I’ve been reading James Berardinelli’s movie reviews since he began posting them on Usenet in the early 90’s He started one of the first Internet movie review sites, Reelviews, later that decade. For almost 20 years, he’s been working a staggering pace: he’s cranked out over 7,000 reviews while holding down his day job as an engineer.
James married a few years ago, and he recently posted about the impending birth of a new baby. He acknowledges that his output is going to diminish, which is great for his kid, but bad for those of us who rely on his articulate, unpretentious and insightful take on film.
James’ site embodies all the promise and hope of the Internet as a technology. It’s a true labor of love, which pays his hosting bill if he’s lucky. As Roger Ebert recently noted, there are a lot of good critics writing on the Internet today, but few of them can match James’ quality, quantity and consistency.
SiubhanDuinne
Thanks for this. I wasn’t aware of Berardinelli, so I’ll check him out and add him to the list. Ebert’s imprimatur is a major argument in his favor.
BTW — that’s a really fine thread title. I’m beginning to sense that you and DougJ have similar gifts in coming up with titles that combine pithiness, some kind of cultural reference, some kind of pun or other wordplay, and of course aptness to the topic at hand. It’s a great skill.
low-tech cyclist
What SiubhanDuinne said.
And yeah, Berardinelli can kiss his free time goodbye for the next few years.
Daddy-O
I work in a movie theater, one of the Landmark outlets. Good films, animated, foreign, art, Oscar-worthy films most of the time.
Our local critic came in and used his free pass card; unfortunately, the new rules were set up, and he couldn’t get free tickets on a weekend any more. He had to pay full price for himself, and his date.
He was more than happy to do so, and I was shocked. Not because he had a sense of entitlement, which he didn’t, but because he knew only too well how lucky he is to be paid for what he does. He said Ebert estimated that there are only about a hundred and twenty paid film critics in the U.S. today, and the number is dwindling fast for reasons we all know only too well: The dead trees media is fading.
Guster
He didn’t like In Bruges!
WereBear
I’ve known and liked his work for years now. I don’t always agree, but I usually know why. Congrats on wife & baby!
WereBear
From the personal to the political:
Yes, the whole “outsourcing to amateurs” aspect of the Internet has its own pitfalls. While I love the competing voices and the way we can shrug off the dead hand of authority with it, the fact that such sites keeps having to be a Labor of Love also means such work can’t always get the loving care it might need.
I’ve been saying for a while now that the only people who make money on the Internet are those who charge for their courses and ebooks on… making money on the Internet.
But with newspapers and television embracing their Inner Tea Party, and traditional publishing becoming simply an outlet for Outrageous Celebrity, what choice do we have but to embrace this new form, and see what we can do with it?
mistermix
@SiubhanDuinne: Thanks.
@Guster: 2.5 isn’t a horrible review. It’s mixed – he just thought the ending was a let-down.
Kurzleg
You can say that again, MrMix. I don’t go there regularly, but when I do he rarely disappoints with his analyses of films. I always wondered if he did Reelviews for a living, and frankly, I’m astonished that he’s been able to hold down a full-time job and still write so well and thoughtfully. Oh, and watch so many movies! Labor of love, I’m sure, but still!
Persia
@Guster: I’ve found a good critic is someone I can disagree with, though. No one’s me so they’re never going to like all the same things I do, and his perspective helps me refine my perspective after I watch something, as snooty as that sounds. And since I know what he likes and doesn’t, I take that into account when I’m deciding what to watch.
fbeuks
For quality though not quantity, I highly recommend the Filmspotting podcast. They do weekly shows and discuss current movies as well as running “marathons” around a theme of older movies (right now it’s Billy Wilder, based on a class they’re teaching at the University of Chicago). Inspired by High Fidelity, they do weekly Top Five lists that are fun discussion-starters, and their “Massacre Theater” segments, which challenge listeners to guess what movie they’re re-enacting a scene from is frequently hilarious.
srv
He should just go to AM shows and take the kid with him, He could add the kid’s review.
I didn’t get into a bar fight like John apparently did, but that Rush glaring over Sue Lowden’s shoulder ad does not help my hangover.
Brent
Been reading Berardinelli for years. He is the reason I gave up publishing a blog with movie reviews. He sprinkles his reviews with more literary references than this Eng grad can remember and he’s an engineer. Movies are a form of literature so this type of criticism provides the most insight into universal themes of the human condition, ect, blah. I do disagree about a third of the time, but always respect his analysis, which I don’t even grant Ebert (I know I lost most of you with that one). Check him out if you want to discover larger stuff going on than meets the eye, metaphors, allusions, ect. The major drawback is he is a bit too serious and technical as you might expect from an engineer.
Gaffa
Ebert’s had a few mini-interviews with Berardinelli in the past, usually just clips of fun conversations. Apparently, Berardinelli loses lots of money each month running his site; he just keeps it up because he loves movies that much.
Ryan
Someone forgot the first fucking rule of usenet.
freelancer
I’ve been reading Ebert more, since he has become one of the best voices on Twitter, but my tastes usually run right in line with Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers.
Too bad since RS revamped their site, that his entire review archive has pretty much gone down the memory hole. If I was a writer at Rolling Stone, I’d be more than a little pissed as the redesign.
Jrod, Slayer of Phoenix
@Brent:
You didn’t lose me. In fact, since his recent column about video games, I’ve pretty much lost all respect for the man’s criticism chops. It’s not that I disagree with his conclusion (which was that video games can never be art), though I do. It’s that he came to that conclusion by getting three recommendations of artistic games, and watching clips of those games on YouTube.
This is like dismissing movies as a whole because you listened to the audio of some trailers through a broken speaker, and you were not impressed. Which would be somewhat amusing coming from a no-name blogger, but should be beneath the well-paid world’s preeminent critic.
Oddly enough, I do agree with a good 80% of his reviews. Looking back now, though, it’s pretty clear we just happen to have fairly similar taste; he’s just better at rationalizing it.
Johnny Gentle (famous crooner)
Berardinelli is always the first review I read for a movie on IMDB. He’s like a “regular person’s” reviewer; he writes reviews that are concise and entertaining without all the usual film-critic wankery of references to 1950s French postmodernist directors or whatever.
Too bad he’ll be lowering his output, but at least it’s by choice and for a new baby.
Sarcastro
Let’s see; He gives Avatar four stars and Brazil three.
We obviously live in different realities that only bear a passing resemblance to each other.
mrmike
@Sarcastro:
Re: Avatar vs. Brazil:
He tends to (in my opinion) review movies in a couple of different ways. Often he reviews them in comparison to the movie they could have been. Sometimes he reviews them as the movie they’re purported to be and occasionally he reviews them as “are they worth my entertainment value”. The stars really don’t reflect the depth of his reviews and I’d give him a read before dismissing him out of hand.
DougJ
Cool story, I never see movies much anymore but if I did, I would check out this guy’s reviews.