Gone Baby Gone

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That "All Things Considered" interview I did with NPR media reporter David Folkenflik two days ago will be linkable online by roughly 7 pm this evening. It's not just me talking -- it's three or four movie critics including, I think, former N.Y. Daily News critic Jack Mathews. The piece is called "Movie Critics Disappearing from Newsrooms."

comment #1

CinemaPhreek says ...

Well that was barely edifying (the piece, not what Wells had to say in particular).

And it sounded like Folkenflik went down to the mulitplex in the middle of the afternoon and interviewed kids. The sole "cinemagoer" he interviews on air is some bubbly, babbling teenage girl. Oh, yeah, I forgot about that period in my youth when all the kids breathlessly awaited word from Vincent Canby, J Hoberman and Pauline Kael as to what we would see that weekend.

Where's the more representative interview conducted outside the likes of the Angelika, the Laemmle in Santa Monica or the Sunset 5? Now, you get a consensus among THAT crowd that they no longer are paying attention to what critics are recommending and I'll buy the argument.

comment #2

Mr. Blood Vessel says ...

nice blurb jeff.

I remember when a quote from siskel and ebert meant the begining or the end.
and this was in the 90s.

comment #3

scooterzz says ...

yeah, nice byte wells.....but i would really like to hear a long-form panel on this with bloggers and fired print folk......
i've got a feeling this whole thing is going to get a lot worse before it gets better (if it ever does).....

comment #4

Mgmax says ...

I'll tell you why reviewers are dead meat.

Because Iron Man SUCKS!

How many reviews did you read about the new life it breathed into the stale genre. Yeah, it's better than Fantastic Four, but only marginally. Robert Downey Jr. is hilarious-- IF YOU'VE NEVER SEEN ROBERT DOWNEY JR. BEFORE IN YOUR LIFE. If you've seen, say, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Zodiac, A Scanner Darkly, etc etc., it's nothing extraordinary. And the action scenes looked cheap, had no visual excitement. What a waste of $6.50 and two hours in the middle of the day. And reviewers all over America said it was a hell of a ride. Bullshit. Roast in unemployment, bastards.

comment #5

CinemaPhreek says ...

Mgmax - again, we agree. They breathed Downey into that film and it simply made it watchable. Worse, while the effects are first rate for what they are, they aren't exactly put to thrilling use with "holy-shit-did-you-see-that?!" sequences.

Where the hell are you seeing $6.50 movies, though? The "matinee" here in LA cost me $7.75.

comment #6

Mgmax says ...

Crown Village in Skokie, IL. That's my primo daytime choice, catch a noon show with Jewish retirees. Although they're going to get a letter about turning the bulbs down-- I hope it was just one on its last legs.

Oh, and do only three people work at Stark Industries, or what? Honestly, I'd say this was done on a TV production level, except these days, TV is better than that.

comment #7

BurmaShave says ...

If you don't want to continue seeing 40something hipsters shoe-horned into bloated studio epics, spouting mumbled ironic dialogue and taking a backseat to ROBOCOP and ROBOCOP 2 cribbing action sequences, what the hell do you want? I'm not even sure I want to know you.

comment #8

BlueBomm says ...

Ohhh, you guys're being such grouches. To me the best bit of Iron Man, and the most indicative of its unique quality, was the sequence where Pepper Potts "changes" Tony Stark's battery. Kind of a "losing your virginity scene," but played so nice. There's so much vulnerability, sweetness, and comedic tension in that little sequence...

The whole thing, to me, is just delightfully imagined, constructed and delivered. Why act all huffy and puffy over such a simple, fun little movie (budget not withstanding)? Especially one that everybody else, Wells included, basically *likes*?

Or is that perhaps the very appeal of an attempted take-down?

comment #9

BurmaShave says ...

You probably think I was being negative, but I actually liked it quite a lot.

comment #10

Edward Havens says ...

There's a vanishing act, alright. Not critics, though. It's common sense. More and more newspapers are now owned and operated by conglomerates, and the disappearing critic is simply a byproduct of the "profits at all cost" mentality that has become modern America. This is the day and age when the New York Times can hire Manohla Dargis away from the Los Angeles Times, yet not require her to be within 3,000 miles of her editor. Could you imagine Bosley Crowther sending in his reviews from Virginia by Western Union, or Janet Maslin faxing her reviews from Boston? Why spend all the money to settle Dargis in New York when she's already got everything she needs out here?

