URL: http://www.antifilmschoolsite.wordpress.com/
Site Name: Anti-Film School
Categories: Reviews, (Other)Film features and spotlighting specific directors.
Rating: R
What is the main focus of your site?
To provide entertaining, unpretentious, knowledgeable, and down to earth evaluations of all genres of film.
What are your blogging goals, personally and/or professionally? In other words, what, if anything, are you trying to get out your blog?
Our goal is to make film criticism more accessible. We also aim to point out that even mainstream and trash cinema can be art.
Do you prefer an interactive community for your blog or are you the teacher and your readers the students?
Both. As a graduate of film school and someone who has made films, I enjoy educating our readers on certain aspects of film that they may not be familiar with. We also love interaction through comments and polls. We sometimes will allow readers to vote for a film they want reviewed through our polls.
How long have you been movie blogging for, and how frequent do you post updates to your site?
We have been active for six months and we update regularly. We try to update almost every day.
Name up to three of your favorite movies (and no more).
The Dark Knight, Dawn of the Dead (1978), and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.
How did you hear about the LAMB?
Through other film blogs.
Any additional comments, or give yourself an interview question that’s not listed above.
Some critics choose to talk down to their readers and make them feel inferior. We reject this approach to film studies. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and that is something we value at Anti-Film School. Plus, the beauty with interaction is that readers can also teach the critic. We should always keep an open mind.
I’m curious to know who some of the professional critics are who talk down to their readers and make them feel inferior. Could you post a few names?
Some of the critics I find to be a problem would be Armond White, critic for the New York Press, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of At the Movies, and Cole Smithey, to name a few. White has said that he feels that film critics should be at least 30 years old and has spoken out against film blogging. Visnevetsky and Smithey both consistently go against the grain and criticize films that audiences and other critics seem to like. They seem to do it simply to cause controversy and appear more “tuned in and enlightened” than a normal viewer. I still am unsure over what they are actually tuned into that we don’t see.
I also found two of my film professors, who could loosely be considered critics, to be a major problem. They looked down on me for saying that I found George Romero’s ‘Dawn of the Dead’ to be an extremely important film. They thought that the only important films were independent cinema, foreign cinema, and the French New Wave and they seemed to play favorites with the students who went along what they preached. While I see the importance of films like Breathless, Tout va Bien, and Alphaville (to name a few), I don’t think film students or fanatics should alienate themselves to those specific types of film. The beauty is discovering your own taste and standing by it. I had no use for the students who liked what they were TOLD to like and trust me, I saw it a lot.
-Steve