AICN @ 10.

Ain't It Cool News, the site bemoaned as the end of film criticism by some cinephiles (even as they check their AICN RSS feed, no doubt), turns ten today and, with Moriarty as MC, they've chosen a most unusual but highly fun way to celebrate; regular contributors and guests list and annotate movies in response to Moriarty's question, "Imagine you're trying to explain America to someone. What ten films would you show them, and why?"

Before all that, though, Moriarty writes, "When people talk about Ain't It Cool as a single thing or a single opinion or a single personality, they're missing the point. It's not." True enough now, but there was a time (and heavens, July 3, 1996 really does seem like a long time ago) before MySpace, before blogs, before broadband was, like running water, taken for granted, when zinesters had the whole World Wide Web pretty much to themselves. "People talk all the time about the good old days of AICN," writes Harry Knowles further down that same page. "The wild west of the internet. When we used to call studio execs out by name for their shitty films.... Well - personally - I still think we do that."

Of course, it's less the take-downs than the occasional fits of rah-rah film geek fandom, the rare but nonetheless damaging faux reviews and such that have ruffled the feathers of those who would like to see online criticism taken seriously, especially now that film criticism is seeing fewer and fewer column inches in print. But all that aside, when you think of AICN, you think of sheer enthusiasm, a raw love for movies that anyone who shares it, in whatever way, can only hope to see thrive on for another ten years and beyond. Happy #10, AICN!

Posted by dwhudson at July 3, 2006 6:55 AM