The Effect Of The Vanishing Film Critics

This is an earlier post from Let's Make Better Films.  I started that blog to discuss the films and filmmaking process.  Sometimes we all just feel like we want to bury our head and avoid the biz altogether.  I started TFF to help build and rebuild the infrastructure to support those better films.

We started Hammer To Nail because we found it hard to get go analysis of what Truly Free films that were out there were truly worth watching. The mainstream critics had stopped covering the smaller films.

Ad Age is now running an article on the effect of all the firings of the established critics on the specialized film business. The loss of established voices has brought a serious drop at the box office.

"It's the consistent relationship [with a critic] that gets people to go to these movies," said Mr. Bernard. "[Editors] felt they should get critics that connect to that younger audience that's getting its news online, but they're not looking at how the box office is affected when the critic changes."

Of course, the loss of these critics had no effect on the revenues of all the interesting and great films that weren't getting the theaters or coverage in the first place. For those films, just go to Hammer To Nail.

For a discussion on the state of film criticism, check out Greencine's podcast here. 

And to keep a vast and diversified culture alive, vote with your dollars, and go out to see a movie today. Seriously. We will lose it otherwise.

There's a great new program in NYC that bumps the film experience up a notch with direct contact with the filmmakers and a post screening celebration. It also confronts head-on the over emphasis the exhibition biz puts on the first weekend revenues.

Credit the IFP and Michelle Byrd with putting their money where their mouth is an truly supporting both Independent and Truly Free films with their new First Weekend series (all done without corporate backing -- c'mon you sponsors, follow suit!). Read about it here.

And guess what their inaugural film is? BALLAST! Did I tell you how much I admire this film? How great it is? How much I like it? I think I have. Go see it.