What will the Academy’s Doc Branch do About the new NY Times Critics Policy?

The New York Times has announced a new policy where it will no longer — can no longer — guarantee to review every movie that comes out. Smart, considering the kind of movies that are being released now that really need no critic to review them.  It does have an impact on the Academy’s doc branch, however, because their rule requires a film to be reviewed either by the New York Times or the LA Times to qualify.

It’s all on the Los Angeles Times, says a spokesperson in the Academy about the documentary branch’s rule that films must be reviewed by either the New York Times or the Los Angeles Times to qualify for doc feature consideration.

That isn’t going to cut it, not by a long shot. The Academy must expand its policy to include “lesser” outlets to qualify for eligibility. Here are a few suggestions – Variety or the Hollywood Reporter. While it might seem like a conflict of interest since the trades notoriously sell Oscar ads — newsflash so do the LA Times and the NY Times now.  Reviewers at the LA Times aren’t all that different anymore from those who work at the trades or, to be perfectly frank here, any other outlet online.

Many of the people who used to be readers of my site and participants on the forums a decade ago are now legit film critics at established outlets. In many ways, the line has become blurred to the degree that any review at this point anywhere could and should suffice.

But if the Academy insists on adhering to the dying breed of legit, established critics (who keep getting fired and replaced by blogger-raised ones) here are more suggestions beyond Variety and Hollywood Reporter – though admittedly film criticism as we knew it is mostly over:

Entertainment Weekly
New York Magazine/Vulture
The New Yorker
The Wall Street Journal
Chicago Sun Times
Chicago Tribune
NPR
Film Comment
Washington Post
LA Weekly
Village Voice

And a few homegrown ones that really are as legit as the above:

The Dissolve
RogerEbert.com
Slate
Indiewire

It is getting harder and harder to draw a distinction from self-made critics and legit ones – limiting the requirements to only the Los Angeles Times now seems absurdly stuck in the past.  If the idea is to get a legit review, there are more ways to go about it.