The Current Cinema ...and the dearth of people being paid to write about it...

The Art Critic by Raoul Hausmann

A now dead old friend once said to me that really is there any need to make any new movies. There are still tens of thousands of films that you still haven't seen and you can hunt those down and look at lots of others over again. Such a turn of events would probably put film critics, at least those diminishing few who still get paid to write or talk about new movies, right out of business. The newspapers may even breathe a sigh of relief.

This little line of thought was prompted early this morning when I checked to see whom and what the Australian Financial Review had published today following its unceremonious, unwarranted and probably quite vindictive sacking of John McDonald a couple of weeks ago. Last week the AFR replaced John's film column with something from  the New York Times by Beatrice Loayza, who, her website tells, is a regular contributor to the New York Times, Artforum, the Criterion Collection, the Nation, 4Columns, Film Comment, Sight & Sound, Guardian, and other publications.

It seems the AFR is not moving at all to replace John, no doubt a modest cost-saving but one which does the paper's reputation no credit at all. Today it has a scathingly unfavourable review of a new film called Venom:The Last Dance reprinted from London's Daily Telegraph.

I'm pretty sure that the overlapping interest between AFR readers and this Marvel franchise effort is likely minimal, especially if they read down to the second half of paragraph two and get an opinion of the film as 'a yammeringly moronic, teenage-boy-pandering eyesore of the old school, with little to offer any viewer whose age or counting ability exceeds the low 20s." Take that AFR reader...go no further. Those Brits know how to hurl an insult. Bob Ellis would have been impressed.

But, and you would never know it from our newspapers, there are still eight or ten or more new releases each week. So if we are going to have new films then it's time for new critics and indeed some more critics. There are plenty around. They do online publications, blogs, podcasts, broadcasts on community radio and probably much more. Their enthusiasm levels are quite overwhelming. The AFR, The Australian (which never replaced David Stratton, just reduced the number of film reviews from four to two) and any of the ailing Nine (ex-Fairfax) papers should be on the case.

It's time to get serious about film reviewing again and pay some more reviewers.

Or else people are going to be more and more like me...and only want to see old movies anyway. This week's treasures, (though as well as watching Dylan River and Tanith-Glynn Maloney's ripper eight parter Thou Shalt Not Steal  streaming on SBS), included the umpteenth viewing of Adieu Philippine and another reminder of just how good is Peter Yates adaptation of George V. Higgins great novel, The Friends of Eddie Coyle.