How to Not Write Film Criticism

How to Not Write Film Criticism is a 6-week-long workshop with author, critic, and producer A. S. Hamrah. The class will take place on Zoom on Sundays from October 5 until November 9 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. PST. The course will include a weekly discussion of a film with opportunity to receive feedback on short review exercises from the instructor.

How to Not Write Film Criticism: In the age of streaming, when many films are watched at home instead of seen in movie theaters, what does it mean to write film criticism? It is a cliché to remind readers that film is a visual medium, but consideration of the cinema as such is being lost to new forms of consumption that downplay the movies as visual phenomenon and instead emphasize the aspects of movies that lead to flat-footed review writing: plot, background on the careers of actors and directors, and exegesis of pseudo-political content implanted in Hollywood movies by studios. At the same time, the rise of social media has emphasized takes over prose writing, leading to an unreflective, one-and-done approach. In this course, students will see one movie per week in theaters, then discuss it and write about it in short exercises aimed at reconnecting the experience of moviegoing to writing film criticism. Participants must be able to attend one agreed-upon movie a week to participate in this course. The films chosen will be based on the location of all the participants and widely accessible .

This course is $480. Registration closes on September 28 at 11:59 p.m. PST. For more information, please contact workshops@lareviewofbooks.org.

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A. S. Hamrah is the author of The Earth Dies Streaming: Film Writing, 2002–2018. He is the film critic for n+1 and writes for a number of other publications, including Harper’s, Bookforum, The Nation, The New York Review of Books, Fast Company, The Baffler, and the Criterion Collection. He has worked as a movie theater projectionist, a semiotic brand analyst in the television industry, a political pollster, a football cinematographer, a zine writer, and an assistant editor for the film director Raúl Ruiz. In 2021, he produced the feature-length documentary Bunker, directed by Jenny Perlin, which was the opening night film at the Museum of Modern Art’s Doc Fortnight 2022: MoMA’s Festival of International Nonfiction Film and Media. He lives in New York.