ROTTEN TOMATOES: Another Critic Lost; The Village Voice Lays Off Nathan Lee

Another Critic Lost; The Village Voice Lays Off Nathan Lee

Be alarmed, be very alarmed as the latest in a string of recent cuts hits the NY alt-weekly.

by Jen Yamato | March 25, 2008

Rotten Tomatoes readers, prick up your ears: Film critic Nathan Lee has been let go from the Village Voice, the latest tinder to an already-alarming brush fire of layoffs that has been increasingly afflicting the critical community.

The news broke Monday courtesy of The Reeler's Stu VanAirsdale, who only a week ago inaugurated his new post at the Defamer industry blog by announcing the buyouts of movies editor Pat Wiedenkeller and critics Jan Stuart and Gene Seymour at Newsday. That axing, dubbed the "St. Patrick's Day Massacre" by VanAirsdale, came as only the latest in an accumulating series of firings by major publications in the last year that include the San Diego Union-Tribune, the Contra Costa Times, the Dallas Morning News, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Rocky Mountain News, and others.

Lee's departure after only a year-and-a-half on the job as a staff critic (he previously wrote for the New York Sun and New York Times) makes him, as VanAirsdale points out, the fourth Gotham critic to be lost in the past month. (The New York Daily News' Jack Mathews retired at the end of February but was not replaced.)

In an email farewell, Lee announced the news thusly, and not without some signature flair (via The Reeler):

In great Village Voice tradition, I was abruptly laid off today for "economic reasons." My employment at the paper ends immediately: someone else, alas, will be tasked with specifying the precise shade of periwinkle frosting atop the cupcakes in My Blueberry Nights.

And so I am, as they say, "looking for work," though presumably not as a staff film critic as such jobs no longer appear to exist.

While this trend in layoffs has been conspicuous of late -- and was especially so in the year 2007 -- it is seemingly reaching a critical mass, if you will. What is to be done to stem this disheartening critic-cutting mania? Sound off below.

Related Items

Critic:	Nathan Lee
Source:	Village Voice

(1-20 of 22 posts) | Reply

Amsterclam writes:
on Mar 25 2008 01:38 AM

We should start fostering the online voices, and try to push them out of the juvenile morass a lot of Internet writing has settled into. Step up your game: get into the movies and produce strong voices deserving to be read and heard.

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Count_Vertigo writes:
on Mar 25 2008 04:20 AM

While the news of all the critics suddenly becoming unemployed is alarming, I'm not all that shocked that this particular critic was let go from the Village Voice. It seemed to me that he was a critic that carried a huge chip on his shoulder. While I respect his opinions, it seemed rare that he found anything right about the films he watched. Granted, most of the dreck coming out of Hollywood these days is barely watchable, but he seemed to be someone who would've enjoyed making a child cry with his scathing review of Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs had he been around at the time to review the original release.

(Reply to this)

manonfire238 writes:
on Mar 25 2008 04:47 AM

What a douche.

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frank1569 writes:
on Mar 25 2008 04:56 AM

Follow the money - Big Corporate Media will no longer tolerate bad "reviews" of their movies. For example, if Warner Bros. releases "POS Part V," they expect Time Mag and AOL and their 200 or so other owned outlets to say "POS Part V is super and awesome and not at all a POS." Then TW makes a deal with Viacom - we'll lie about your product if you lie about ours. And, since only 6 corporations control 90 percent of the content and pipeline...

It's the Cheney theory of life - who cares what "the people" think? We'll tell them what to think!

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Bruce Campbell writes:
on Mar 25 2008 05:00 AM

So? A horrible critic lost his job. He wasn't doing his job anyway. This is great news!

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Shatter24 writes:
on Mar 25 2008 07:26 AM

Many of these critics had lost touch with the people and material their supposed to review. Perhaps this ties into the bad ratings the Oscars received, b/c only critic's darlings were nominated, which most people didn't watch. It may be time for a new type of critic. Not a sell out, but someone who enjoys mainstream films and helps the moviegoing audience find films their interested in, not only arthouse pics. How do you talk the newspapers into re-hiring critics, since they didn't find the guys they had "in touch" w/ their audiences? I don't know. But there needs to be a critical revolution, perhaps here on the internet (it has already begun), and eventually newspapers and media will catch on. End of soapbox rant.

(Reply to this)

Jen Yamato writes:
on Mar 25 2008 08:38 AM

I don't think any of these critics are being fired because they're out of touch with readers, or really for any reason related to the quality of their writing. These seem to be across the board buyouts due to corporate newspapers tightening budgets and thinking movie reviews don't need to be carried by individual voices - most, if not all of them, can just pick up wire reviews or reviews from other critics in their corporate family.

We must not forget that film criticism is about film analysis and recommendations, and moreso about the writing - and plenty of the recently fired critics are not too shabby at that crucial element. I don't see the cream rising to the top here (maybe that will eventually happen) but for now it seems senseless, soulless, money-driven. Maybe we need more independent/online voices to rise out of this. But who can live on those kinds of salaries? I'm not saying print is better than other media -- except in the case of TV critics -- but either way you stand on that issue, if you value the (doomed?) film critic, this has to be disturbing.

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bigbrother writes:
on Mar 25 2008 08:48 AM

You mean criticizing more talented people isn't a viable career field anymore? For shame, next you'll be telling me the psychiatrists who tell people what they already know are out of work or mediums who blatantly lie to people can't find a job. Land of opportunity indeed and I was really hoping one day to get paid for doing nothing.

