Ranch Hands on a Dinosaur Farm
Why Online Film Critics Have Newspaper Critics Looking Over Their Shoulders

by Craig Roush

Ten years ago, according to Internet film critic James Berardinelli, there were no more than three dozen individuals writing about movies on the Web.

Now, he says, that number has increased tenfold.

"If you were to project that forward in time," he says, "online film criticism will be the only game in town."

Berardinelli is referring to the tug-of-war within the American film industry, in which online film critics are struggling to gain the widespread acceptance afforded to their newspaper and magazine counterparts.

Mostly, this struggle exists because one of stiffest arguments against online film criticism has been that it does not come from a credible source -- that is, anyone with access to a movie theater and a computer can hang out her shingle and do peanut-gallery film criticism.

But this argument is beginning to erode, now that organizations like the Online Film Critics Society have taken it upon themselves to organize online writers under a single banner and establish a working relationship with Hollywood and, by extension, the moviegoing public.

Berardinelli, perhaps more so than most critics, appreciates the efforts of a group like the OFCS. One of the most established online film critics, he began writing reviews for the newsgroup rec.arts.movies.reviews in January 1993. He has followed the field from its days as a hobby on the fringes of public consciousness, into its current boom.

In those early days, he says, if an online film critic attempted to get any recognition from studio publicists, "They'd laugh at you."

Currently, Berardinelli single-handedly maintains ReelViews, the largest non-commercial film review website (he claims to have 500,000 visitors per month), and writes about 200 film reviews per year. The site, launched in 1996, currently holds over 2,500 reviews, many of them written in a talky, affable style reminiscent of the Chicago Sun-Times's infamous film critic Roger Ebert. Frequently, he writes in the first-person singular, a Class-A felony in most major newspapers.

But even with his prodigious output, not to mention a circulation that outstrips many medium-sized newspapers, it was not until 1997 that he gained some form of accreditation with the film industry: a place on press lists and invitations to advance screenings.

And if such was the case for an individual who, admittedly, voraciously devours books on film and travels every year from his hometown in New Jersey to cover various film festivals around North America for his readers, then the average online film critic clearly did not stand a chance.

It bears pointing out that online film criticism is not synonymous with online movie fan culture, which typically clusters around pop culture cults such as Star Wars or Spider-Man or The Lord of the Rings. These critics may be fans themselves -- Berardinelli, for instance, has a section of his website devoted to reviews of James Bond films, as well as a lengthy article written in 1996 about the Star Trek motion pictures over the years -- but they differ in that most of them have a love of film in general as opposed to an obsession with a particular film or series of films.

That said, many, if not most, film critics began as fans; as the French root of the word "amateur" suggests, it was their passion for the medium that led them to write about it. "Every critic online started posting reviews because he was so passionate about film that he couldn't not post reviews," says MaryAnn Johanson, a freelance writer who, since 1997, has also maintained a film-review website called The Flick Filosopher.

MaryAnn Johanson has maintained The Flick Filosopher since 1997. (Photo: Elissa Klotz)

"Combine that with a formidable writing talent -- and that does exist online -- and those critics will be a potent threat to the status quo," she says.

Enter the OFCS, which was created in 1997 to bridge the gap between these "passionate" onliners and the Hollywood establishment.

"The OFCS is the only organization that is focused on building the quality of Net-based film journalism," says Phil Hall, a longtime film industry publicist currently serving on the OFCS's Governing Committee, or board of directors.

In the field of film criticism at large, and not just within the online sub-community, this sort of self-governance is a bold and almost unheard-of step.

"If online movie critics set up a [governing] board, and start policing themselves, that would put them way ahead of print critics," says Tom Maurstad, a pop culture critic for the Dallas Morning News.

These words almost inspire a double take. Here is a staff writer for the major daily newspaper in the nation's No. 4 media market suggesting that online film writers -- supposedly, a bunch of ungrammatical, amateurish, scholarship-challenged hacks -- may be setting the trends, and setting them well ahead of their Gutenbergian counterparts.

Believe it. "If something new is going to happen in the world of film criticism, it's going to happen online," says Jim Hoberman, a film critic for The Village Voice.

According to some, print critics have been in bed with Hollywood far too long to attempt the sort of professional self-regulation that would ideally keep some distance between critics and the movies and personalities they're critiquing.

"All you have to do is attend any junket to understand how corrupt and incestuous print journalism has become," says Maurstad, describing the manner in which the media might be seduced, for example, with all-expenses-paid trips to filmmaker George Lucas's infamous California mountain hideaway, Skywalker Ranch, to get a sneak peek at the new Star Wars films.

But getting print critics from across the nation to agree on the latest releases is hard enough; getting them to congregate under one roof and set up some kind of professional code that might eliminate the corruption and incest Maurstad mentions would be impossible.

There are some critics' societies already in place, the most prominent of which include the New York Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the National Society of Film Critics, but there is no guarantee as to which critics belong to what organization.

On the Web, though, it's a different story. Membership in the OFCS is a substantial boon to online writers seeking accreditation. With 132 members on board, the group is the largest and most recognized body of critics on the Internet -- but also small enough so that its brass can make sure its members' work is up to snuff.

These numbers are growing, however. Earlier this year, the organization had 115 members, and last year it was less than 100. Though the OFCS does impose some controls -- Hall says the "vast majority" of applicants are rejected because their writing is substandard (either lacking grammatically or too infrequently updated, for instance) -- there is no denying this upper crust of writers is flourishing.

