Interesting article in the New York Times:

Nathan Lee, one of The Village Voice’s two full-time critics, was laid off last week by Village Voice Media, a large chain of alternative weeklies that has been cutting down the number of critics it employs across the country.

The week before, two longtime critics at Newsday — Jan Stuart and Gene Seymour — took buyouts, along with their editor. And at Newsweek, David Ansen is among 111 staff members taking buyouts, according to a report in Radar.

They join critics at more than a dozen daily newspapers (including those in Denver, Tampa and Fort Lauderdale) and several alternative weeklies who have been laid off, reassigned or bought out in the past few years, deemed expendable at a time when revenues at print publications are declining, under pressure from Web alternatives and a growing recession in media spending.

There has been loads of good commentary in the blogosphere since this happened last week. Matt Zoller Seitz had especially good coverage. The gist of the consensus is that we are losing a lot of daily print critics - which is a bad thing as it means we lose a lot of the more uniquely voiced film criticism that has granted print criticism relevance in the face of myriad film blogs. As a consequence of these layoffs, more newspapers will simply move to wire coverage of all new releases, which tend to be both content oriented and rather commercial. We will lose a great deal of film discussion as an important American cultural space.

So now that these critics have to find work elsewhere, we will be stuck with blogs for film news and criticism. I don't actually think this is such a bad thing, as I now read more blog reviews than print reviews anyway. There are plenty of good places to stay current without having to read the Voice or Times.

Additionally, the more news we read about media industrylayoffs due to the current economy is an indication that paid cultural critics are not immune to the whims of finance.

Sean P. Means lists 27 critics who have retired or been laid off in the last year or two -- not counting those who have died, such as Joel Siegel, or those who soldier on via their blogs after their publications bit the dust, such as Glenn Kenny.

Matt Zoller Seitz has left the blogging world, and, if I'm reading this correctly, the world of print journalism altogether. Something about him pursuing a "puppet movie," he notes in the comments to the linked post. I guess I haven't been following his blog closely enough, because I have no idea what his future projects will be.

If you write about movies, you should read this. (I'm sure many of you have, but I thought it was worth posting the link, in case you missed it or initially passed it over.) I find the "debate" -- I put the words in quotes, because it doesn't seem like much of a contest to me -- jaw-dropping. Where do you stand on the issue under discussion? Where would you like to stand? It's an either/or proposition; I see no way around it. You take JW's side, or MZS's side.

Caveat: I'm working off snippets of MZS's comments that made it into print. I have not listened to the online discussion from which the comments are drawn.

I've been on both sides at one time or another. Back in the early nineties, I was literally dependent on movies for my mental health... kind of the state that JW describes for his own point of view. If I didn't see movies (at least three theatrical plus several Betas each week) I'd literally get clinically depressed. It was an emotional addiction. Eventually I figured that dependency was unhealthy, so I went cold turkey for about 18 months. Now I can take them or leave them. Therapy can come in many forms, and seeing movies is not the only (or even the best) option.

I think burying yourself in an artform is kind of like being a prospector. Everyone's looking for that rich vein of ore they can mine for weeks; and you can either approach that from professional's standpoint and be pretty pragmatic about it, or you can be a fanboy and invest a whole bunch of emotional energy in it, too.

Having said that, though, I don't think it's an either-or thing. Some professional prospectors still can get the thrill of the hunt without becoming Daniel Plainview, and some amateurs can do a pretty professional job of things due to admiration of the professionals.

At all levels, it's possible for fans of any artform or discipline to completely lose perspective. If MZS did, then it's probably good for him to take a break. It doesn't mean everyone should, or that everyone else has lost perspective in the way that he has.

I think Wells is the one who lacks perspective. It's not his writing or love of movies that bothers me. It's that he can't see how someone who writes about film for a living could ever step away from that because he realized it was stealing time he could never get back with loved ones who are no longer around. That's a salient point, one that anyone, in any profession, should use as a check against their own drive and ambitions. For Wells to basically attack MZS for his decision, then to moan about it when commenters mention how much of an ogre he is -- that's breathtaking. Wells is a grown man. He can't see MZS's point? Instead, he doubles down on his original argument.

What Christian said.

Christian wrote:
: If you write about movies, you should read this.

Seitz's approving reference to that Gene Siskel anecdote is interesting, since Jonathan Rosenbaum cited Siskel specifically in his book Movie Wars: How Hollywood and the Media Limit What Films You See as an example of how crippled American film criticism is by "careerism", by the fact that critics look at what they do as a mere job and not as a passion. Rosenbaum specifically contrasts Siskel with Roger Ebert in this regard -- Ebert goes to festivals (and even started one of his own!) and has a cinephilic passion that is evident in everything he does, whereas Siskel watched films because it was his job, period.

