Behind the Blog: The Cinetrix of Pullquote

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What is your favorite blog entry?

I don't have a favorite, per se, but there are a few early ones written in fits of pique that amuse me to revisit now and again. One took Dave Kehr to task for his review of an IMAX NASCAR movie. Another reviewed the long-shelved Prozac Nation after I came across a gray market copy at my local video store. Looking back, I apparently had no time for Peter Biskind after going to a "reading" of his. And then there's the post that begins "The Dreamers, Bertolucci's latest, is a fetid, fetish hothouse of a film, a towering necropolis, and watching it is like watching someone fuck a corpse for two hours."

What was your most popular/controversial blog entry?

Hands down, the most searched-for posts on Pullquote are about Manohla Dargis. Apparently, I'm not the only one out there who harbors an unhealthy fascination with the reclusive Times critic. (Whom I revere utterly, please let the record reflect. Any critique I make of her work stems from this unfortunate sexist tendency I have to hold women to a higher standard.) I can't think of a particularly controversial blog entry, but then I have little patience for or interest in the pissing matches that can erupt in the blogosphere. Perhaps the post that I'm proudest of is my review of Alex Gibney's Taxi to the Dark Side, which Danny Leigh at the Guardian kindly linked to and someone else listed on the doc's wikipedia page. And I am still waiting for the rest of the film world to catch up with Mike Gibisser's lapidary debut feature, Finally, Lillian and Dan.

Is blogging the new path to fame and fortune?

Hardly. Then, no one could accuse me of being a careerist. I'm happy to report that the few professional film-blogger gigs I have been approached about are currently filled by folks much better suited to that sort of daily, industry-centric grind than I am.

What separates journalism from blogging?

Editing. However, if the question you meant to ask is what separates film bloggers from film critics, my answer is "no comment." I think that topic's been done quite to death without my help, thank you.

Who are the bloggers that you read religiously?

The temptation is strong not to give David Hudson a shout out, just to be contrary, but no one would believe me. So, in addition to following the links on GreenCine Daily down various rabbit holes and keeping up with the trades, I read the usual suspects: Like Anna Karina's Sweater, The Chutry Experiment, Allison Willmore's IFC blog, Chris Cagle's Category D, Girish, Self-Styled Siren, Glenn Kenny, Penny Pascal, Kevin Lee at Shooting Down Pictures, my former TA Cynthia Rockwell, The Broad View, Aaron Dobbs, Cullen Gallagher, Criterion designer Eric Skillman's Cozy Lummox, Lawrence Levi at Nextbook, Steven Shaviro's The Pinocchio Theory.... OK, I'm beginning to sound like an addled starlet on the stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. But! I do have to single out Invisible Cinema by experimental filmmaker Jennifer MacMillan. We go back so far that I appeared in her first – narrative! – film. She knows where all the bodies are buried.

How has your life changed because of your blog? Has it gone in any new directions because of your newfound prominence?

"[N]ewfound prominence"? That's rich. Ur-zinester Pagan Kennedy long ago came up with the locution "famous on your block," which I think about covers it. Which is not to say that blogging hasn't changed my life, because it most certainly has. Pullquote spurred me to finish that cinema studies degree. Since then, I've presented academic papers at various conferences, and I teach film at a university, achievements my 2003 self would not have thought possible. Also, I've become friends with an array of like-minded souls all over the world whom I never would have met otherwise. And I've even begun carving out yet another career as a writer – under my own name. Go figure.