Yo ho, yo ho, a critic's life for me.

By Alison Willmore on 05/16/2006

At his blog, Dave Kehr writes about the New York Daily News' decision not to renew the contract of film critic Jami Bernard, and then rants about the paper in general:

During my tenure at the news – seven years that I keep hoping will disappear down an Ambien hole and never disturb my troubled sleep again – Jami and I suffered unbelievable interference from the editorial higher-ups, all of whom seemed to believe that they were vastly more capable of registering the “populist” perspective on a given film (in DN speak, “populist” is a term of art meaning “barely sentient”) than the people they’d somehow (and clearly, mistakenly) hired as experts on the subject. I recall one managing editor flying off the handle because Jami had failed to recognize the cultural and aesthetic importance of “Sudden Death,” a 1995 Jean-Claude Van Damme film about terrorists taking hostages during an NHL game (if only we had listened then!). “It’s the greatest movie I’ve ever seen,” the editor announced, betraying not a hint of irony. One editor-in-chief became notorious in our small department for rejecting any review of a Disney film that suggested something less than complete enthusiasm, on the ground that the DN was a family newspaper and Disney – an indisputable fact – made family movies. Hence, no possible grounds for criticism.

Awesome! We're not particularly a fan of Ms. Bernard's work, but we loathe this trend of moving away from staff critics — a key part of the pleasure of reading reviews is coming back to someone's writing again and again.

At The House Next Door, Jeremiah Kipp interviews Film Freak Central's acid-tongued (Er, penned? Er, keyboarded? Curse you, metaphors!) and very smart Walter Chaw:

JK: How would you respond to the perception of you as a “bomb-thrower”, or a guy who employs hyperbole to get a rise out of people?

WC: Is that the perception of me? I think that’s the easy way out of assessing what it is that I actually write about in my work. Maybe I don’t succeed—I certainly don’t for those folks. Let me say that in my mind the “guys who employ hyperbole to get a rise out of people” are the Earl Dittmans and Jeffrey Lyons and Larry fucking Kings of the world who call every neo-Stanley Kramer piece of leaden dreck that floats down the bilge the “best film of the year” or “a masterpiece” or “the first great. . . of the year”. When I look at what I write (and I seldom have to, thank god), I hope that what I’m seeing there is a real, throbbing outrage at films that are out to do harm and, on the other side, a real live joy at films that feed me. Stuff that’s just out to make money off of easy stereotypes and nakedly shilling to robotically-demarcated demographics of imaginary people – and looping back around, here, offering up all this feckless garbage to the blind eyes of the vast majority of the critics in lofty positions that I (if no one else) hope are manning the gates—makes me exhausted.

This is older, but we missed it the first go-round: at RockCritics.com, Aaron Aradillas interviews Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum:

[W]hat I don't get is this: years after Kael's death, why are we still talking about Kael vs. Sarris as if choosing a team color is Topic A? As if, indeed, any serious movie critic must declare a team in order to play? Why does the mention of Kael, in particular--and the declaration for or against on the part of an army of male critics (it's predominantly men who get het up about the subject)--still generate so much ink? I'm being a little provocative here for the sake of, oh, I don't know, pantsing the keepers of the flame, but I'm also serious: The humorless orthodoxies of the competing teams baffle me.

And New York's David Edelstein has an immensely entertaining dispatch about serving on a Tribeca Film Festival jury with Rosie Perez and Moby.

+ Another One Bites the Dust (DaveKehr.com)
+ Keep up, or get out of the way: an interview with film critic Walter Chaw (The House Next Door)
+ Entertaining Weekly (RockCritics.com)
+ Tribeca Jury Duty (New York)