I say all this, BTW, as one who has just put three feistier-than-usual children to bed multiple times while his wife takes advantage of the pass to tonight's Iron Man screening. I plan to see the movie for myself this weekend, but who knows. I've been going to fewer and fewer screenings, and holding on to my Videomatica DVDs longer and longer before sending them back, in the last few months, and I can only wonder how long I'll be sticking with this gig. Certainly I am nowhere near the critic that I once was, let alone aspired to be.

The Washington Post is drawing to a close on its second round of buyout offers to staff. A week ago we learned that Desson Thomson, formerly the Weekend section film critic and, for the past couple of years, the third critic in the Style section of the paper, would take the buyout. I like Thomson, but I understood. The paper's lead critic, Stephen Hunter, won a Pulitzer Prize for criticism a few years ago, and it's second critic, Ann Hornaday, was short-listed for the same prize this year. So Thomson probably figured that, although he's been at the paper much longer than Hunter and Hornaday, his role was being minimized.

However, today we find out that Hunter has taken the buyout! This sucks. The carnage is widespread, although the link lists just the latest departures. Several others announced earlier that they're taking the buyout. One name that didn't create a stir is Peter Carlson, who writes the fantastic Magazine Reader column in the Style section. No one seemed to care when he announced he'd be taking the buyout, but his columns have been the paper's highlight for me the past couple of years.

I'm still a subscriber, but wonder how much longer I'll find the paper an essential read.

Mike D'Angelo:

I guess I should head off the e-mails seeking my annual report from Cannes: It can be found this year at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. Sadly, the crap economy has pretty much wiped out my freelance income since January, to the point where for the first time since 1997 I may have to go out and get myself an actual job. (Which is a bit problematic since I'm not exactly qualified to do anything else, except play poker.) One axe after another:

• Esquire: No longer runs my column every month—it now depends on whether they feel there's a subject that warrants the space. Of the last six issues (including two yet to hit newsstands), I appear in only three. That's a big hit.

• Nerve.com: Dismantled their Film Lounge and cut me back from one review per week to one review per month.

• Las Vegas Weekly: The editor who hired me resigned, and his replacement recently cut my fee in half and basically said Take it or leave it. Plus many of the reviews they assign me now run only 350 words (rather than 700-800) and pay only 1/4 of what I'd been getting.

Again, this has all happened since the beginning of the year. Not to subject you guys to a lot of whiny bitching and moaning (see also: my girlfriend of two years giving me the ol' heave-ho in March), but if you've been following my adventures as a film critic for a long while, as I know many of you have, be advised that that lengthy chapter of my life seems to be on the verge of closing. . . .

I read these words in Salon today, with my jaw dropping and my eyes wide.

Great link, Jeffrey. Not exactly ground-breaking thoughts, but very stimulating.

Some favorites:





I particularly resonate with that last bit from Bayard.

A few weeks ago National Public Radio's All Things Considered ran a story on the dwindling numbers of print critics. You can listen to the full story here.

I submitted a wail of grief to Stephen Hunter's online chat just now, and he responded:

Ballston, Va.: You took the buyout. WHY? You're leaving. Desson's leaving. Ann's great and all, but this development ... how should I put this? ... sucks.

I guess you're taking your Pulitzer and moving on. Nothing left to accomplish at the Post. Books to write.

We'll miss you.

Stephen Hunter: More than the money, more than the books, more than the movies, it was that #$%^&*( $#@!$%&&*( ###$$$@ drive down New York avenue that finally ground the bloom off my rose. A life with no New York Avenue in it seemed entirely worth living.

In that same chat, Hunter mentions some flak he took over his Bourne Ultimatum review. He says New York magazine incited a mini-riot against him. So I Googled "Stephen Hunter Bourne Ultimatum New York Magazine" and came right to this hysterical putdown of Hunter's writing and criticism. I agree with some of it, but it's so high-and-mighty, while criticizing Hunter for supposedly come off the same way in his reviews, that it just made me laugh.

Enjoy.

"Why We Need Movie Reviewers"

Slate's Erik Lundegaard makes some interesting observations on how to measure the relevance of film critics.



(via Wells)

LA Times reports that one if its critics, Carina Chocano is going on maternity leave. Today the Times announced the next set of staff cuts are coming. I expect the one newspaper in a town that sees itself as the world capital of film is going to be down to one film reviewer on staff. They already have more than half of the reviews by somebody I've never heard of "special to the Times".

Not a single staff review in the LA Times today; everything is "special to". As I looked at the reviews of Boy A and American Teen and knew my reviews were better done, I mourned.

Add to the list: Carina Chocano -- back from maternity leave for a few weeks, and included in the latest round of staff cuts at L.A. Times.