Mirror/Stage » Film criticism in "the blog era"

Hurray! Andy Horbal of "No More Marriages" is back online with a new blog, Mirror-Stage. He kicks it off with a superb essay, Mirror/Stage » Film criticism in "the blog era", staking out his territory and defining his genre:

These are new times, and they call for a new criticism; I believe that we are entering the age of the “termite critic.” It is no longer necessary, desirable, or even possible for film critics to be “movie experts,” to be King of the Mountain, Arbiter of Good Taste. Instead, the critics of tomorrow will devote themselves to some small part of the Cinema and nibble away at it until sated, at which point they will move onto another....Perhaps most importantly, termite critics actually live and write from within the Cinema itself. voyage-in-italy-1.JPGThey don’t merely tell, they show; film is a visual art, and theirs is a visual criticism. They are critics and cinephiles, but they are also artists, filmmakers. Their criticism is always an act of creation, never destruction.

This, then, is termite criticism, the future of film criticism. It is an active criticism, written (drawn! shot!) by active critics who do not passively wait for today’s Hollywood film release, for this month’s celebrity birthday, or for this year’s uninspired AFI list to tell them what to write about. Termite critics dig, fight, and research; they cajole, exhort, and implore. They are responsive, never more than an e-mail away; they are organizers (of screenings), they are directors, photographers, writers.

Welcome, Andy. We look forward to your digging, fighting, researching, and responding.