I’m sorry to read about L.A. Times film critic Carina Chocano getting the hook over at the L.A. Times. Tough deal, but it’s going this way for so many good critics, reporters and editors these days. I’m not sorry for my good fortune in owning a respected site that can only grow and strengthen, putting me for once on the right side of the equation with a truly secure foothold, but I’ve been through layoff traumas and know what it feels like. My heart goes out to all print people suffering through the Big Implosion.

When Chocano first got the gig she was seen by some within LAFCA (the Los Angeles Film Critics Association) as not “Catholic” enough. She hadn’t gone to catechism, wasn’t really and truly “of the cloth,” etc. But she’s a good writer, she has a passionate heart and, for my money, knows movies well enough. I hope she lands somewhere or figures something out soon.