Habitual browser of ROTTEN TOMATOES here, but usually I only digest Roger Ebert’s (won a Pulitzer in 1975!) stuff regularly.
I adore his writing, but he seems to have mellowed over the years, giving away a lot of 3 star ratings for what I thought later to be middling work.
Consequently, please clue me in on other relevant film critics out there who I can look to for informed opinions on the latest releases.
Not that I’m going to stop reading Ebert, but what the hey!
The most important film critic writing today is Jonathan Rosenbaum, of this newspaper. I would’ve added Molly Haskell, but I can’t find anything recent of hers.
“Important” and “film critic” really shouldn’t be used in the same sentence…
That being said, the only guy I pay any attention to other than Ebert is James Berardinelli, found at http://movie-reviews.colossus.net
I used to read the flick filosopher (flickfilosopher.com) but stopped when all her news posts were whines about how she didn’t get paid and her reviews started getting more and more incoherent.
I don’t wanna start a hijack, but I really deplore this kind of snobbery, that allows for importance in literature and art, but pooh-poohs it in film. Some of the greatest works of art of the 20th century have been in the medium of cinema, and to be so patronizing and disrespectful of an entire century or more of art is kind of silly.
I’m not being patronising of cinema, just sceptical that ANY film critic is at all important.
I’m sorry, but those two statements seem irreconcilable to me.
Riiight…
I think the arguement is of a critic being important, regardless of which artform they happen to be critiquing. Ya know, those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Those that can’t teach, administrate. And those that can’t administer, critique. I don’t have much respect for the profession.
And what do you do for a living?
That said, the reviews on Film Freak Central are the only ones that have enough meat for me.
I’m not interested in hearing little teasers about the plot or if they think I’ll like it or not. I went to film school, and while a lot of it is BS, I did learn how to really bite in to a movie and tear it apart. I miss thinking about films in the larger context of cinema and society. I miss people who could watch Traffic and Requiem for a Dream and Thirteen and notice that the “ultimate low point” scene involves having sex with a Black man. Film Freak Central is the only place I’ve found that can provide that level of analysis on new releases.