A New Beginning

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Kim Voynar, late of Cinematical, has signed up with Movie City News as a writer-columnist-editor. Everything Voynar thinks, does, feels, believes in, dreams about, eats, breathes, longs for politically, wants to say and is looking to make happen is henceforth owned by MCN -- lock, stock and barrel.

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on September 30, 2008 at 6:17 PM

comment #1

SmilingPolitely says ...

How exactly does MCN make money? Pages and pages stuff, yet there are no ads...

Posted by SmilingPolitely at September 30, 2008 6:38 PM

comment #2

LexG says ...

I keep telling POLAND he needs to give me a column on that MCN and watch the hit count SKYROCKET THROUGH THE ROOF, considering a fair percentage of my BLOG POSTS there end up getting quoted in VANITY FAIR, DEFAMER and LA WEEKLY.

LEXG FOR HIS OWN COLUMN, FUCK YEAH.

VOYNAR, ROCK ON.

Posted by LexG at September 30, 2008 7:14 PM

comment #3

Kim Voynar says ...

Geez, Jeff, that's a little melodramatic. All of my writing about film will live on MCN now, and I hope that I'll contribute in a meaningful way to the site and in whatever small way I'm able to the world of film, which is my second love after my family. Business is business, and my allegiance in that context is, now, as it should be, with my employer.

I wrote for and helped manage Cinematical for almost four years, and for most of that time, we were owned lock, stock and barrel by AOL. I would challenge you or anyone to accuse me during my tenure there of EVER bowing down to AOL's corporate interests or compromising my integrity as a writer because of who I wrote for.

I wrote what I thought, and said to my managers what I felt and believed to be true, with no regard or interest in whether the AOL overlords would like it or not. My attitude towards the corporate machine was, in part, the reason I was never EIC there, but I stood up for what I did while I was there, fought as hard as I could, and left when it was time to go -- I hope, with my integrity still intact.

Those who know me pretty well -- and this should include you, Jeffrey -- know that I will continue to do what I've always done in this job. My online writing belongs to MCN now, and I'm happy and excited about the move, but I don't expect David to be dictating what I eat, what I wear, how I think, who I vote for, where I go to church, my sex life, or anything else.

Posted by Kim Voynar at September 30, 2008 8:36 PM

comment #4

LDKA0186 says ...

Here we go. Poland vs. Wells again. Yawn...

Wake me when either one of them becomes relevant.

Posted by LDKA0186 at September 30, 2008 8:46 PM

comment #5

buckzollo says ...

m e o w!

Posted by buckzollo at September 30, 2008 8:53 PM

comment #6

Movie fan09 says ...

so is Jeff Batman or the Joker?

Posted by Movie fan09 at September 30, 2008 9:01 PM

comment #7

frankbooth says ...

He's Stan Laurel, by virtue of being slightly thinner than Poland.

Posted by frankbooth at September 30, 2008 9:06 PM

comment #8

T. Holly says ...

All I can say Kim is, let your freak flag fly, because I wasn't digging it at Cinematical.

Posted by T. Holly at September 30, 2008 9:19 PM

comment #9

Deathtongue_Groupie says ...

Bitchy much?

Posted by Deathtongue_Groupie at September 30, 2008 9:29 PM

comment #10

Kim Voynar says ...

T Holly,

My freak flag? I think I have that packed away somewhere with my bong from college and all those concert reviews I did for my college paper while in a seriously inebriated state. I'll see if I can dig it out. :-)

Posted by Kim Voynar at September 30, 2008 9:41 PM

comment #11

Noah says ...

I, for one, am happy to hear the news and I'm delighted to be bylined on the same page as a talent like Kim. Welcome to MCN, Kim!

Posted by Noah at September 30, 2008 10:11 PM

comment #12

EDouglas says ...

So I have to start kissing Kim's ass to finally be taken seriously as an Oscar pundit enough to be included in one of the Gurus on MCN? ::puckers up:: (And congrats, Kim! Better the devil you know than the devil you know as "AOL"! )

Posted by EDouglas at October 1, 2008 3:52 AM

comment #13

EDouglas says ...

(my smiley face in the above post didn't come through...)

Posted by EDouglas at October 1, 2008 3:53 AM

comment #14

Zimmergirl says ...

Um. What to say. This helps MCN a lot more than it helps the talented Ms. Voynar. But maybe that means it's a win-win. What an odd choice after Cinematical, though.

Posted by Zimmergirl at October 1, 2008 6:40 AM

comment #15

T. Holly says ...

You guys are missing the forest for the trees.

http://weblogs.variety.com/thompsononhollywood/2008/09/voynar-joins-mo.html#comments

Posted by T. Holly at October 1, 2008 8:41 AM

comment #16

gruver1 says ...

Wells to T. Holly: Thompson may be seeing the forest instead of the trees, but she has me wrong when she says I'm "con" about Kim's new job. This morning I wrote the following on her site: "Anne -- I'm hardly 'con' regarding Kim's moving over to MCN. In my usual effusive style I was merely conveying the notion that Kim, bright and valuable player that we all know her to be, is now All Poland, All The Time. That's all. -- Jeffrey Wells."

Posted by gruver1 at October 1, 2008 9:53 AM

comment #17

storymark says ...

One day, Jeff will finally get over Dave.

Posted by storymark at October 1, 2008 10:24 AM

comment #18

T. Holly says ...

Yeah, and I wrote that neither is A.J. Schnack "pro." Here's the forest:

A website is an inherently design-challenged journalistic medium that should be organized into tiles that open into sections that populate areas of a page and sort into reports. G-d bless festival coverage and Oscar forecasting, but people deserve timely exposure to breaking coverage by serious writers on the cusp of a movie opening and whatever coverage continues until it closes and beyond.

Ray Pride has the best job there. He writes a notch below scholarly on his page when he wants to and writes tantalizing copy on the homepage teasing stories of interest everywhere else. He reads and posts a lot of links, and I know he reads really fast, because I once sent him a link, and he replied with a remark about a literary reference at the bottom of the story within about three minutes.

Posted by T. Holly at October 1, 2008 11:28 AM

comment #19