Life as a Film Critic/Movie Reviewer + The State of Film Criticism & the Movie Industry Today w/ Albert Lanier

On this edition of Parallax Views, journalist Albert Lanier, a multi-time guest on the show, just started a Substack called The Final Cut. This new venture from Lanier is a return to his roots. Although he's become known, especially to listeners of this show, for his thoughts on true crime cases and politics, in a previous life he was a film critic/movie reviewer. He even contributed to Ain't It Cool News! And over the years he had an opportunity to meet Hollywood players ranging from Nancy Kwan to Roger Corman.

In this conversation, Lanier and I will discuss his work writing about cinema and his experiences going to film festivals. But we'll also discuss his thoughts on the state of the movie industry and the state of film criticism as well. In particular, we will look at the decline of film criticism and what phenomena such as film-focused, anti-woke, culture war Youtube channels have on film criticism as well as the impact of Movie Tok on film criticism and how we understand and appreciate cinema. We'll also discuss the cycles of the film industry, the importance of overseas markets to Hollywood, and much, much more.