OUR FILM CRITIC JUSTIN TANNER IS BACK AND BLAZING

You are in for a treat. Fresh off the Los Angeles stage, our film critic Justin Tanner is leaping back in a spectacular way. This week, we feature two new film reviews.

As a matter of fact, this human dynamo will slog through the chaff to find the brilliant gems with which to produce two reviews a week for your personal edification. Justin Tanner is a man on fire. He wants to highlight the good stuff that gets lost in the dust bowl of our current cinema.

The film media, like all media today, is a crowded field of half-baked pundits without the test of time and experience.

Justin is more than a critic. He is an educator. As a playwright, his insights into film are revelatory. He is the real deal. He is the tonic to modern criticism.

Justin is looking back at the tall standing greats, Pauline Kael (New Yorker), Andre Bazin (Cahiers du Cinema), François Truffaut (champion of the auteur theory), Manny Farber and so many others. Tanner has many hard-earned opinions which he would like to share.

With a long history in LA theater, his 25th play “Little Theatre,” was produced in 2023. Just last month his newest play "My Son The Playwright" closed with fantastic reviews in the LA Times, Stage and Cinema and Broadway World. If writing and revising an autobiographical play is not enough, Tanner played the two roles, his younger self and his father. He said he had so much fun acting, he wants to do more of it. Nothing timid about Justin.

He is back to film criticsm with a vengence. It so happens that the new play he is working on now is about a film critic, a real Addison Dewitt type, who uses his bully pulpit to put forth an agenda.

If that's not juicy enough, I'm hoping Tanner may lead an attack, snicker-snack, on the Jabberwock that is modern cinema.

We're rooting for you Justin.

Art Report Today .com

STIPENDING THE ARTIST

In the arts + culture this week, a headline reads, "Ireland Launches World First Scheme To Provide Basic Income For Artists." You can't always believe what you read, but scheme seems like the right word.

Basic doesn't sound sustainable. In the arts, every little bit helps. Instead of Basic Income, can't we call it a 'a tip'? And 'basic' is a tricky word. How many Benjamins is Basic good for? It's a tip.

Anytime the government gets involved in the arts—it never goes well. Who decides which artist gets the dole? On what criteria? Who makes these aesthetic curatorial choices? The mayor's office? The police chief's wife who has a flair for the arts?

A generous act is a manipulation.

And these artists that you speak of, are they ever satisfied? Why must their canvases, ideas and budgets keep growing larger?

No. It is best to leave the artist alone. They don't need your help. Let them find their own muse and means. Artists are clever enough to escape the mazes they create.

Go big or not at all. Instead of Basic Income for 2,000 lucky artists, overindulge just ten. Now that would be interesting.

Art Report Today .com