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Art Spiegelman? The MAUS guy?

I don't care about the Voice (having never read it) but I do care about what's going on at the Times.

For a arthouse movie fans, I care about the Voice .

:raises hand:

I don't care...

Raises hand too, I don't care either. Ain't a critic in America that's required reading anymore, I'll check out whoever they print or whoever I see a link too but ain't one definitive voice...

Dargis is the best writer, but she hardly ever stoops to actually review the movie...but she's been a good read ever since she was at the Weekly...

I care and will do more caring later and care that you care. How many newspaper conglomerates are there in this country? Trib, Night Ridder, VVM, .

I think you're taking the pulse of the "vocal" purusers of this site and internet entrepreneurs themselves, and it doesn't in any way, shape or form reflect informed opinion.

Well, I hope that this doesn't put an end to the Voice's year-end film poll... it was great for drawing attention to a lot of great undervalued movies most of which went to the top of my Netflix list when the issue came out.

In regards to the stolen mp3 link issue, they not only linked the unauthorized mp3 but they also used an image created by a fan site without giving credit.

Read the indignant comments directly from The Envelope.

http://goldderby.latimes.com/awards_goldderby/2006/10/dreamgirls_osca.html#comments

Scum is scum, Palmy.

Of course, Par was working on shutting down the website with the song for 48 hours or so before the link went up and it seems to be down now. (And as best I know, the song was not copy friendly, though it would have been easy enough to record from the streaming media to some other digital form.)

And as usual, this offense will be forgotten when they want Tommy The Monkey to dance for more peanuts at some other time.

Of course, when AICN holds higher standards for copyright than the L.A. Times...

Tom O'Neil responds: "Lisa, you don't own the rights to that picture, you know."

HA! Hypocrisy is alive and well.

I care, and this development worried me. Just as it worried me when Jami Bernard got fired, when Michael Wilmington effectively got demoted, when Salon let go of Charles Taylor, etc, etc. I like to think of film criticism as one big conversation, and so far as I'm concerned the more voices the merrier.


But here's the thing: I don't know enough about the newspaper business or the film business to really understand the ramifications of this news today. Is this going to start some kind of domino effect? I don't know. Is this idea of using a small stable of critics and printing their reviews nationwide a good idea economically or a bad one? I don't know. I rely on people like you, Mr. Poland, to put developments like this into context for me, and I hope that you'll continue to do so.


I think that MSM critics are more important than a lot of people give them credit for. They start the ball rolling by giving us something to push against. Many of my strongest reactions for or against a film are reactions against the film's reception, an idea largely formed by reading the opinions of different critics. Think about the way Pauline Kael used to react against the New York critics, the way Roger Ebert pushes for films like Me and You and Everyone We Know while they're still on the festival circuit as a preemptive strike agains the indifference of the critical establishment. Critics, I think contribute to a more volatile, impassioned discourse about film. And I'm concerned that less critics = less argument = less emotion = less interest in film.


Anyway, I care. And I'll say one more thing: The Reeler reports that New Times will attempt to rebuild the Voice film section around J. Hoberman's name, while Anthony Kaufman says that Nathan Lee will be taking Michael Atkinson's spot in the lineup. Is the latter move really a step towards achieving the former goal?

Um, I think the bigger story is the change of publisher at the Times. This is horrible new for anyone who cares about the LA Times. I never thought I'd ask this but -- DAVID GEFFEN HELP US PLEASE!

I guess The Blog Age makes the issue kind of moot, but speaking as a critic who made his bones with a regional alt-weekly before getting the chance to go national, I regret the loss of that avenue for young writers. And I'm not convinced that having a few big-name critics writing for the whole country is any better that having local five-and-dimes driven out by Wal-Mart. I live in a small town in Arkansas, and I know that my perspective here differs--if maybe only slightly--from critics who live on the coast.

Time to play Name the Affiliation Game, must state the parent co./comglomerate as well to receive full credit. Sorry, I'm outahere.

Scott Bowles, Greg Ellwood, Eugene Hernandez, Stephen Holt, Peter Howell, Emanuel Levy, Lou Lumenick, Jack Mathews, David Poland, Sasha Stone, Kris Tapley, Tom Tapp, Anne Thompson, Susan Wloszczyna, Glenn Whipp.

Pete Hammond, Tom O'Neil, Michael Phillips, Steve Pond, Claudia Puig, Richard Roeper, Gene Seymour, Art Spiegelman, Michael Sragow, Peter Travers, Jeff Wells.

When I left as movie critic of the Orange County Register back in 1993, I recommended Henry Sheehan of the LA Reader, one of my favorite critics, for the job. The Register (aka "The Biggest Newspaper You've Never Heard Of") hired him and he stayed until a few years ago, when they jettisoned him to start running reviews from Craig Outhier, based in Mesa, AZ at the East Valley Tribune. That paper, like the OC Register, is owned by Freedom Newspapers. It seems the Village Voice is doing something similar, "syndicating" content across the papers it owns. So much for a distinctive, local "alternative" voice. Sounds like the Voice wants to become a homogeneous national "brand." Bad news for anybody who cares about movies and movie criticism.

Do we know the latest with Roger Ebert?

Agreed Jim, I want to go to Metacritic and Rottentomatos and read voices from around the country. I checked here to see if there's any Fudder's Flags poop yet, and nothing, but got all that good stuff on the home page, so it's never a wipe out.

As for Roger: He's making steady progress, and wants to reach a particular goal he's chosen in physical therapy (I don't know precisely what that will be) before he files his next public recuperation update. I did, however, get a really nice handwritten note from him a couple days ago, inscribed in a copy of his new "Awake in the Dark" book. Last week, he edited the transcript of an interview he'd done in London with Michael Apted about "49 Up" and we'll be running that on RogerEbert.com very soon. I can't wait for him to come back!

I care.

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