Another conniption fit from Richard Schickel--this time about film criticism.

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/over_the_hill.php

After a recent takedown of the late Robert Altman, film critic/hagiographer/professional scold Richard Schickel [who, at his best, gave the world the 70s PBS miniseries THE MEN WHO MADE THE MOVIES and made the restored-and-expanded reissue of Sam Fuller's THE BIG RED ONE possible] lurched into action at a recent film critics' panel at UCLA's Billy Wilder Theater at West L.A.'s Hammer Museum recently.

I'll sort-of-agree with Schickel that nowadays newspapers and magazines want film critics to be
cheerleaders for current mainstream product (evidencing the career of Betsy Sharkey at
THE LOS ANGELES TIMES).

But Schickel can't help but to blurt out dumb insults of online film critics (that he allegedly doesn't read) and defame Ain't-It-Cool News founder Harry Knowles solely for his physical appearance.

As I said in the Hollywood Elsewhere comments section, Schickel--in a perfect world--would be best off founding a website/critics' blog (a la Glenn Kenny's SOME CAME RUNNING) with, say, ex-NEWSWEEK critic David Ansen.

Then, Schickel (provided he was willing to do the work) could write only about the current domestic and international films that come up his personal standards.

Roger Ebert on film criticism making way for more celeb gossip.

Thanks to Jeffrey Wells' HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE blog for alerting me to the following blog entry from Roger Ebert about the latest blow to film criticism--the Associated Press wanting its film-related articles to be no longer than 500 words: http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/11/death_to_film_critics_long_liv.html

Maybe another death blow was dealt recently when Kenneth Turan, the LOS ANGELES TIMES film critic who angered James Cameron by essentially evaluating TITANIC as mediocre schlock which lowered the standards of mainstream Hollywood filmmaking, gave a pass to the current girl-loves-vampire film TWILIGHT (come to think of it, so did Richard Corliss, who once in FILM COMMENT had his issues with Ebert and the late Gene Siskel about the SISKEL AND EBERT TV show's effects on the criticism profession).

The future of mainstream film criticism will increasingly be inherited by get-along-by-going-along careerists like the AP's Christy LeMire and Ben "I love going to junkets" Lyons. And most younger people won't mourn this because they don't have the time to read more than 500 words at one sitting.