The Chicago Reader's Jonathan Rosenbaum is my favorite living, active movie critic for many reasons, especially because he eschews conventional wisdom and always gives me many things to think about, his taste could be called eclectic if that wasn't such a meaningless buzzword, he sticks up for important films that have either been ignored or battered by the mainstream critics, he doesn't give a shit about critical consensus (i.e. he thinks for himself whether it hurts his career or not), he's open-minded but very tough, and his approach to criticism is so much more thoughtful than any other current newspaper guy I can call to mind. He's not known for making grand, sweeping judgments, but a couple of grand, sweeping judgments he's made illustrate just how goddamn on target he usually is:
1) He's said that America would be a better country if John Waters hosted "The Tonight Show."
2) He's said that American film culture would be richer if John Cassavetes and Orson Welles had been able to make as many films as Woody Allen.
Disagree with those two points. I don't think you can.
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Other reasons: his texts are always enlightning, never boring; he defended "Dead Man", likes Hou, Tsai and Jia, introduced me to Bela Tarr and Joe Dante, made me understand better Kiarostami and Demy...
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