For the past few weeks, I’ve been attending screenings and watching screeners from the Los Angeles Film Festival, and my summary of most of the eighteen films I’ve seen has been posted at MUBI today.
Also, the new issue of Film Comment is coming out, and it names me as two of the Top Film Criticism Sites on the web for Film Journey and Masters of Cinema, the latter less a news source now than a specialty DVD label, but in its unfunded, pre-Web 2.0 days, it was something I was proud to edit.
Paul Brunick’s article prefacing the list, which is cross-published (with comments) at Slant–rightly takes to task Gerald Peary’s simplistic documentary, For the Love of Movies, and Thomas Doherty’s article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, two recent examples of critical histories that wax nostalgic about print criticism while suggesting that web criticism is nothing more than its undisciplined, amateurish cousin.
Regarding Brunick’s generous profile of Film Journey, I’d like to make a couple of minor corrections. The screening notes incident occurred at CSUN, not UCLA (though I was vague about it at the time), and just for the record, I’ve been blogging for eight years rather than six.
In the spirit of dialogue, I’d also like to suggest that while I am indeed a huge fan of Manny Farber’s writing, if I have a “critical idol,” it would probably be André Bazin (whom I cite in my About page). I also think any description of Film Journey would be remiss if it didn’t mention primary contributor Robert Koehler, whose globetrotting festival reports have long enriched the website.
Doug: Congratulations on your well-deserved accolade in Film Comment!
Thanks so much, Michael–if I had made the list, I’d have included The Evening Class as well!