For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism

For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism “is the first documentary to dramatize the rich saga of American movie reviewing.” Offering an insiders view of the critics profession,
For the Love of Movies screened a couple of weeks ago at the 10th Annual DeadCenter Film Festival in Oklahoma City. Earlier this year Brandeis Film Professor Thomas Doherty Film scholar and professor Thomas Doherty wrote about this documentary in an article for The Chronicle of Higher Education entitled ‘The Death of Film Criticism‘:

Defenders of the bloggers, texters, and tweeters laud the democratization of opinion and the instant access to inside dope. (Many Web-based critics have few qualms about pirated scripts and studio screeners.) Untethered to the industry and not co-opted by plush press junkets, the argument goes, the unpaid fan-bloggers are more independent, more honest, and more in sync with the mass audience than the jaded sexagenarians. Moreover, purely as a media forum for cinematic analysis, the widescreen Net blows away the printed page, offering unlimited space for analysis, links to like-minded sites, and photo “captures” and streaming clips for illustration. The bloggers get the info out first and fast, the readership bookmarks its own comfort zones, and critic and reader begin a two-way conversation that collapses the distinction between interlocutors.

Controversial food for thought and springboard for debate — but if anyone’s weary of hearing about the decline of print journalism empires and the rise of barbarian blogs, there’s a more personal question buried on the website for The Story of American Film Criticism in a contest for movielovers:

If you adore movies as much as we do, then prove it! In two minutes or less, make your own video in which tell us about, or show us, how one film had a major impact on your life. It could be the one that scared you when you were a wee one, the one that made you laugh till you regurgitated buttery popcorn, the one that convinced you to quit your job and try to make a difference, or the one that showed you the mysterious, dream-like wonders of the cinema.

For readers here without time or equipment to make an illustrative video clip, the same challenge could be answered in the comments.