by Sam Juliano
Note: This is the fifth entry in an ongoing series that honors creative bloggers who have really made a difference, raising the bar for quality and productivity on the cultural front.
One of the blogosphere’s most renowned film communities, Living in Cinema, was launched in April of 2007 by Los Angeles native Craig Kennedy. The forty-ish Kennedy, who was an active blogger at Sasha Stone’s Awards Daily for several years before the advent of LIC, was born and raised in the Seattle area before heading south to the “City of Angels” in 1995. Kennedy, a low-key sort who seems to have been born to be a moderator, admits that he was motivated to start up his own place “out of frustration over the content of many of the professional sites I read at the time. There was too much focus on box office and celebrity gossip and too often they put the awards cart before the movie horse. Film festival coverage seemed to consist of sticking fingers into the wind to anticipate what was going to be the next Little Miss Sunshine. I wanted a site that approached movies with movie enthusiasm for its own sake – one that didn’t judge the quality of a movie based on how much money it made or how many awards it received, so I started one.”
Almost by design, Kennedy’s formula for an alternative blogsite immediately began to attract fellow movie lovers, many of whom have stayed on tenaciously for the three-and-a-half years the site has been thriving. The site’s core supporters include close friend Joel Ehly, an Oregon native who in the three year duration of the site has commented on over 90% of Kennedy’s postings, and has triggered many lengthy discussions in the unique cummunity-style discouse that often escalates into what can rightfully be refered to as “live discussion.” Jennifer Boulden of Arkansas, Alison Flynn of New York City, New Zealander “sartre”, Daniel Getahun of Minneapolis (himself the proprietor of the popular and long-running bogsite Getafilm), Don Haumant (a.k.a.”Pierre de Plume”) of Minnesota, Slant critic Chuck Bowen, San Francisco-area film writer Alexander Coleman, and the Big Apple’s Dorothy Porker have stayed with Kennedy since the site’s inception, spending countless hours rendering verdicts on their recent movie viewings in the theatres or at home, and in contributing thoughtful commentaries on coming attractions, passings or happenings in the lives of the site’s other regulars. A number of others have recently appeared, as Kennedy’s affable demeanor and flexibility has accomodated (and indeed has attracted) those with a passion for the movies. (more…)
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