Just a quick note to encourage you educators out there to support independent filmmaking: Ask your subject librarians to order a copy of For the Love of Movies. [Civilians may purchase a copy here.]
On the fence? Check out the above clip of Karina Longworth, shot a few years ago at SXSW when she filled the bill as the doc's designated "female film blogger." [Knowles was the male counterpart.] It's just one of the DVD's 40 minutes of special features.
Longworth: Honestly, I'm the only woman I ever met who wanted to be a film critic.... You can make generalizations about women's interests, you know? But it's not really a glamorous lifestyle, sitting in a screening room, you know? Banging out copy really fast? Drinking a lot of coffee? A very general, superficial thing to say would be that women are more interested in being in front of the camera...
OK, OK, YMMV. But it brings me to my question on this sunny Monday morning, mere hours before I make Bill Simon proud and teach Citizen Kane [do you really need a hotlink?] for the umpteenth time. [Now, that's glamorous!] If you, dear reader, write about movies -- in the academy, in print, online, in chalk on the sidewalk in front of your home -- when did you know that's what you wanted to do, to be? Would you say it's nature or nurture, or does it involve a conversion story on par with Paul on the road to Damascus [blinding light, Voice of God narration, etc.]?
The cinetrix was brought up in a family that revered Warner Bros. cartoon, Marx Brothers movies, and musicals from the '30s. Yet the first piece of criticism I ever wrote [meant to be read by strangers] concerned the 1985 movie Heaven Help Us. I argued for its merits -- looking past the Kevin Dillon/Wally Shawn slapstick -- as a coming-of-age story in an essay for a CTY summer program.
[I was not admitted.]
With that, I turn to another fave from the mid-80s. Ms. Escovedo, won't you play us out?
Sheila E - The Glamorous Life
