Karina Longworth

What advice do you have for aspiring film critics?

I've personally found it useful to practice what I call The Nathan Lee Method, as outlined in an interview he gave to Rotten Tomatoes when he was on staff at the Village Voice:

“[T]he longer I write [criticism], the less of it I try to read. I think that keeps me a better writer. I'm reading all the time, but I can learn more about the movies I'm seeing this week from reading a great 19th century novel than I can from whatever XYZ critic has to say this week about whatever. I think another problem with movie writing is that it's insular, especially Internet writing. It's so narrow and insular and just about movies, and I think to be a really good writer and film critic you need a range. You need to know what's going on in painting, you need to know what's going on in music, you need to read books, and get laid, and go to restaurants, you know what I mean? A lot of movie writing is very impassioned but it's very limited, very narrow. And I think good critics can put movies into a larger cultural and social perspective.”

Of course, Nathan is no longer a full-time film critic. So your mileage may vary.

If I weren’t a film critic, I’d be a…

I worked at restaurants and gourmet stores in grad school. At that point I assumed I was earning a degree that, at best, would resolve in a job in academia—to which waitressing or arranging wine pairings seemed like a preferable alternative. I keep my cheese tasting skills up to date, just in case.

To the public at large, what purpose does a professional film critic serve?

Ideally, I think film criticism should set the starting terms of a conversation between the writer, the reader, and the wider culture. Practically, it probably mostly helps ticket buyers figure out what to avoid.

What would you say to the old saw that critics are frustrated artists, punishing those who do for doing?

I am often frustrated, but I'm not much of an artist.

Has social media changed how you interact with your readers and has social media made the job of film critic easier or harder?

I didn't have a job as a film critic before social media, and I'm sure some would suggest that I wouldn't have a job without it. I think being accessible to readers is vital, and I personally access most of my news and information online, via socially-spread means. That said, the online film criticism/journalism community is increasingly plagued by a pretty serious signal-to-noise problem, and I'm still learning and formulating, along with everyone else, appropriate ways to deal with that.

How did you get started as a film critic?

I voraciously read film writing as a teenager, but it wasn't until my early twenties that I had any real inclination towards journalism. Fascinated with Hollywood but equally drawn to independent/handmade/DIY culture, I split the difference and went to art school, studying film and video at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the San Francisco Art Institute. I had trouble articulating my ideas, which it hard for me to collaborate, and I eventually carved out a small niche making personal video essays about my media obsessions—Moonlighting, Maury Povich, Judy Garland. I was putting a lot of myself into these movies—writing, directing, editing, and narrating if not starring on-camera––and pre-YouTube, there wasn't much of a context for them.  Eventually I became self-conscious and defeatist and took the logical next step: I applied to grad school. I enrolled in the MA program in Cinema Studies at NYU, but I was ambivalent about academia. I was unsure what I wanted to do until my second year, when I took J. Hoberman's film criticism course. In my final semester of the program, I was hired by web entrepreneur Jason Calacanis to freelance blog on a new website he was launching, called Cinematical. The week before that site went live to the public, the founding editor was fired, and I was asked to take his place.

Is there a genre or era you have a particular affinity for?

I eat it all, but I'm most well-versed in Code-era Hollywood.

What other film critics, past or present, do you admire?

Stanley Cavell, Tom Gunning, Manny Farber and J. Hoberman.

What was your first meaningful moviegoing experience?

My parents were very protective about what they'd let me see in the theaters until I was a preteen (Disney rereleases: yes, Return to Oz: no), so while I had obsessive relationships with the VHS tapes of Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Mary Poppins and The Princess Bride, the first actual theatrical experience that I remember was Willow. It was my eighth birthday, and that was the only film opening that weekend that my parents deemed fit for my consumption. I hated it, and halfway through I begged my father to let us leave. This, I suppose, was my first conscious act of criticism.

What was your first published review?

The summer before grad school, when I was living in San Francisco, I covered local film festivals for a now-defunct website. I'm not sure what was published first, but I remember reviewing such classics as Die Mommie Die, Party Monster, and Louise Hogarth's documentary The Gift.

Is there a classic film you’re embarrassed to admit you’ve never seen?
Define “classic.” Better yet—define “embarrassed.” As previously noted, I didn't get to go to the movies much as a child, so I missed out on a lot of the films my generation would consider “classic” the first time around. Meanwhile, I watched a lot of canonical classics at home on TCM, AMC, and the Disney Channel.  I definitely have some holes to fill in terms of foreign classics, particularly Asian and South American film, which to me is more embarrassing—and in more urgent need of remedy––than the fact that I've never seen Raiders of the Lost Ark.

What movie would you have liked to review had you been a critic upon its initial release?

Raiders of the Lost Ark...?

What’s the most common question you’re asked when someone discovers you’re a film critic?

“So, do you, like, see a lot of movies?”

What’s the most controversial review you’ve written?

I've stopped paying much attention to the hate mail and the blowback—it's not the most conducive to getting things done––but I remember being surprised at the violence of the response to my negative review of Dear Zachary. Readers seemed to think I was condoning the crimes depicted in the film, rather than critiquing what I saw as manipulative filmmaking. And some commenter tried to start a campaign to accuse me of “anti-Latino racism” because I was lukewarm on Machete, but it didn't really stick.

Do you like to discuss a movie with other critics immediately after a screening or before writing a review?

No. Sorry, other critics—it's not you, it's me.