What’s it all about?
The late Pauline Kael formerly of The New Yorker claimed having to watch films she did not enjoy was bad for her skin. Armond White of the New York Press makes it his business to be as contrarian as possible.
As film critics they see their job as sorting good cinema from bad, art from trash. To the other extreme there’s the tousled-haired moppets who appear on breakfast television cheerfully reading out the latest press release from a studio, without even pretending to have an opinion. So where does that leave the ordinary audience-member who just wants to have a pleasant time at the cinema, not waste their money and can check their brain at the door?
What will we cover?
This class will include a whistle-stop tour of film criticism, from the campaign against Citizen Kane by Louella Parsons, to the start of the French New Wave in the pages of Cahiers du Cinema; from the affectionate arguing of Siskel and Ebert on television to the explosion of internet film bloggers as ushered in by Harry Knowles.
Who will be teaching?
Emmet O’Cuana is a freelance writer and film critic with Filmink Magazine, who in his spare time hosts a podcast on Australian comics called Beardy And The Geek.