Frankly, I'm shocked the Times still has three full time film critics. It's just not financially feasible. But who would go first, Dargis, Holden or Scott?

But why talk about the true reason why print film critics are being downsized (pure and simple economics) when the myth of the internet overload of "schlubs" is far easier for old media people like Folkenflik, Mathews and Wells to blame? Hell, look at poor Glenn Kenney... fucked when that shitty rag he wrote for went Net-only, double fucked when that shitty online rag he wrote for learned going Net-only was a stupid move. Premiere never needed to stop publishing. They needed to stop trying so fucking hard to be ahead of the internet curve and go back to the core values that made us love the mag when it first appeared in 1987: 15,000+ word features on the big upcoming movies with those awesomely huge color photos, shot-by-shot breakdowns of a specific scene from a just-released or soon-to-be-released movie, great star interviews and those collectable mini-poster cards. That's the Premiere I would have supported for many years, had it not zigged and zagged when it should have stayed the course.

We're going to keep losing print film critics, because more papers will realize they can save some dough by picking up reviews from a syndicate than keeping a critic on staff. The syndicate will take a smaller fee from the paper because he or she will make more selling to a hundred little papers than writing for one big one. It won't be because Joe Schmo is a better writer than Jack Mathews. It'll be because Joe Schmo is asking for 1/10th what they were paying Mathews.

comment #11

Mgmax says ...

"Why act all huffy and puffy over such a simple, fun little movie (budget not withstanding)? "

Because they left the fun part out.

Yes, Downey and Paltrow had a few nice scenes. Maybe there's a theater somewhere where they could act in a revival of The Philadelphia Story or something, and be delightful. But at one point I went to the restroom, and seriously debated not going back. What difference would it have made?

It's not awful, it's just awfully ordinary, and absurdly hyped.

comment #12

EDouglas says ...

Totally agree with Havens... I get kind of sick of the internet being blamed for everything, but it's true that most moviegoers really don't care what critics think and if there's an online review that goes against their expectations of a movie (before seeing it), they'll just lash out at the critic as if "they must be wrong... they didn't like so-and-so.. or they liked this"... and that's something you can't really do with print critics. As Jeffrey says, there's instant feedback and communication online which you don't have with reading magazines/newspapers.

I don't think anyone who isn't a critic really understands what's involved with watching movies critically and trying to write smart and original analysis for each one... me, I fucking hate doing it which is why I only do one or two a week and I'm glad it's not the only thing I do.

But I also think that the veteran print critics who are losing jobs are too quick to blame the internet and everyone being able to have an opinion, as if what we do is any less hard than their own jobs. (Especially when our reviews are online and accessible forever rather until papers are tossed)

comment #13

whirlofagirl says ...

Iron Man is a pretty much a standard super hero pic, but seeing Robert Downey Jr. at the helm of a commercial franchise was great. This guy has taken his fair share of lumps over the years and it was good to see him out there like that.

Jeff, your interview reminds me of your short-lived podcasts. I enjoyed them.

comment #14

Mgmax says ...

Premiere was once pretty much the perfect film magazine-- glossy as heck but with real smarts about the industry and at least some knowledge of deeper film culture-- like a Film Comment that had gotten a boob job. During the same era, Movieline was quite good too. Alas, new owners dumbed it down, tried to turn it into Us, basically, and I stopped reading it decades before it finally died. Or I come here for about the same mix-- celebrity news as if it actually meant jack shit, but from somebody who's actually seen some movies in black and white and with subtitles in his lifetime.

comment #15

drgogol says ...

Did Jack Matthews actually call it "the internets"?

Oh dear....

comment #16

corey3rd says ...

the movie companies have cut back on print ads - along with your local cineplex shrinking their ad space in the newspapers. Like a good stripper, a newspaper goes to the money.

A newspaper would rather have an interview with the star (taken off the wire) than a negative review that might even lead to less ad buys in their movie section.

comment #17

shawn says ...

Corey:

I have deal with movie publicists for more than two decades in monthly and daily publications, and I can assure you they only care if the review is easy to find and has a picture. They'd *like* positive, but what they want is the editorial space on opening day: period.

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