"There has been a large increase in online film critics in the last five years," says Sasha Berman, an independent film industry publicist based in New York City. Berman, who publicizes mostly foreign and art films, says that today she has a list of onliners with whom she regularly works. Three years ago, she had none.

There is also no denying the fact that Hollywood has deigned to recognize online film critics, using the OFCS's brand name to sell movies alongside the NYFCC or the LAFCA. Compare that to 10 or even five years ago, when such name-dropping would have raised high-powered eyebrows.

"Some studios and publicists were originally a bit slow in recognizing the importance of the online media, but the vast majority were quick to embrace the onliners," says Hall.

Some of that sluggishness may have been because of ulterior motives, according Johanson, a.k.a. the Flick Filosopher.

"The idea of a critic who is completely free to voice his or her undiluted opinion -- one who doesn't have to kowtow to advertisers or worry about upsetting the corporate higher-ups in a company that may have both publishing and movie divisions -- scares the industry a bit," she says.

Of course, the arc of success itself is not entirely novel -- Harry Knowles, the founding editor of the no-holds-barred movie industry gossip website Ain't It Cool News, is, to this day, alternatively sanctified and vilified for his infamous rise to prominence within the Hollywood elite.

"Harry Knowles has done more to make Hollywood aware of onliners than anybody else," says Jane Sumner, another film critic for the Dallas Morning News. "He's often puerile and, of course, totally unedited, but he has passion, wit and a degree of clout."

The clout that she is referring to is the sway that online film critics have with the masses -- the kind of intimate, surefire influence that print critics salivate about behind closed doors, and possibly one of the reasons Hollywood is granting onliners more access.

James Berardinelli is one of the elders of Internet film criticism, and his writings have been online for over a decade.

"Teenage boys don't read the newspaper, they simply don't," says Berardinelli. "They go online. Who has the clout with the teenage moviegoers? It's the online movie critics. And the studios are really trying to use that now."

Aside from purely demographic reasons, though, the public's increasing trust of online writers may also be psychological.

"The advantage these critics have is a very direct, immediate connection to their readers," says Maurstad. "There's no division between the critic and the reader -- the readers feel like, 'Okay, you're one of us.'"

Consider Johanson's recent review of the latest James Bond movie, Die Another Day: Rather than a straightforward review (like the one by A.O. Scott in the Nov. 22 edition of The New York Times), it is a narrative parody of the movie's familiar testosterone-driven plot, a hallmark of the 007 franchise. A young Jimmy Bond proclaims it an "absolutely corking day for an adventure," meets an adolescent femme fatale named Saxy, and uses his double-barreled slingshot to escape certain doom at the hands of neighborhood hooligans.

Newspapers may never have this sort of, er, bond with their readerships, according to Maurstad.

"There can be a real vibrancy, intimacy and immediacy [in online film criticism] that's very hard to approximate in newspapers," he says, mostly because these film critics are not "some elite, coming down from on high to deliver their proclamation" about the weekend's new releases.

These critics would be what Maurstad refers to as "ranch hands on a dinosaur farm" -- print writers who, in helping a slowly fossilizing industry, may inadvertently be narrowing the gap between themselves and the next generation of critics.

The words of San Francisco Chronicle film critic Edward Guthmann, for instance, might be indicative of this point of view.

"The Online Film Critics Society [doesn't have] much name recognition or credibility," says Guthmann.

But that might come as a surprise to some onliners. According to Hall, the OFCS has received "high-profile media coverage" from such outlets as CNN, The New York Times, and The Associated Press, as early as 1999. The group was also featured on the cover of Variety, the American film industry's major trade paper.

That being settled, the next question is what online critics will do with the responsibilities entrusted to them, if, as Maurstad, Berardinelli and others predict, Internet critics lap print writers in terms of popularity. The irony is obvious if not familiar: a small but dedicated cadre of outsiders works feverishly to install themselves as the new regime, only to discover that power corrupts and that, at the end of the day, they will turn out to be exactly like the dinosaur-farm ranch hands they've ousted.

Just ask Harry Knowles, who, according to Berardinelli, "has no credibility whatsoever as a reviewer -- he's much too close to his subjects." And while Berardinelli does grant Knowles some validity as a gossip columnist, it is easy to see the transformation from a hairy-eyed, loudmouthed outsider pecking away at a keyboard in his basement to a Hollywood fat cat, purring contentedly under the palm of a largesse extended to him as long as he provides what Hoberman calls "amplified word-of-mouth" -- viral marketing, by any other name.

Some might find it unthinkable that these online critics could possibly be tempted to renege on the outsider status that gained many of them loyal readerships -- their promise to would work outside of Hollywood's influence to provide insightful, honest commentary. But Hall doesn't see it that way.

He points out that there's a sweet irony that many online critics got to where they are precisely because of Hollywood -- attending advance screenings or interviewing A-list talent, for instance.

"Yes, some critics would like to be filmmakers and some onliners would love to write for The New York Times," he goes on. "But that is human nature -- everyone wants to do something that they perceive is more prestigious and glamorous."

For now, though, Elvis Mitchell, Stephen Holden, A.O. Scott, and the other critics at The New York Times are safe.

But that doesn't mean such critics shouldn't be glancing over their shoulders: they might wake up one day to find themselves living fossils.

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-- Craig Roush is double-majoring in journalism and cinema studies at NYU.

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