Alison Willmore - Film Critic - New York magazine/Vulture

Foreign Correspondence

English - May 09, 2021 07:00 - 1 hour - 34.6 MB - ★★★★★ - 31 ratings
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Previous Episode: Gerry Shih - Taipei, Taiwan - Washington Post

Next Episode: *Bonus* Alison Willmore talks about film criticism

Zooming with Chloé Zhao - what could better typify the pandemic era? Alison Willmore (@alisonwillmore) takes us inside how she did her recent cover story for New York magazine about Zhao. We also hear about what it’s like to be a critic - from panning the remake of Mulan to championing foreign movies that get much less attention in the United States

Countries featured: USA, UK

Publications featured: IFC, IndieWire, BuzzFeed News, New York magazine, Vulture

Alison discusses growing up in the Bay Area with a Singaporean-Chinese mom and British dad (8:22), using Craigslist to get her first apartment and first job at IFC in New York (16:02), getting hired by IndieWire to launch a TV vertical (21:48), Apple Watches and cold hard cash at BuzzFeed News (24:50), the art of the bad movie review (32:48), Bacurau and foreign films (38:15), how being a critic changed how she views movies for pleasure (44:43), a dream assignment involving Martin Scorcese that came at the wrong time (49:10), reporting her profile of Chloé Zhao (51:39) and finally the lightning round (1:01:33).

Here are links to some of the things we talked about:

Alison’s review of Nobody - https://bit.ly/3o1g6u3

Her essay on Asian American character actors - https://bit.ly/3f1Tc1r

Her interview with Lena Dunham and Judd Apatow - https://bit.ly/3uz5bdc

Her review of Mulan - https://bit.ly/3vY7dnP

Her top 10 movies of 2020 - https://bit.ly/2PZXsG8

Martin Scorsese’s The Film Foundation - https://bit.ly/2SxUmtT

Alison’s cover story on Chloé Zhao - https://bit.ly/3exJu85

Nick Pinkerton’s Substack - https://bit.ly/33tkNDe

Ryan Broderick’s Garbage Day newsletter - https://bit.ly/3hcqQ7b

NYT story on anti-Asian hate crimes - https://nyti.ms/3f8bfDd

The Black Tapes podcast - https://bit.ly/3y7YLnQ