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TombstoneLawDog writes:
on Mar 25 2008 08:52 AM

While I don't particularly like the idea of people losing their jobs, I'd be lying if I said this [recent glut of movie critic lay-offs] didn't make some kind of sense; to my untrained eye, it would appear the trend is becoming more and more prevalent that NO ONE is particularly listening to the vast majority of movie critics. Think of all the unmitigated disasters that have been released to scathing reviews--or not submitted for review at all-- and consider how much money many of them have made. For Example, The recent 'Chipmunks' movie was generally reviled (24% on RT) and still cleared 200 mil (or pick your own example if you don't like this one- there are plenty). Why would an economically-minded news corp in today's economy pay to keep around a critic that no one is listening to, anyway?

(Reply to this)

Tim Ryan writes:
on Mar 25 2008 10:03 AM

In reply to this comment (#1652280)
Here, hear. It's a shame, since the Village Voice has contributed so much to the art of film criticism, and therefore our understanding of cinema itself. And Nathan Lee is someone who writes provocatively and intelligently about film, whether you agree with him or not.

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Skankyoldwhore writes:
on Mar 25 2008 11:07 AM

Can't be sympathetic to Nathan Lee or even most of those working for Village Voice but as to the firings of critics across the board, I think it is about time. Too many of them calling themselves critics and yet, they have absolutely no idea about critiquing a movie. I reckon just 2% if not less of critics actually know what they are talking about. The rest are either wannabe writers who find it very difficult to follow a character or plot arc and then rewrite it in their reviews, some are apologists who can't critique movies of their favoured moviemakers properly and the rest spend their reviews picking on filmmakers rather than critiquing the movie. Next, I hope the New Yorker cleans house!

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Shatter24 writes:
on Mar 25 2008 11:13 AM

TombstoneLawDog helped elaborate on my feelings about movie critics in general. If you keep slapping people in the face for liking otherwise good films, because their not "critics films", people will stop listening to you when you have a legitimate point about a crappy movie. They may have sown the seeds of their own destruction.

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PornAgainChristian writes:
on Mar 25 2008 11:41 AM

In reply to this comment (#1652286)
Exactly. We live in a society that is more critical than productive, and it's a worrisome trend. If we stop offering shelter and a microphone to every dime-store hack who graduates film school but can't get their **** together to make a movie, maybe they'll have to step up their game and start working rather than sit back and critique what everyone else does.

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Jen Yamato writes:
on Mar 25 2008 11:42 AM

But the point of film criticism isn't to be "right" or agree with other people, it's to discuss a film analytically with insightful and engaging writing. A good critic isn't one who gets it right all the time, but rather one who successfully gives their reader a snapshot assessment of a film's merits and/or failures and can support their arguments with informed reason.

What kind of critics do you guys actually like, Bruce Campbell, Shatter24, bigbrother, Skankyoldwhore?

Seriously. Sometimes it seems like select RT readers just love to bash critics just because. I'd like to think that we could avoid sweeping generalizations - critics have lost touch with America, they're all snobs, etc. if only to really get at the root of the problem.

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bigbrother writes:
on Mar 25 2008 12:04 PM

In reply to this comment (#1652495)
I actually don't really care for any critics in general. That's why I prefer RT. If you get a strong enough cross section of people offering opinions you're bound to get a more accurate assessment than an individual who's opinion regardless is going to be tainted by personal preferences, likes and dislikes. For the same reason I will never see a psychiatrist I don't really put that much stock in any critics opinion. Namely that who can tell me more about what I'm going to like than myself and you never really know until you see for yourself. How many really enjoyable movie moments have people missed because they trusted some critics opinion?

However, your point it well taken about insightful discussion. I was being very close minded and focusing on only one aspect of the critical profession. I do think however that there are far too many people out there throwing their opinions around willy nilly who don't meet your criteria of assessing a films merits and supporting their arguments with sound merits and the more of those we can get rid of the better. They ruin it for the truly insightful critics and give them a bad undeserved reputation as you say as snobs, and hatchetmen.

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giertson writes:
on Mar 25 2008 04:19 PM

Nathan Lee fired? This is joyous news. Is there anyway to take down Victoria Anderson as well?

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thereign writes:
on Mar 25 2008 05:02 PM

The critics are being brought down in the same manner as the Jedi. All that will soon be left are Roger Ebert dueling with Richard Roeper over a lava pit.

Ebert: "I have failed you, Richard. I have failed you."

Roeper: "I'll say! Your mentorship on Ebert & Roeper and the Movies was slip-shod, with no true direction or empathy for my character! I felt the plot and dialogue between the two of us was repetitive at best, and I'm going to give you a 'Thumbs Down' you'll never forget!"

[And I would pay every last dollar I've ever made in my life to then watch Ebert BACKFLIP over to the high ground.]

(Reply to this)

ennui79 writes:
on Mar 25 2008 05:32 PM

In reply to this comment (#1652495)
Thank you, Jen Yamato. You are completely right. I love you.

(Reply to this)

Jen Yamato writes:
on Mar 25 2008 10:05 PM

Wow, ennui. I hope you mean that. If you don't, you've struck upon the most brilliant way to sarcastically argue with me, ever.

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Jen Yamato writes:
on Mar 25 2008 10:10 PM

bigbrother, I think you're absolutely right - there are lazy critics (and general journalists) out there, far too many. My only point was that I think it's unfair to say the critics who've lost their jobs in the last year were fired because of that.

Here's to hoping that in the least these layoffs spark some discussion on the state of the critical union, which will hopefully in turn improve both quality of reviews and appreciation of critics.

(Reply to this)

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