So long Joe ... so long me?

I haven't been keeping up regularly with the KCRW film reviews of Joe Morgenstern, whose reviews appear in print for the Wall Street Journal. The audio form of those reviews are one of the least frequently visited podcasts on my Stitcher app. Although I dearly love this stalwart critic and I sometimes read my own reviews with his voice in my head reading them -- to see if they sound anything like his exceptional version of the craft -- the fact is, most of the time I haven't seen the movie he's reviewed, and if I have, it's only three minutes worth of content. When I'm putting on a podcast to do some chore or to accompany some form of commute, I usually want something in longer form so I can just set it and forget it.

Unfortunately, that means I only just now saw an April 30th piece called "Swan song for now," which I hurriedly put on as soon as I grasped the potential meaning of that title.

True enough, Morgenstern has stepped away from film criticism. 

It's a sad day. Or, it was a sad day seven weeks ago. 

In truth, I thought Morgenstern was more likely to die than to retire. He turns 90 in August, and though he hasn't lost a step in either his writing or his performance of his own words in his on-air reviews, many people have been retired for 25 years by the time they're 90, and many others have been dead for at least ten. 

The saddest part, I think, is that Morgenstern doesn't appear to be quitting -- "for now," he teases us -- because he can't do it anymore. It's not even because he doesn't want to do it anymore. It's because he doesn't recognize the version of the movies he sees today as they slip away from their once-central role in the culture.

And maybe only a little bit because he can't gladly adapt to this new-fangled method of watching movies at home through screener links ... which is more evidence, to him, that movies are no longer the thing that called him to this profession so many years ago.

I hope the podcast doesn't disappear from my app anytime soon, though I don't think it will. I can still go back and listen to all the reviews I neglected over the years ... even the ones for movies I haven't seen.

Morgenstern's retirement comes along at an interesting crossroads for me as well.

I have lately found the task of continuing to feed movie reviews to my site, ReelGood, to be perfunctory at best, arduous at worst. Not that we have tons of devoted readers awaiting each bit of new content, but I feel an obligation to keep posting one or two new reviews a week, to keep up what is increasingly a facade: the notion that the website is a vital entity powered by energetic critics and other film lovers. I do have a couple others who review for me, less frequently than I'd like, but I really need more, and I need those more to be more diverse -- at the moment, we're three privileged white men talking about the latest in movies.

I've known I need to bring in additional writers for the entire two years I've been running the site, a gig I picked up when the former editor got jack of it in a way I'm feeling all too keenly now. But when you are feeling a certain lethargy for the thing you are doing, you also feel a certain lethargy to make it any better. It's sort of easier to keep rolling along with the status quo than try to sell someone what you sort of think is a lie: that now is the time to try to increase the profile of a film review website. 

One issue is that I don't feel like I can really offer them much. I can't pay them, of course, so all I'm really offering is a chance for them to see their work in print, and maybe the occasional advanced screening or screener link, though those have decreased in quantity as well. 

The other is, what really is the future of movie reviews? And who is going to be its shepherd?

Increasingly, it doesn't feel like me. And that's perfectly fine. I would love nothing more than to hand over these reins to a young go-getter, preferably someone who is very different from me demographically, and stay on in a sort of senior film critic role, who writes only when he's really inspired to do so. 

But in order to find this person, first I have to do the legwork, posting in job spaces that are not very familiar to me. Then I have to find a person whose writing is good and who strikes me as a potential heir. And then I have to convince them this is a brand worth preserving and growing in a climate where cinematic attendance is dropping precipitously, and the center of our culture is television more than movies -- though television also faces its own challenges with its mind-boggling number of options and its difficulty in focusing around a single transportive program the whole culture can share. 

Complicating this moment in time is that I have to renew the site's domain, and it's not as simple as charging another year to my credit card. (So yes, I am losing money on this non-profit-generating enterprise as well.) 

The former editor I mentioned earlier had the site linked to his ABN, which stands for Australian Business Number. All Australian businesses must have one, even if that "business" does not generate any profit. I imagine they assume anyone who has an ABN is trying to make money, but that would be an incorrect assumption.

