Where I am now, is somewhere I never thought I would be. On one hand, I’m basically fine, moderately healthy, employed on some functional level, and I’m finally in some place in film criticism that got me just barely across the line. I’ve always wanted to be across that line. I was first published as a film critic in 1995 at the age of 12. Really. For 1995 and 1996, my local newspaper didn’t have a film critic. My interest in film was only constantly growing, and I wanted to fill an outlet. Papers had critics, so my newspaper for a town of roughly 10,000 people should have a film critic.
Nothing really ever materialized from that. No critics circle invited a 12 or 13 year old writing for a small town newspaper to join. But, i sat at home on my typewriter, because I didn’t even have a home computer with internet yet, and I wrote reviews. As an adult, I stand by very few of them. My score for the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers movie was far too high, and I guess I didn’t like Babe the first time I saw it. Of course, I also have reviews for such cinematic wonders as Big Bully and Bushwhacked, films I’m pretty sure the people in them forgot existed.
After being replaced, I actually started using my internet-less home computer to print out my own newsletter in place of no longer having my reviews in the paper. Replaced by syndication. I’m sure a lot of film critics since can say they’ve been replaced by syndication, or forced to broaden what they write about. The internet really changed the game in terms of what a film critic was. First, there was Rotten Tomatoes, which took all the major critics and aggregated scores. But, other things were happening, and major websites were launching. People were becoming online film critics, completely void of any publication. Film studios now had to figure out how cater to both the Roger Ebert crowd, and also the Harry Knowles crowd.
And I even started doing it myself. It was on one of those early free website creator things, and it no longer exists, but I had my own little site. It never got that much traction, because at the time, paying for domain hosting while still in school wasn’t in the cards, but I actually did get on at least one radar. My first screener sent to me was for a film called Teddy Bears Picnic. A VHS screener.
Reviewing was easy, because from 2000-2012, I was either working in a movie theatre, working in a video rental store, or both, and had roommates also working in the theater so getting to see as many movies free was easy. My first two chains also did screenings before opening for staff, and projectionists, to make sure the film ran smoothly. So i would even have a review up of a film right on time, as if I had been to an advance critics screening.
Eventually, I got through my AA degree, and moved on to a four year school, where I went into the Film program. University OF Central Florida had a production track that people submitted work to get into, and the regular cinema studies track. I wanted cinema studies. I wanted to be in rooms talking about film with people who loved film. I had no desire to actually make one. I was given some advice on my writing, which was to infuse more of myself into my reviews. Basically, stop writing what I thought people wanted, and start offering them who i was, because that’s what makes people read you. The uniqueness of your voice and perspective.
I finally did get my own domain around the same time I started working different jobs. So, I’ve had this site for roughly 12 years. Then, everything changed for me. I didn’t even quite understand my diagnoses. I went in because I had a little spot where I couldn’t see anything, and I thought maybe it was this little bubble thing on my eyeball, a simple laser surgery. No, glaucoma. Undiagnosed, lifelong glaucoma. At first, i didn’t know how bad, but I remember that first meeting and downloading an app to track my eye pressure. My first readings were higher than the maximum number I could choose on the app. I was literally off the charts. My eye pressure was 50, but the app stopped at 49.
After the barrage of doctors appointments, traveling to an eye hospital, I did learn that I never had the valve in the back of my eye that was needed to release pressure, and no one ever caught it. Everyone was sort of mystified of how I made it to 34, but at the same time, they don’t recommend checking for glaucoma until 35. I was always the youngest in every waiting room. I’ve been told I’m an inspiration so many times, if I could monetize it I’d be Jeff Bezos.
But, everything got harder. conceptually, I couldn’t figure out how to do things. I needed people to teach me how to use accessibility features, and walk with a cane. Luckily, I have the same job, and because I worked so hard for so many years, everyone seems to be fine with the fact that I just can’t carry the world on my shoulders like I used to. I recently watched this documentary about a World of Warcraft player who passed, and it got to me on a personal level, because it reminded me of all the friends I had collected while just playing games, who because accessibility is so limited, I haven’t played with or spoken to in years.
I’m never actually OK. I’m in some varying stage of overwhelmed basically all the time. But, it never seems to get better or go away. I’m in probably the best place I’ve ever been, sitting here as a member of actual critics guilds, and getting screener invites. On an almost 30 year journey, I’m here. But, so is everyone else, and the market is flooded with critics.
So, I may have just barely crossed the threshold, but now comes the panic, the fear, that I’m not doing enough. The fear that I can’t keep up, or that the studios will get tired of me asking for screeners with audio description (I always say please), and it will all just go away. even now, I’m having to fill out a form justifying why I’m a critic. Why this thing I started doing thirty years ago, that I’m paying student loan debt off to do, and even after losing my vision, I’m still trying to bring meaningful conversation into, why I deserve to get screener links sometimes to films I’ve already seen. Thanks, WB. I already saw Dune II.
the pressure, and for something that pays nothing. Just for the love of doing it. I’m actually paying Hollywood more money than they would lose on me by giving me a few screeners, by having a ton of subscriptions, and I still rent the occasional VOD movie when I’m trying to chase down audio description for a title. But, the pressure to do so much, it’s creating this feeling like because I’m disabled, I have to do twice as much as everyone else. Like, it’s a magnified imposter syndrome, not just that I don’t belong, but that feeling of flying too close to the sun. Like, chasing a life goal, and is it too dangerous to even be in the chase to begin with?
I did some therapy a while back, and the best way I came up with to describe myself was that I used to feel like an empty bucket. i could carry and do everything, and now, I’m like 90% full of cement, and I just tap out. If the accessibility isn’t easy enough for me to follow, if something gets too hard, I just get too frustrated and I’m done. Somehow, I now feel like a bucket that is 90% full of cement, that also has a gallon jug of water propped on top of it. Like I found a way to carry more than I’m supposed to, which means I always feel like I’m in over my head.
As I break into “real” film critics circles, I’m told my site is difficult to navigate or doesn’t look good. I should figure out how to make my videos look more professional or edit them. All of these things weigh on me and add to the compounding effect that I don’t belong. But, I think I might be the only blind film critic currently in a guild. When I applied to GALECA, I apologized for not being able to talk more from an LGBT perspective, because I’m just far more concerned with being blind, and my level of accessibility.
I’m deeply honored for every opportunity that has come my way. But, i do feel like I’m sinking and not swimming. And this is the thing I love most. When my therapist asked me what I do to calm down, or what my happy place was, watching movies and TV was the answer. But, I have a website, where I have to type a version of my review, I have social media to manage, and YouTube, which apparently just looks basic as hell. I need to figure out what the best way is to present myself that I don’t lose my fucking mind, and also the pressure of feeling like I’m on the cusp of someone finding out I don’t belong can go away. So, if you start seeing videos popping up here instead of written reviews, just know, I’m literally just trying to swim.
Life doesn’t have to be perfect, but I have to figure out how to breathe. And if I lose the one thing that calms me down, the one thing I labeled my happy place, because it consumes me into a negative spiral where I’m rejected from a field I’ve been working 30 years in, then I have nothing to help make me feel like tomorrow will be better.
That’s why i love film so much, because it is such a powerful medium that transforms your entire day. the right movie at the right time, it brings laughter, tears, thrills, hopes, and dreams. It can spark imagination, it can open you up to a host of new possibilities. And I now live in a world where my happy place is fractionally accessible, and all I want to do is to have a voice in the room that says “hey, why can’t we make this accessible?”
Again, humbled and grateful for every single thing, and I’m not trying to get rid of anything, but I have no peace. I need that.
