuman efforts aside) for one person to review everything. Even at the Register I was the only movie critic, while the LA Times had a staff and regular freelance stable of five. When there was something I couldn't cover (or, in some cases, I would simply joke: "You don't have enough money to pay me to see/review this") we'd run... Ebert! Of course, I was expected to cover major releases, and I preferred to write about the "art house" stuff, so when there were films I didn't review, they were usually the mid-level studio quickie pictures.

I wish every paper had the space and resources to hire a full film reviewing staff, but that's never been the case and never will be. I don't even know how many papers still run reviews of every movie that opens in their market. Those of us who get paid to write about movies are few, and consider ourselves unbelievably fortunate.

One thing I can say for sure is this: Nathan Lee gave me the only laugh-out-loud moment in film criticism this year. It came reading his Diary of the Dead review, which had this great line:

"When there is no more room in hell, the dead will create a MySpace page."

One less reason to read the Voice.

Jim,

Writers don't receive any compensation for syndication at all? What a racket these companies have - it's a wonder it took so long to see so much consolidation if that's the deal.

I wish I could be more positive about the changing critical community. I think blogs offer a great outlet for substantive, interactive criticism, but it really does make it virtually impossible for all but a handful of people to make even a part-time living from film criticism.

In Philly, I think there are now only two papers that use local critics: the Inquirer (Carrie Rickey, Steven Rea, Desmond Ryan) and the Philly Weekly (Sam Adams.) I may be missing someone, but it's hard to believe that's all that the 5th or 6th largest city in America can support.

I gave my hopes of making a full-time career as a paid critic a few years ago, but I still nursed dreams of at least making the rent check from it. Now that seems to have gone by the wayside.

You're right - criticism is, for the most part, going to be a hobby or a vocation only for the privileged.

In the larger scope of things, I can't really say that's unjust but for me, it really bites.

Oh, how much this sucks. I have a blog for no other reason but to talk about movies all day long until such a time where I can become a print-critic. Well, I guess I better find a new job to dream about.

I have thought for years that the idea of critics is becoming more & more obsolete. And not just with movies, but most forms of creative expression.
I'm not gonna say why because, I'd just be repeatin what has already been said on most of these comments.
However, I would like to add that there is another dynamic that goes towards why critics don't really affect people's decisions to go to a movie. There is a certain part of the population that goes to the movies, especially on the weekend, just for the sake of having something to do. It doesn't really matter as much whether they end up liking the movie or not. They just want to go to the theatre. I have a brother-in-law who is a big fan of Jim Carrey's comedy. I remember when he & my sister stopped quickly by my house right before going to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I tried warning him that he probably wasn't going to enjoy it b'cuz it wasn't the typical comedy film that my bro-in-law had come to expect from Mr. Carrey ( by now, i was familiar enough with his tatses to know this movie did not reflect his specific tastes in "serious" films either). I genuinely believed that I would be doing him a service by helping him to save the price of two tickets. However, I could tell by his reaction that this wasn't gonna sway his decision to go see it. Not because he thought he might like it, but because his heart was set on just getting out to go see a movie. I had made the mistake of assuming that he was like me in that I would much rather stay at home than going into a theatre that was playing a movie which, based on it's trailers & immediate word of mouth & critic reviews, had all indications that the chances of me liking it were low. I'll only go see a film if I know the chances were in my favor of enjoying it. But there are alot of people who just want to "escape" for the sake of escaping.

What I find interesting is how freelance writing in general is becoming a thankless job with no pay expected. I'm not sure how and when this shift has happened but it's happening.

Over the past 25 years I've written bits & pieces for many different kinds of publications since I have a lot of interests outside of just film. I've written for music rags, doll hobby magazines, etc. and I was usually rewarded with some kind of compensation such as a small paycheck, free magazine subscriptions, etc. but in the last 5-6 years I've seen those opportunities completely disappear. Glossy high-priced magazines expect you to write for them for free and I can't even begin to tell you how many emails I get each month from movie related websites asking me to "join their staff" when they won't even offer me free DVDs to review.

It's a strange set of circumstances for those of us who write because we just love to write and hope to make some kind of living doing it. I've never had expectations of becoming the next great American novelist and I've always had to hold down some kind of part time job to help pay the bills, but these days I'm hunting for a full-time job or freelance design/graphic work because freelance writing opportunities are extremely hard to come by.

I read a lot about the golden age when people were really into "The Arts". Everybody read poetry and novels and criticism and went to museums and art galleries and foreign films. And then came...TV. It seems to me this idea is both right and wrong. I don't think TV corrupted the individual--I mean I'm sure most of us tasteful geniuses here grew up on the thing--but it did change the idea of the "mainstream" to a body that needs to be catered to at the expense of everything else. The idea of critics as men sitting in ivory towers and telling people what to do became an affront to democracy. Or maybe it wasn't TV but the cold war, or civil rights, or hippies or feminists. In any case it doesn't seem so far removed from the fear of elitism that is constantly surfacing even at this esteemed blog.