Anyway, when he dropped all things ReelGood he also saw no reason to keep his ABN afloat, and it has lapsed. The site that hosts our domain has recognized this and has sent me emails saying that the ABN needs to be renewed or transferred to a new registrant, and that the latter process could require some kind of bill of sale or letter on company letterhead that legitimizes it and proves that I'm not attaching the site to some rogue business that's going to turn it into a kiddie porn site or something. 

Ha ... as if ReelGood has "company letterhead."

When I first heard about this I thought it might be the thing that breaks me. Not that this is hard as such, but it does require my brain to work things out that are unfamiliar to me, and when I've got so much other house admin to wrangle with, children's school and playdate-related logistics to coordinate, and an upcoming U.S. trip to plan that contains a long-delayed memorial for my mother, who died in 2020, it just feels like it could be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Bye bye ReelGood, bye bye my ability to still describe myself as a professional film critic. 

I was seriously mulling this over. What if I just let this site die? When I agreed to take it on from the former editor, I came to it with the knowledge that I wanted to keep the brand alive to hand on to the next person, doing my duty to maintain it as a permanent entity -- whatever that means in this day and age. But it wasn't because he necessarily seemed to demand it. Sure, he'd prefer if the thing he created didn't disappear from the world. But more than anything, it was clear that he just wanted -- needed -- to get out. Whatever else happened after that point was somebody else's problem.

Well, that's not going to happen. Not yet.

Instead of getting a new ABN -- something that is probably easy but felt incredibly hard to my little brain -- I'm going to be able to use the existing ABN for the ReelGood Film Festival, which operates as a slightly different entity under the same name (and does actually generate profit, fancy that, though its organizers are hanging on by their fingernails as well, and didn't actually hold a festival in 2022 in anticipation of coming back stronger in 2023). 

Then in discussions with the tech staff at the domain hosting site, I found out that the type of domain I have -- I can't even be bothered to remember the term they used -- means that a more informal sort of change of registrant can occur on the site itself, without further documentary evidence like bills of sales or involving company letterheads.

I haven't done that yet, but I still have about 45 more days before the domain expires.

I'm hanging on. For at least a little while longer.

And if I ever have to ask myself why -- why I'm paying something like $150 a year, and maybe twice that considering that I am also paying for a podcast hosting site that I no longer use -- the answer is simple:

I still need to be a critic.

Sure, there's the fringe benefit of continuing to go to movies for free with my critics card, which costs me only $75 per year and returns probably four times that value. But the reality is, they might not even notice if ReelGood disappeared and might continue to renew my membership.

No, it's that I still need to be able to call myself a critic, and I still need it to be true.

You could argue that I stopped being able to call myself a professional film critic when I wrote my last paid review more than ten years ago. Truth is, I could never support myself on the $20 per review I made back then. Believe me, I tried in the year 2001, and it was a financial disaster. 

But the changing face of film criticism inevitably means that we redefine what it means to be a professional critic, and in reality, I can just drop the word "professional" and still be fine with it. Nowadays, so few critics make money doing what they do -- unless they have a outlet that still pays them, or they have a Substack, or they really know how to monetize their blog -- that we all understand we can call each other critics just by appearing in print for some organization that has some minimum level of reputability. 

Heck, I won't deny someone who wants to call themselves a critic even if they just write for their own blog. I'm inclusive like that, even if it does tend to diminish my own accomplishments, my own exclusive right to that particular title.

And the reality is, I still need this. Some part of my soul needs to define itself as a film critic to complete the professional picture of myself. It's the thing that keeps me from being just an IT guy who specializes in a program schools use to pay their creditors and do their attendance. And while I like that job quite a bit, and am good at it, I still need the words "film critic" to feature prominently in my obituary one day.

I also can't discount the possibility that I'll get the love back.

If we look at this blog, we know it goes through peaks and valleys. I'm in a bit of a valley right now. I actually have about three posts I want to write, two of which are actually the posts for my recurring series, but I just haven't found the time to pull up to the desk and write them. 

But that could just be because of all I have going on, the so many things that keep life from feeling like it will ever be simple again, and inevitably dull passions such as this one.

I have to remember that at the start of this year, I was writing so much, and subsequently interfacing so much with movies, that it's no exaggeration to say that I sometimes had six or seven posts already written and in the can, just waiting for a free day to be published. 

When that time comes again, I don't want to have already quit. 

