comment #1

Balthazar says ...

It's a terrifying time to be in newspapers. I say that as someone in newspapers. Anybody working at a newspaper right now that HASN'T been hit by layoffs and buyouts knows it's just a matter of time until the bloodshed. I should have learned how to fix cars.

comment #2

businesstoolz says ...

One more reason you need to start watching The Wire Jeff. In fact, head over to Huffington Post to read David Chase's blog about this final season that just ended last week.

comment #3

T. Holly says ...

Off the Hot Blog: Adding to the slaughter is the rise of the filmmaker-critic, or the closely aligned. The best they can do is say "the film's not perfect," tell you what the film isn't really about, ooh and aah over craft and drop in a few critical words cribbed from a cheat sheet.

comment #4

swhitty says ...

Absobloodylutely, Balthazar.

This is terrible news, not just for this so-called profession but for smart readers as well.

I don't know who T. Holly is writing about, but it wasn't this duo. Gene always brought a wealth of knowledge to his reviews, including his deep appreciation of jazz; Jan had a fine sense of story and performance. They were good writers (just read Gene again on "Bad Santa," or Jan on "Nashville") and amiable colleagues.

Most important, they were simply fun to read. (As was and is the terrific John Anderson, who took the buyout in an earlier round of Newsday cost-cutting -- meaning that the paper now has NO full-time staff reviewers.)

I wonder when the short-sightedness of all this is going to strike people. When Newsday has no one left to cover the glitzy Hamptons film fest, let alone the movies opening week after week? When the parent company has whittled itself down to a single critic in Los Angeles?

It is true that many critics hang on for too long (read "Pictures at a Revolution," set in '67, and you'll see an awful lot of familiar names). But these writers are leaving far too soon. Good luck to them -- and to us.

comment #5

T. Holly says ...

Absolutely swhitty, completely agree. The "anyone can be a critic webrevolution" is de-evolution. And there IS a web uprising of the filmmaker-critic which is evil and pathetic.

comment #6

Balthazar says ...

swhitty, Newsday will ax all of its high-paid experienced arts writers, hire half as many low-paid newbies to "sit in the theaters and interview Martin Scorsese" and pat itself on the back for all the money it's saving. One of three things will happen: (1) somewhere a news organization will recognize the value of great arts/film/music journalists and hire them up; (2) these people will band together and find a way to make money hopefully in a New Media venture; or (3) they'll all be selling the popcorn behind the counter, rather than eating it in the theater.

comment #7

Terry McCarty says ...

Swhitty wrote:
I wonder when the short-sightedness of all this is going to strike people. When Newsday has no one left to cover the glitzy Hamptons film fest, let alone the movies opening week after week? When the parent company has whittled itself down to a single critic in Los Angeles?

It is true that many critics hang on for too long (read "Pictures at a Revolution," set in '67, and you'll see an awful lot of familiar names). But these writers are leaving far too soon. Good luck to them -- and to us.

Maybe the above explains why Kenneth Turan gave a pass-of-sorts to 10,000 BC.