I may have a horse in this race, it’s true, but I’ll just say that over on his blog Luke Y. Thompson really nails the unfolding, ongoing CityBeat situation, in all its mouth-agape curiosity. To briefly set all this on a tee, in the wake of Ella Taylor being let go by L.A. Weekly just a couple weeks ago, CityBeat decided two weeks ago that film editor/critic Andy Klein was a luxury they could no longer afford. I’ll spare some bleak-sounding insider-ish details, because I realize the hard-knock economic reality of things in general, and the publishing world specifically (in Klein and Taylor, probably the two most veteran local critics still
working in the aftermath of Kevin Thomas’ retirement have just been let
go), and I also don’t really know new publisher Will Swaim. But, this bizarre but to my knowledge true bon mot: in the wake of clearing their chief film critic from their books, CityBeat made no effort to even contact any of its film writers.