Would that we could appreciate the opportunity to speak back to the critics without simultaneously devaluing them, but maybe that's human nature.

Jim: Just this past Friday, the House published the first installment of a new weekly feature, a sort of film review sampler, with new and ongoing releases arranged alphabetically by title. While compiling it I visited the web sites for a lot of New Times-owned papers, and I can tell you for a fact, yes, all of the chain's film content is syndicated within New Times, and presumably available to any paper that needs it. It's sort of like a mini Associated Press for arts writing. The music coverage also gets picked up different places within the chain, if there's some local need for it (record reviews and interviews with big name performers, especially).

I got a bit discombobulated seeing Nashville-based Jim Ridley, to name just one established critic, reviewing a movie that was opening in LA but that wouldn't show up in his hometown for months, if ever, and Dallas-based Robert Wilonsky (my former Observer colleague) reviewing films that were just now opening in New York and/or LA but that wouldn't come to Dallas for a long time. As a publisher, I had to decide how to ID these writers -- Ridley's based at the Nashville Scene, and the stuff he writes that appears in LA Weekly first could theoretically appear in the Nashville paper at some point, but do I call him, "Jim Ridley, 'Nashville Scene'" or "Jim Ridley, 'LA Weekly'"? At first I decided to just say "to hell with it" and ID anybody writing for New Times as "New Times," but it seemed strange putting that designation next to Ella Taylor (an LA Weekly critic strongly rooted in that city, culturally and geographically) and J. Hoberman (New York all the way). Then I just decided to ID everybody by their original publication, since I was running across so many reviews published in, say, The Chicago Tribune that were reprinted from the LA Times. This wasn't easy, either, because if, say, Wilonsky is in Dallas writing for first publication in LA, is he a Dallas writer or an LA writer? Does it even matter?

This phenomenon is not necessarily unique to New Times or Tribune Media -- lots of film critics live in one city and write for a publication based somewhere else. (Over the years I've interviewed for or been offered jobs at papers outside of New York that would have allowed me to stay in New York -- for film writers, I don't think it's as much of a problem as it might be for, say, a sportswriter.)

What is fairly new -- as other writers in this thread have noted -- is the idea of having no local voice providing homegrown film content for the local print publication. More and more publications are plugging that news hole with AP reviews, or with content from some other paper within their media corporation (the LA Times, the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, etc).

This is the wave of the future, or maybe the wave of the present. Journalism has traditionally been anchored in a local sensibility (even big papers like the LA or NY Times). It was long considered necessary to provide a local perspective on national or international events, be they political developments in China or the new French or Japanese film opening at the local art house. The bottom line means that's no longer as much of a priority.

Kimberly: Agreed about freelance opportunities drying up, and the surviving opportunities paying less. This is a serious problem, not just for critics/journalists but for filmmakers, musicians, novelists, you name it. The Internet is set up in such a way that you can get almost anything you want for free if you're willing to disregard copyright (and if you don't feel guilty about getting something for free that you really should be paying for). If this continues -- if no middleground is struck between protecting copyright/compensating creative people and making content available for a reasonable price (and inaccessible if you don't pay), then I can see fewer people wanting to go into any sort of creative field -- writing, filmmaking, music, everything.

Artists have a desire to create, but they're not just making a charitable gift to the world. One of the downsides of the rise of the Internet is a sense of entitlement among its users -- the sense that, if it's not free and instantly available, then we don't want it. (I have this mindset too -- if I visit a website and it takes longer than 30 seconds to load, I usually go somewhere else!)

How all of this will shake out, I have no idea.

Matt: I grew up reading the Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and the tabloid weekend entertainment section was a very popular feature (with everybody I knew, anyway). I got spoiled when I moved to LA and worked for the OC Register, where we published TWO 48-64-page (average) entertainment magazines a week -- on Fridays and Sundays. This was in the late '80s and early '90s. For most reviews I had a full tabloid page, and averaged 1,200 - 1,800 words per movie, as I recall. (Now that paper runs reviews written by a guy in Phoenix, I believe.) When I moved back to Seattle in 1994, the local A&E sections had shrunk to practically nothing. What I don't understand is: Did people stop reading the arts coverage? Did the advertisers go away? Or both?

The papers have made the usual arguments -- that the same movie plays all over the country, and all that. But that's really just a short-sighted economic rationalization. It's a way to excuse layoffs -- to not have to pay salaries and benefits. The irony is that newspaper salaries are so small to begin with. When a company has to save millions and it cuts editorial staff it winds up saving a few hundred thousand dollars, and loses the very thing I always assumed led people to read them in the first place: original writing that they couldn't find anywhere else (whether in the print version or the web version of a particular publication). That's what I mean when I say I don't think the bottom-liners understand how they're destroying themselves. If a paper doesn't have original "content," then what does it have to offer potential readers? Ads?

Jim: I grew up reading Jon Hartl, among others, in the Seattle Times, and to a lesser extent, the P.I ... when I lived in Atlanta I read Eleanor Ringle-Gillespie (sp?) and when in Oregon Shawn Levy at the Oregonian. I value a sense of place in a writer. Shawn is a Portlander through and through, with a distinctive Portland voice. You get to know critics, you get to know what they like and don't like, and you can factor their biases into your appraisal of their criticism.

