Thoughts on film criticism from Elvis Mitchell
Saturday, I covered the deadCenter Film Festival in downtown Oklahoma City, and I talked for a bit with Elvis Mitchell, former film critic for the New York Times and host of radio program The Treatment and Turner Classic Movies show Under the Influence.
Mitchell was at the festival to be a part of a panel on film criticism, which followed a screening of “For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism,” which I reviewed here.
As a current/aspiring critic myself, I was eager to talk to Mitchell and get his perspective on the profession, which is steadily becoming a less viable source of income, thanks both to newspapers’ financial struggles and the egalitarian nature of criticism on the Web.
Mitchell was equal parts optimistic and glum. On the one hand, the ability for almost anyone to become a critic online opens up the playing field.
“The great thing about now is that criticism isn’t monolithic anymore,” he said.
On the other hand, with alternative weeklies increasingly becoming a part of larger corporations and with newspapers struggling to keep staff — especially critics who can be easily replaced by wire services — the ranks of employed critics are dwindling.
“The idea that a market like Detroit doesn’t have a film critic is kind of terrifying,” Mitchell said.
Although it’s becoming harder and harder to make money doing it, criticism has always been a risky financial source, Mitchell said, and if you love it, it’s more likely you’ll be good at it.
And, “If you’re any good at it, people will notice you,” Mitchell said.
Now that’s encouraging, even if there are plenty of other things to not feel so positive about.
Barack Obama, Paul McCartney, Jerry Seinfeld and others sing ‘Hey Jude’
How surreal is this? President Barack Obama presented Paul McCartney with the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song Wednesday, and in near-”We Are the World” fashion, they join in a “Hey Jude” singalong with almost the entire world.
President Barack Obama, right, presents Paul McCartney with the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, June 2, 2010. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Say it isn’t so, eMusic
How could you do this to me, eMusic? I feel so betrayed.
For those still downloading their music from iTunes, eMusic is a subscription online music site that’s been around since 1998.
Lured by the free downloads the site promised me, I joined almost three years ago in August 2006, and have been exuberantly happy since, downloading music from the likes of Arcade Fire, Andrew Bird, M. Ward, Sufjan Stevens and hundreds others.
Happy, that was, until last night. But I’ll get to that later.
When I joined eMusic, I signed up for a plan that gave me 40 downloads a month for only $9.99 — a little less than a quarter a song. eMusic could offer their tunes for so cheap because they only carried select labels, and nothing from the four major labels — Warner, EMI, Sony and Universal.
I was fine with this; I liked it better that way. Most of the great music being made today is not on major labels, and besides, it forced me to dig deeper to find treasures I might not have.
Not to mention the fact that eMusic carries artists like Anathallo, Cat Power, My Morning Jacket, Patty Griffin and Spoon. Who needs the majors?
So, everything was running along smoothly between eMusic and me up until about a year ago when the site announced it would be raising prices and lowering the amount of downloads. Fortunately, I was grandfathered in, and because they were raising the cost of my plan from $9.99 to $11.99, they were going to give me an extra 10 downloads a month, raising my total to 50.
So, I spent another blissful year with eMusic, picking up some of the great older albums the site offers — stuff from Credence, Nick Lowe and The Kinks.
But that all changed last night. Yes, finally back to last night.
I log on, thinking I’ll maybe download the new album from Grizzly Bear or White Rabbits. Unfortunately, what I find is a notice emblazoned across the top of the page about a major new announcement.
Turns out, eMusic is acquiring back catalog music from the Sony Music Group — fine, that’s not really why I signed up for the site, but whatever. What’s not fine is the price change — I still have to pay $11.99 a month, but my downloads are being cut from 50 to 30, effectively almost doubling what I am paying now.
I wish there was an option to retain my old plan, and opt out of the new Sony music, but alas, eMusic doesn’t seem to be in the bargaining mood. It doesn’t sound like I’m the only one feeling a little miffed — a blog post by eMusic’s CEO Danny Stein about the changes has received almost 1500 comments from subscribers, most of them saying they’re canceling their subscriptions.
I can’t blame them. As much as it pains me to do so, I’ll probably follow suit.
