In the wake of New York Times editor Bill Keller's startling announcement that the leading American newspaper is cutting 100 jobs, here are a few more rumblings of media-world gloom and doom specifically calibrated for indie-film lovers. Leading critic and blogger Glenn Kenny announced Thursday that he's been fired by Premiere.com (which is all that remains of the once-popular Hachette Filipacchi movie magazine). I am not the first to ask what the doggone heck the point of that site is without Kenny on it. And Warner Bros. announced, also on Thursday, that it will close down both Picturehouse and Warner Independent Pictures, its two semi-autonomous "specialty" divisions. (Anne Thompson at Variety got the story first, or at least damn early.)
Kenny is one of the finest, most erudite and funniest commentators in the business, and I can't imagine he'll remain unemployed for long. (I consider Glenn a buddy, though we don't hang out away from our interlocking professional lives.) But this is clearly another illustration of the precarious status of film criticism, and all other forms of independent critical intelligence, in a rapidly changing -- and perhaps rapidly imploding -- media universe.
It's too early to evaluate the effects of the Warner news, but it ain't good. WB president Alan Horn's statement was a masterwork of business-speak nothingness (and split infinitives): "After much painstaking analysis, this was a difficult decision to make, but it reflects the reality of a changing marketplace and our need to prudently run our businesses with increased efficiencies." Those efficiencies begin with killing off New York-based Picturehouse, which under Bob Berney's leadership was among the most ambitious of the quasi-independent "mini-majors." Berney backed some duds, like any exec, but he's an extremely knowledgeable film buff, and his notable pictures of the last four years have included "Pan's Labyrinth," "La Vie en Rose," "The Orphanage," "A Prairie Home Companion," "The Notorious Bettie Page" and "Ushpizin."