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February 04, 2008
More cricket-kicking: Variety notes
Over at Variety, Diane Garrett, one of Sime Silverman's sylvan successors sums up a simple body count of newspapers kicking crickets to the curb. "Studios have long questioned the relevance of film critics... [Newspapers] have recently eliminated their longtime critics, opting to pick up reviews from outside sources rather than devote dwindling resources to film criticism at a time when the [internet] is exploding with all sorts of film critiques and opinion... The San Diego Union-Tribune just axed longtime film critic
David Elliott. Detroit's Free Press is in no rush to replace Terry Lawson... And the New York Daily News has announced no replacement as yet for veteran opiner Jack Mathews..." [A notation about former Chicago Tribber Michael Wilmington seems to have its chronology twisted; he came from the L.A. Times, and now writes for the Chicago Jewish Star and Isthmus of Madison, per the Chicago critics' website.] "Bean-counters argue that since the same films are shown everywhere, the critic's hometown is irrelevant... [But] auds in different regions of the country respond to certain subjects -- like, say, teen pregnancy, religion and politics -- differently than they might in other locales. A critic who lives in the community he or she is writing for would understand and reflect that... The heyday of the local critic may soon be gone forever -- if it isn't already."
Posted by Ray Pride at February 4, 2008 05:33 PM
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