I may be slow on the uptake, but shouldn't we be making distinctions between
reviewing and criticism? As Robert Koehler points out, some of the most
interesting writing on film straddles more than one writing discipline.
Whilst Jonathan Rosenbaum has written eloquently about the service industry
called movie reviewing, which will be a dead end as long as critics take
their thematic and stylistic cues from studio press packs. Like Robert, I
think film criticism is at its best as a potpourri of practices,
preoccupations and styles. Hope I'm not talking at cross purposes here! Film
writing's just a bit of a preoccupation of mine.
Richard
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