I need a new go-to site for film criticism

July 14, 2015 9:14 AM

I loved The Dissolve as a film site with good, smart writers who wrote thoughtful reviews and features without all the linkbaity cruft found almost everywhere else. I enjoyed their upper-middlebrow approach in that they could speak intelligently about both art and mainstream films. Is there anything else out there like The Dissolve that I could seek out as a substitute?

I imagine The AV Club will come up as answer number one, but I was happy follow its best film critics to The Dissolve when a bunch of them left. Even before this departure, The AV Club staff seemed to be suffering from Stockholm syndrome with regards to the more garbagey elements of pop culture, and giving a lot of weak stuff a pass. I'll give them another go, but I would question the tastes of some of their new critics, whenever I would pop back in to peruse, so I'm not hopeful.

One thing I did like about The AV Club was that it also did book and comic reviews, something I do miss, so a site with a good staff of writers who covered film as well as books/comics would be a nice bonus. Separate suggestions for sites for good book and comic criticism would also be appreciated, if there is no clear all-in-one solution.

posted by picea to Media & Arts (10 answers total)

One might be forgiven for thinking rogerebert.com would be exclusively an archive of Ebert's writing, but it is an ongoing film review site with many regular contributors that embraces both mainstream and art film in much the same manner as The Dissolve.
posted by eschatfische at 9:28 AM on July 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

Senses of Cinema
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:18 AM on July 14, 2015 [2 favorites]

Does it need to be written? The podcast Filmspotting is generally well respected. Of course they only review a tiny fraction of available films so their coverage is certainly not comprehensive by any stretch.
posted by mmascolino at 11:12 AM on July 14, 2015

seconding rogerebert.com...a pretty wide-ranging stable of reviewers - in both skill and aesthetic - but frequent valuable reviews and essays.
posted by j_curiouser at 11:37 AM on July 14, 2015

Seconding Filmspotting and adding co-host Josh Larson's review site Larson on Film.
posted by octothorpe at 1:30 PM on July 14, 2015

Reverse Shot
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:01 PM on July 14, 2015

film freak
I don't always agree with Walter Chaw, but I 100% love reading his analysis.
Also he's got a huge canon of reviews available. Don't be scared off by the outdated website.
posted by OlivesAndTurkishCoffee at 4:55 PM on July 14, 2015

Film Crit Hulk is an excellent critic, whimsical Hulk-speak notwithstanding. If you find the capitalization irritating, there's a bookmarklet for uncapitalizing the text here.
posted by Wemmick at 10:55 PM on July 14, 2015

Response by poster: Thanks for the suggestions, all. I'll check them out!
posted by picea at 7:09 AM on July 15, 2015

Related question has a list of current women film critics.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:05 AM on July 15, 2015