Everybody's a critic

I was privileged to write film reviews for publication for more than twenty years, starting with my first review published in the Champaign-Urbana Courier in 1976, eventually followed by a position as critic for Variety (my review name was "Pege"). Today, the field of movie reviewing is overrun, thanks mostly to the Internet. Even the Village Voice is letting its film critics go and smaller newspapers don't bother to pay for reviews, with all the people clamoring to write them for free.

Fine with me. Movies are so much more available than they used to be. I've been enriched by studying new Asian films this past year -- works by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Tsai Ming-Liang, Hong Sang-soo, Jia Zhang Ke, and others. I recently ruminated to my heart's content on films such as "Lake of Fire" and "Southland Tales." I don't miss deadlines and the provincial editor's demand for "consumer reports" style writing, star ratings included. Movies have always been better than that and serious film criticism is still around. You just have to look for it. And not very far, at that.

from the New York Times

MOVIES | April 1, 2008
Now on the Endangered Species List: Movie Critics in Print
By DAVID CARR
The reviews are in: “A dire situation” for serious film.