Now, I'm living in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and our paper is a NY Times-owned rag; one week we get a review from Orlando, another from Wilmington, etc., etc. Why don't they at least publish Dargis or Scott? I don't know ... I stopped reading them some time ago.

Of course, one of the first popular, nationally-known critics--nationally known outside the critical community, that is--was Roger Ebert, whose writing I adore, and who I read for free every week at a little ol' website you edit. And while I read Rosenbaum and Dargis and Scott online (for free), most folks don't know who they are, and are content to click on over to hear what Roger has to say. For free. Is it any wonder revenue streams are drying up?

Did the rise of a national critical voice that people trust decrease the value of local voices in their minds? How many different critics do most ordinary readers (as opposed to nutcases like me) read? Does the fact that David Edelstein comes on CBS Sunday Morning and reviews movies make a difference? I don't know.

I think it's like an Alvin Toffler moment, a next-wave kind of thing, and we just have to ride it out. As Matt--another great critic I get to read for free--says "How all of this will shake out, I have no idea."

I came to this discussion via Coosa Creek Mambo, which talked about David Ansen's voluntary separation from Newsweek. Ansen bemoaned the fact that "anyone can be a critic" now, forgetting perhaps that Siskel and Ebert were just reporters who were assigned to cover movies. Perhaps intelligence, a facility for writing, and a passion for what one is covering (followed, of course, by formal or autodidactic education) really is all it takes to become a great critic.

I thank my lucky stars for the Internet because I now have an audience--a community really--of film enthusiasts who have access to my writing. If I waited for a print publication to hire me, even assuming the pool of jobs weren't decreasing, I'd still be a lone film fan without a forum to discuss what I love. As it is, I'm still barred from being a Rotten Tomatoes critic because the Chicago Film Critics Association has a huge bias toward print and broadcast critics and has never answered any of my inquiries about joining.

Personality and writing ability are important in ANY critic, no matter where they publish. I really don't see the difference between being a fan of Roger Ebert, who mainly does new releases and saves his gems from the past for his Great Movies series, and reading Kimberly Lindbergs for her insights into 60s and 70s films. Not everyone wants to read about the same movie being covered by 100 different critics.

Marilyn makes a fine point, I think ... the breadth of subject matter, the people writing about their strange obsessions, is much greater on the Web. Reading about Lindbergs' love of 60s and 70s film, or Norma Desmond's strange vow to review 100 movies in 100 days (and still have something to say about each), or tapping into Dennis Cozzalio's enormous breadth of interest, I am sure to stretch my comfort zone and broaden my interests. I often pick my next Netflix queue entry after reading about some ovelooked or out-of-the-way film that no daily or weekly would ever pay anybody to write about.

Too put it simply, I read reviews for the INSIGHT, not so I know which films are good or bad, or what I should see. I'm also a film buff who was once an aspiring critic, (I'm a screenwriter now, but when I was a teenager I had several reviews published in the KC Star believe it or not). Growing up, my dad, also a film buff, (now deceased), was a Roger Ebert lover and even at the age of 10 I was convert. Even when I wasn't sure I wished to be a critic myself, Ebert's books were like the bible to me. But my dad and I liked listening to Siskel and Ebert and reading Ebert reviews only because we were curious as to what he had to say. There's nothing any critic could tell me in a review that I don't already know myself, but that's not really the point. And not only has reading as many reviews as possible helped polish my writing skills through the years, (now 25 y/o), but reading every single one of Ebert's reviews like I have has made my scripts 1,000 times better than they could ever have been without reading them. It's taught me what to do, what not to do, and how to build a better story. In fact, maybe I'm the only person who values critics in this way, but I believe every filmmaker should be made to study film critics and reviews, and read them top to bottom. You got jerk offs like Roland Emmerich who dispise critics and others who claim they don't care what critics say at all, (though we all know that's a lie), but maybe if they took the time to listen to just what a critic's thinking, they'd be making better films, popcorn blockbusters or not. I'm not a snob at all, though I sometimes wonder how anyone, no matter how clueless, would actually read a film review to steer their movie going experience, but, like I said, that's not how I value film critics. I don't know about JE or Ebert, but I know I go look up all the new films on IMDB and read as many reviews as possible, (believe it or not, there's actually some great critics at some of the bigger DVD websites), or if I see something I haven't seen before, I'll read all their external reviews as well. Or even if I've read them a million times, I'll watch said movie and then look for Ebert's review and the ones listed on IMDB, or just go through Ebert's archives again and again for inspiration. I don't get this tired cliche that all film critics are asses and their opinions are useless, (here's looking at you Lady in the Water), but I can't imagine a world without these reviews. I know that if my scripts are ever made into films, I would be more crushed if Roger Ebert didn't review it, than I would if it bombed at the b.o. I'd rather he hated one of my films than have no opinion on it at all. Besides, we're all critics, right? What good is art without someone to observe it.