They've killed Kenny

The latest casualty in the movie critic war of attrition -- if you're keeping score, we're losing -- is my friend and colleague Glenn Kenny, who as of today lost his berth as the last man standing at Premiere magazine. In a terse posting on his blog, In the Company of Glenn, he writes:

I've just been informed that my position at Premiere.com is being terminated. What this means for this blog is still up in the air; I've got meetings this afternoon in which such things are to be negotiated. In any case, I now join the ever-growing ranks of film critics without staff positions. I very much hope to keep this blog going...and get some good freelance work, quick.

It's a shock -- Kenny's been covering movies for Premiere since 1998 -- but the fact of the matter is that when Premiere the print magazine folded in March of 2007 and Glenn was kept on as reviewer and web eminence grise, it was only a matter of time before the drainsuck pulled him under, too.

Which is a shame, because his blog has kicked critical ass, consistently chewing over developments high and low in the film industry, championing obscure delights, smacking down the unworthy, goading, pleading, parsing, scoffing. Kenny has established a unique voice: profane with the swagger of a kid who remembers Times Square when it was Times Square, but rigorously intellectual and knowledgeable as hell. He's one of the few film critics out there who makes thinking about movies fun (here's a typical piece from last year), he knows his cigars, plus he has a Blu-Ray player and a region-free Oppo and he's not afraid to use them. And, like a handful of other movie blogs out there (Dave Kehr's springs to mind), Glenn's has attracted a smart, fractious community of constant readers that keeps the arguments apinning via the comment field.

In other words, this is not a blog that deserves to die -- rather, it deserves a wider audience. So here's my challenge: What entrepreneurial web-dude is going to pick up the slack here, sell the ads, assemble the business plan, and keep this guy in business? Because if you read Glenn, you know that his voice is a crucial one in cutting through the white noise of the modern film scene. And if you aren't reading Glenn, you should be.