The Hollywood Reporter‘s Gregg Goldstein examines how the indie movie glut has overwhelmed print critics and made it tough for some low-budget films to get reviewed on paper. The result is that many are only reviewed online. The crunch has gotten so bad that, amazingly, the N.Y. Daily News didn’t even run a print review of 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days. Alex Gibney‘s Taxi to the Dark Side was stiffed by the News and the N.Y. Post in the same way.
Goldstein talks to Thinkfilm honcho Mark Urman, N.Y. Post critic Lou Lumenick, MCN’s David Poland, myself and critic Joe Neumaier.
My full quote (edited for space in the piece) is as follows: “Today’s marketing world is not about moviegoers meekly accepting the word of the lofty know-it-alls. People who follow and support indie movies tend to be more internet-fluent, and there’s a small group of maybe 8 or 10 online critics who genuinely matter and are, in the parlance of the trade, ‘conversation starters.’
“These were the people who helped Once and Little Miss Sunshine and No Country for Old Men get traction, and who tried to keep Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead afloat last fall and into December, and who will play a significant part in the selling of Young at Heart.
“Due respect, but insisting that review quotes are still about print critics is generational hubris, to some extent. Many people in distribution, boomers mostly, can’t shake the idea that effusive quotes mean more to moviegoers if they come from critics whose words are printed on paper that come from paper mills in Oregon and Georgia. The irony is that I myself feel this way from time to time. A rave from the Wall Street Journal‘s Joe Morgenstern will probably always mean more to me than any online critic.”