Is There No Need To Quote Black Film Critics?

The print ads for Selma and Chris Rock's Top Five have several blurbs from film critics giving these movies high praise. Unfortunately, none of the blurbs are from critics in the black press. Does that mean that Paramount Pictures, the distributor, thinks the black media has nothing worthwhile to say about films that are from the black experience?

Has Technology Improved The Quality Of Movies?

"It must not be forgotten that advances in technology do not, by definition, result in advances in artistry. The history of movies is a history of change: from silent to sound, from black and white to color, and so on. Can anyone truly argue that, overall, today's movies, at their current peak of technological sophistication, are markedly superior to the general run of films from earlier eras? The invention of the personal computer did not result in greater writers. A similar analogy, I think, holds true in the film world as well."--Peter Rainer, film critic, The Christian Science Monitor Weekly, September 17, 2012.

Hooray For Hollywood and Its Screenwriters

In Hollywood, movies are considered a director's medium and so screenwriters are given second-class treatment. Newspapers and magazines, taking their cue from the suits at movie studios, have followed their example, ignoring the contributions of the writer and lionizing the director. It is refreshing to see that Entertainment Weekly in its Fall Movie Preview Special Double Issue (August 21-28, 2009) gives credit that's long overdue by including the names of those who have written the scripts for movies slated to be released in September, October, November, and December (including movies written and directed by the same person). Unfortunately, the movie reviews by Owen Gleiberman and Lisa Schwarzbaum in the same issue neglect to give the writing credits of the movies under discussion.
While going over the fall movies, one story came to mind: a screenwriter, tired of being treated like the low man on a totem pole and knowing that without a script there is no movie, throws a handful of blank pages at a director, telling him: "Now let's see you try to direct that."