Quick Dispatch from the Department of Great Ideas

DougJ over at Balloon Juice has an interesting idea for an award to honor and remember "Jon Swift". Even if, as one commenter pointed out, it means Driftglass and Tbogg win every year.

And back when I and my online movie reviewer compatriots were forming and then running Cinemarati, our stated goal was to have online film criticism gain the same prestige as print criticism. I therefore find it oddly funny that a decade later, Roger Ebert is musing on how to monetize a blog. What does it say about the world when Roger Friggin' Ebert is saying this:

I'm not part of the usual "studio buy" for purposes like that. For the better films, I should be. I am the most-read movie critic on the web. I don't think the studios give a shit about critics. Their online budgets gravitate toward sites with celeb photos, downloadable wallpaper, gossip,"exclusive" trailers, that stuff. My readers actually buy tickets and go to movies at a much higher rate than the national average; just read one of the comment threads here. But for the big tentpole movies, you know what? The marketing people aren't looking for readers. They're looking for buzz.

I mean, Mary Ann Johansen sounded like this eight years ago. This is ROGER EBERT, folks; the one critic that even people who don't read critics read. Maybe online criticism does finally have the same prestige as print -- except that print went the other way instead.

So Ebert and has therefore formed an online club at a cheap price to offer film geeks and Ebertians some Special Stuff in exchange for five bucks. I think that's a pretty good deal. I paid more than that for Randi Rhodes podcasts.