Joe Morgenstern likely wasn't always "feeling it" through all the decades of his long career. But he always got it back. And when he finally, indisputably, determined he wasn't going to get it back, he was 89 years old, a reasonable time to stop doing anything in life that doesn't give you absolute joy.

And even he left the door open to the possibility of a return in some fashion.

Film critics. You can't kill us until you actually kill us. 

I'll try to remember that the next time I think of hanging it up. 

I won't read, but I'll listen

In a film discussion group on Facebook in which I am a semi-active member, we've been discussing recently the idea that we don't like to read reviews of movies before we've seen the movie. Some are critics themselves, some are just film buffs, but most shared this sentiment.

This applies primarily to movies we're interested in seeing. With movies that utterly repel us, it might be fun to read what a particular critic we like has to say. At worst, it confirms our suspicions that the movie is terrible, and allows us to delight in the linguistic thrashing given by a writer whose style we like. At best, it changes our thoughts on the film, and maybe now we would like to see it.

So yeah, as a critic myself -- albeit one who is not currently working -- I am doubly disinterested in reading a review of a movie I have yet to see, in part because I always feel like I might eventually review it, and don't want to be unconsciously influenced by the criticism of that particular work that I've already read.

Reading is one thing. Listening? Quite another.

I've included as my artwork on this piece a picture of Joe Morgenstern, film critic of The Wall Street Journal, whose reviews appear in audio form on the local NPR station, KCRW. (See, Morgenstern is a fellow Angelino, even if his publication is located in New York.) I don't read Morgenstern's reviews. In fact, I don't think I've ever read a single printed word he's written. But I listen to everything that comes out of his typewriter when he is the person reading it to me, during his weekly Friday night reviews (which play at precisely 6:46 p.m.), or much more frequently, as a podcast.

When it comes to Joe Morgenstern, he's such a gifted writer -- a talent made only more impressive by his mellifluous readings of his own writing -- that I can't bare to skip a single morsel of his criticism. Which means that I frequently subject myself to the rich depths of his impressions of film, even the films I'm planning on seeing, despite the fact that this makes me uncomfortable, despite the fact that this unconsciously colors my own impression of the same films.

Why do I break this rule when it comes to Mr. Morgenstern? I doubt that it's he in particular who is so special, nor can it can't simply be the difference between listening and reading. After all, I'm doing all I can to render that distinction unimportant on my commutes to and from work. See, now that I live about 24 miles from my office (rather than a mere eight), I'm listening to audio books during my drives to and from work. When I'm perusing the available options on the shelves at the local library, I make sure always to select the unabridged version, so I can get full credit for having "read" the book. I contend that listening to every word of a book is the same as reading it, and I certainly want credit once I complete the final four discs of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables, since I'm unlikely to ever have the time to read it in the traditional sense. Just as a blind person wants credit for "reading" his/her audio books, I want credit for "reading" mine. My brain has been doing the same work, it's just been using my ears as an instrument rather than my eyes. (And if listening to Hawthorne's sumptuous and literate work is making my own writing a tad more florid in the meantime, I wouldn't be surprised.)

No, I think it has more to do with my strict obedience to the unyielding structure of a podcast feed.

When it comes to the podcasts I listen to, I am a staunch completist. If I've committed to a particular podcast, I listen to all of its episodes. It would be very easy for me to skip one of Morgenstern's three-minute reviews of a movie I want to watch first, but then I fear I'll never get back to it, as it might get lost in the shuffle. The consequences of never listening to it are, surely, quite small, but I nonetheless do not want to entertain them. (This last sentence is definitely the spirit of Nathaniel Hawthorne speaking through me.)

Even more so than with Morgenstern, I encounter this problem with Filmspotting, the hour-plus-long podcast hosted by Adam Kempenaar and Josh Larsen. Kempenaar and Larsen begin each program with a review of a current release. And though they are very careful to avoid spoilers, their recent review of Magic Mike told me more about it than I probably cared to know. Even little, seemingly inconsequential things are revealed that I probably wouldn't want revealed. For example, their summary of the film basically concluded that it's more of a mood piece, and that the plot is somewhat incidental. Now I know that there are probably no huge revelations, no great scandals, nothing earth-shattering in this particular film. It conditions my expectations in a way I usually like to avoid.

