For the Love of Movies, Limited Release, Plays Wide

Do you like movies about movies? Or, even more, movies about people talking about movies? Then Gerald Peary’s talking-head documentary For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism might provide some interest, though Variety‘s South by Southwest review, by Joe Leydon, also brands it “once-over-lightly fare,” and posits it could play better as an educational aid rather than a cineaste’s feting. As it should be, perhaps — the more people have a grasp of the value of informed and rooted film criticism, the better. There’s a time for wonkish, inside-the-Beltway self-celebration, but given the death rattle of this occupational siege, this isn’t that time.