THE THALIA FILM CLUB
Leonard Nimoy Thalia, Symphony Space
2537 Broadway at 95th St.
September 28 – November 23
Single tickets $22, subscription series $95 (five events)
212-864-5400
www.symphonyspace.org
www.hollywoodandfine.com

In 1963, a bespectacled seventh grader wrote a review of the film TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD for his suburban Minneapolis school paper, telling his fellow students to “see this touching and mystifying movie.” Marshall Fine has been advising people what to see — and what not to see — ever since. For several decades, Fine has been writing reviews and conducting interviews for such publications as the New York Daily News, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, the Star, Entertainment Weekly, the Huffington Post, and Playboy. He has programmed numerous film series and has made two documentaries, the short FLO FOX’S DICTHOLOGY, about photographer Flo Fox’s penchant for taking playful pictures of the male member, and DO YOU SLEEP IN THE NUDE?, about fellow film critic Rex Reed. He also maintains the website “Hollywood & Fine”; as he notes in its mission statement, “I call this site ‘Movies for Smart People’ because I have no interest in dumbing it down. I think of what I do as old-school journalism for a post-literate world. Those of us who still value the written word have to soldier on.”

Fine will continue fighting the good fight in his latest venture, “The Thalia Film Club,” being held at Symphony Space on the Upper West Side. Fine will host five nights of screenings of upcoming releases, followed by Q&As with the director, star, writer, or other behind-the-scenes special guests. The fall season begins September 28 and runs through November 23; single tickets are $22, with a subscription to all five events $95. There will also be winter and spring clubs featuring discounted tickets for early-bird subscribers. Don’t bother trying to find out what Fine will be showing; part of the fun is that he never reveals his selections or his guests in advance. While covering the Toronto International Film Festival, Fine took a break to talk with twi-ny about movie mavericks and the current state of film criticism.

twi-ny: How do you go about choosing the films for the series? Do you look for overall quality, potential guests, expected popular appeal, or other intangibles?

Marshall Fine: All of those factors go into choosing the films. Ultimately, I want to show the best films available with the most interesting guests. My goal is to provoke a lively discussion and create a sense of community, which I believe enhances the moviegoing experience. Certainly, when an audience member says, “Oh, I’ve been dying to see this,” that feels good. But I also hope to surprise them — to have them come away thinking that, while it wasn’t a movie they’d have gone to see on their own, they were glad they saw it.

twi-ny: Over the last few years, many film critics have lost their full-time jobs as newspapers and magazines publish fewer and fewer reviews in print and cover fewer and fewer films in general. Although many of these critics are now publishing their reviews online (often independently), they’re also competing with a lot more people, since anybody can become a film reviewer today by starting their own blog. What kind of an impact do you think that has on the industry and the state of film criticism in general?

MF: I think the fact that so few newspapers employ full-time critics has hurt film criticism. Newspapers — and magazines, for that matter — create a relationship with their audience, which includes a familiarity with a critic’s taste. And the critics at those papers got those jobs because of their knowledge, their taste, and their ability to express their opinions clearly and concisely. When that disappears, when film criticism turns into a consensus contest à la Rotten Tomatoes, the reader no longer is able to rely on a familiar voice, whether he agrees or disagrees with that voice. That’s particularly damaging to smaller films, which no longer have time to build word of mouth and whose chances of survival can be damaged by early reviews on the Internet, no matter how wrong-headed. Instead there’s a race to be first and to pile on — for good or ill — and no chance for a film that might get good reviews overall to recover from bad early reviews.

twi-ny: You’ve written three film biographies, of John Cassavetes, Sam Peckinpah, and Harvey Keitel, quite a trio of eclectic personalities. What should that tell us about you?

MF: Obviously I’m drawn to mavericks; read into that what you will. But what they all have in common is that, at some point, all three of my subjects — in pursuing their individual muses (or battling their particular demons) — changed the world around them by doing what they did. Though the public at large may not remember Peckinpah or Cassavetes, it still sees their influence, whether it knows it or not.