But the idea of skipping an episode of Filmspotting is anathema to me. They do such an excellent job with their long-established format, and this format includes so much discussion of films that are not new and that I've definitely seen, that to discard an entire episode because I haven't seen the opening film they discuss would seem ridiculous. If I know I'm about to see the film, I can hold off on listening to the episode for a week or two. But I can't, in the meantime, skip on to the next one, because then the natural chronology dictated by the podcast feed would be all thrown out of whack. What's more, with my current busy schedule and the increased difficulty of getting to the theater, I may not see many of these films until they come out on video. So I wouldn't just be discarding one episode of Filmspotting, but probably three out of ever four.

You might use the logic I've espoused in this post to suggest that I should just read the reviews I want to read, regardless of whether I've seen the movie. After all, between Morgenstern, Kempenaar and Larsen, they are reviewing most of the movies that are coming out. I'm consuming these reviews one way or another, whether it's with my eyes or my ears. And if it's a really great critic who happens to appear only in written form, it means I'm just missing out on what he/she has to say, never to return to it.

I guess the conclusion is that the price to be paid for immersing yourself in the discussion of film is that you are inevitably going to be exposed to some criticism before you're ready for it. You may have strategies for minimizing that exposure, but some of them contradict other strategies, and some of them are just altogether fruitless.

In other words, it's hard to be selective. You just have to read/listen to what you like, and hope that you're able to maintain a strong enough movie-watching pace so that you'll get to compare your own thoughts with theirs, more often than you carry their thoughts with you to a screening as an unwanted viewing companion.

I guess I should be glad most people don't worry too much about this. Film criticism as a profession is built on the notion that many if not most people want to know what a critic thinks before they see a movie.

So if everyone wanted to avoid reviews before they saw movies, not only would I not have work as a critic now, I would not have work as a critic ever.

Today I became a film critic

I've always been the kind of film critic who says "I'm a film critic, but ..."

But what?

But I'll tell you:

1) "... but it's not my full-time job."

2) "... but most of the films I review are not new releases."

3) " ... but most of the time I have to get to the movies myself, or rent them, though I do write them off on my taxes."

4) "... but they only pay me $20 per review."

But then there are days like today, which make me realize I really am part of this club.

I was originally scheduled to have last Friday off, but I'm really glad my boss switched me to today. It meant I was able to oblige when my editor sent me an email late last week asking if I could make an 11 a.m. screening of Soul Power today on Sunset Blvd. Soul Power is a documentary 35 years in the making, focusing on the three-day 1974 concert in Kinshasa, Zaire that was supposed to accompany the "Rumble in the Jungle" boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. Except Foreman cut his lip -- which I suppose is a serious vulnerability when you're a boxer -- and postponed the fight by six weeks. The concert -- featuring such luminaries as James Brown, B.B. King, Bill Withers, and dozens of amazing African artists -- had too many moving parts to postpone, so went ahead as planned.

I attended my first three critics' screenings earlier this year, all within the space of about six weeks in the early spring. But I hadn't gotten the call again until this last week. Not only did they offer me Soul Power, but I'm also seeing a movie called Death in Love tomorrow night. Nice to be back in the saddle.

Under ordinary circumstances, 11 o'clock on a Monday would be right out for me. But this is what real critics do -- attend screenings in the middle of the workday. So the planets aligned for me, and by 10:15 I was on the road up to the screening room. I'm glad I made it on time -- I forgot I needed to gas up, plus I had some dodgy moments at the intersection of La Cienega and Sunset. Anyone who drives standard needs an assist from the hand brake while making that left turn from the traffic light at the top of the hill, else they'll slide back into the car behind them while putting the car in gear. I usually try to avoid that intersection because of the stress it inspires. Today I forgot.

A few squealed wheels later, my car arrived no worse for the wear at the garage below the building with the screening room.

It was a smaller screening room than usual, seating no more than 16. And less than half of those would be used today, as there were about six people total in attendance. I checked in with the guy and passed through a couple people milling about in what passed for a lobby. I selected a leather comfy chair in the middle of the three rows, then saw how small the screen was and decided to move up front. I ended up being the only one in the row.

