Watch For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism For Free

Too much of everything

One of my all time favorites.

Great Film overall

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Since there are so few resources on the critique of film criticism (i.e., meta-criticism), a film like this is very interesting to me, and I suppose many others who are the frustrated film critics writing down their thoughts/opinions in venues like this on IMDb! I enjoyed listening to what Andrew Sarris and Pauline Kael had to say, as well as Roger Ebert and a fantastic-looking Molly Haskell. Many of the other critics seemed a little too self-important and full of themselves, which wasn't much of a surprise to me.The problem I had with this film occurred at the beginning and the end of it, where director Peary laments the fact that film critics are being fired at newspapers, like Elvis Mitchell, Jami Bernard, and Michael Wilmington. While I take no pleasure in people losing their jobs, it was hard to feel bad for people who clearly would end up landing on their feet doing something else. As much as I like film criticism, these people are not curing cancer, and I fail to see the "crisis" of film critics losing their jobs.

This film gave me the fun of listening to various people talking on a subject that interests me. I love,also, the way that it was done in a 1907 to the future manner that gave a historical form to it. Opinions are such a pleasure to hear, no matter whether I agree or not. My favorite was James Cagney's from the 30's film.I was sorry they did not mention Susan Sontag. Another thing that critics do today that works for me is to put commentary tracks on DVDs such As the fine one that Roger Ebert does on "Citizen Kane".As i watched "For the Love of Movies" I thought, sometimes the best par of the movie is the cup of coffee we share after.

For the Love of Movies is an interesting, if rather dry, history of film criticism. It starts from the beginning of cinema going to the present day. Overall, it is a mixed bag with difficulties in pacing.The long span of the subject matter has both benefits and drawbacks. On one hand, viewers are introduced to now obscure film critics such as Otis Ferguson. You will inevitably come up with a reading list of critics you'll want to track down. However, many of the critics, especially from the first half of the twentieth century, are dealt with in passing, so that it is easy to confuse them.The film goes into greater depth from the 60s onward, as it examines figures such as Pauline Kael and the debate over auteur theory. However, there are distracting elements such as periodic 'questions' which interrupt the narrative, such as how the critics got their jobs.Furthermore, it would have been interesting to learn more about how the critics evaluate movies, what criteria they use, and so forth. In the end, the film is worth a rent if you stumble upon it, but is not worth seeking out.

"I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch where through Gleams that untraveled world, whose margin fades For ever and for ever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end,"--Ulysses, TennysonMy major criticism of this film (about film criticism) is that it ends where it should begin: the future of film criticism. I saw this film recently at Dartmouth College on Winter Carnival Weekend. Whether due to competing campus events or cold weather, the film was attended by an audience of less than two dozen, nearly everyone eligible for a AARP film discount, if one had been available. Dartmouth College offers a robust Film & Media Studies program, but only a handful of students were in attendance, most arriving at film's end. This alone is probably testimony enough about the future of film criticism, but the closing on screen statement about the gangplank exits suffered by 28 major (print media) film critics in recent years reveals an ongoing mutiny not yet plundered for the reasons why.My own conjecture 'why' (offered as nothing more than by a film buff keyboarding here and now) is that you are reading the reason why: the ubiquity of the internet, and the suffusive flow, if not tsunami, of blogging. One blog catalog alone offers over 5,600 film blogs. Film critics, you have met the enemy and it is I.But back to the film, not the future, for now. For the Love of Movies (FTLOM if a textter) plays like a filmed version of Cliff Notes on the history of film criticism rather than an insightful exploration. Informative? Yes, but I am a 'film criticism' neophyte or idiot savant depending upon your take. So I learned some new names and film flotsam to toss out at the next dinner party I attend, but nothing to provide me with much of a cogent argument as to why we need to rescue any of those 28 film critics off the gangplank to guide us through the chop and swell of Avatar's 'perfect storm' of movie-making, blockbusters, 3-D, computer technology, and the future.As I watched FTLOM I was reminded of concurrent dynamics in other streams of criticism such as food and restaurant criticism (i.e. the demise of Gourmet Magazine), journalism, and music criticism, to mention a few. Now longtime culinary, journalism, and music critics are finding safe harbors harder to come by to avoid the plunder by today's pirates twittering and blogging away with iPhones and iPads. Arrgh! mateys, prepare to be boarded!So what lies on the horizon for the future of film criticism? The one thing I do know is that I may become an adventurer in this brave new world and journey to new vistas of critical opinion, discourse, and blogging, but that does not make me a navigator, GPS notwithstanding, nor a film critic. I still want to listen and learn from those who can tell me if (how, and why) a film can carry me to those newer worlds. Unfortunately For the Love of Movies provides scarce few cinematic buoys to help navigate the waters.So its fade to black and bon voyage. Ben Moore