I was calculating whether I'd have enough time to go to the bathroom when I heard a familiar voice outside. An unmistakable voice, actually -- a voice I hear every Friday on the radio, or more realistically, via podcasts automatically downloaded to my ipod every time I synch up.

That's right, of the six people at this screening, one of them was me, and one of them was Joe Morgenstern.

Joe who?

Joe Morgenstern is the film critic for The Wall Street Journal, but that's not how I consume any of his work. Rather, I hear him on KCRW, the local NPR station, where he reviews films every Friday afternoon.

If the voice I'd heard in the other room had been Bob Mondelo, Elvis Mitchell, or any of the other personalities who occasionally cover film on KCRW, I would not have been nearly as geeked. But in the last three or four years, Morgenstern has come to influence me like no other critic. "Influence" is probably the wrong word -- I don't know how I could begin to approximate the brilliance he produces on such a regular occasion. But he's the current critic who most drives me to be better.

There was no doubting who it was, but I peeked my head out anyway. Yup, it was him -- I'd entered his name in google images only recently, just to see what he looked like. Same affable-looking, white-haired seventysomething I'd seen online.

I quickly found out we were starting on time -- a rarity at these things -- so there was nothing I could do at the moment. Except text my wife: "Joe Morgenstern is at my screening!!!" We aren't much for exclamation points, so that tells you how excited I was.

He took a seat in the back row along with his guest (possibly his wife -- to give you some idea of his star wattage, he was once married to actress Piper Laurie). Then the guy we checked in with, who was in a lively mood, came in and asked us if we were all alert. Morgenstern (can I call him "Joe"?) responded in the affirmative, and re-addressed the question to the rest of the room. I turned around with a smile on my face and answered him directly: "Yep, I am!"

As the movie started, I was distracted with the inevitable thoughts of approaching him afterward. I've lived in Los Angeles long enough that I hate bothering famous people, and only do it on extremely rare occasions. (In fact, I can't even remember the last one.) But this was different ... this guy was an actual, dare I say it, colleague. Right? Wait, does a colleague mean you already know someone, or just that you're in the same field? And I'm not sure how famous he really is, despite the Piper Laurie connection. At least not someone most people could identify if he weren't actually speaking.

But I still went back and forth throughout the movie, and it took about 15 minutes for me to really settle down enough to lose myself in the picture. (Which was wonderful). As the running time drew to a close, I felt myself getting a little nervous -- knowing that I should talk to him, but fearing making a fool of myself, or worse, annoying him. I suspected he was a nice man, but who knows?

Then there was another issue at hand, one that made seeing him even more funny. I had just finished reviewing, less than a week earlier, the movie The Boy in the Plastic Bubble -- you know, the TV movie (some would say after-school special) about the kid with no immunities, released in 1976 and starring a young John Travolta. (See what I said above about not usually reviewing current releases).

The reason it's funny is that this happens to be the only produced movie, television or otherwise, that Morgenstern (Joe) has been credited with writing. In fact, I even mentioned this in my review.

But I decided that if just introducing myself to him didn't freak him out, my complicated explanation about why I was just now reviewing a TV movie that came out in 1976 certainly would. I've learned my lesson from the time I met Jennifer Love Hewitt (for the second time), and launched into the stumbling, awkward recollection of how I'd met her some seven years earlier, most of which involved trying to explain to her which elevator it was in which building on Lankershim Blvd. in North Hollywood. My friends still give me crap about that one.

As the lights came up, I looked back to see him with a wide grin on his face, aglow from the joy of the movie. Okay, he was in a good mood. It was decided.

I stood around nervously outside -- no more than 30 seconds, but still -- and waited for an opening to approach him. "I hate to bother you," I started, "But I'm [my name], and I write for [the website I write for]. I just wanted to let you know that I'm a huge fan of your work. The mellifluous (bad choice -- I stumbled on it) way your words flow is incredible. Your work makes me strive to reach your level."

This is a paraphrase, and I think he inserted some friendly encouragers in there. But this is what stuck with me: "Why thank you, I'm truly touched."

Is it possible that I made Joe Morgenstern's day? Even though I later wondered if my hands were too clammy to make a pleasant handshake, or my use of the word "mellifluous" turned me into a stuttering fool?

Well, at least I know he made mine.

I like this club. I wonder who I might see tomorrow?