NewEnglandFilm.com

With the Oscars soon approaching, I thought it was the perfect time to speak to Thelma Adams, self-described “outspoken” film critic, to gain insights into the film world past and present, and to get a glimpse into what critics look for in a film.

Thelma Adams has been the Yahoo! Movies Contributing Editor since 2011, where she covers the Awards Season and pens her weekly “Adams on Reel Women” column. She was the film critic at Us Weekly for eleven years from 2000 to 2011, following six years at the New York Post. She has twice chaired the New York Film Critics Circle. She has written for The New York Times Magazine, O: The Oprah Magazine, The Huffington Post, Marie Claire, More, Interview Magazine, The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, Cosmopolitan and Self. She has appeared on CNN, E!, NY1, NBC’s The Today Show, CBS’s The Early Show, Fox News Channel, Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight, Bravo and VH1. Her debut novel PLAYDATE (St. Martin’s Press/Thomas Dunne Books) came out in hardback in 2011, and paperback in 2012. In 1993, she earned an MFA in fiction from Columbia University; in 1985, she earned an MBA in Arts Management from UCLA; she graduated Phi Beta Kappa from UC Berkeley in 1981. She lives in Hyde Park, New York, with her husband, son, daughter, three cats, one spaniel and a flock of wild turkeys.

Thelma had just returned from Los Angeles where she was covering the Golden Globes when we caught up by telephone.

Susan Kouguell: How did you break into writing film reviews?

Thelma Adams: I wrote film reviews for the Daily Bruin at UC Berkeley as an undergraduate. I wrote a review for the school paper on Remember My Name, directed by Alan Rudolph, when I was getting an MBA, and people said I was good. It wasn’t until I was working in arts administration and film reviews were not reflecting the women’s world that I started, at my husband’s suggestion, writing for the local Chelsea (New York City) newspaper and other small local papers. There was no money in it, the editor told me. I paid for the films myself. It was so hard to get on the critics’ list. I wrote reviews after work, and kept writing. Sometimes the checks from those newspapers would bounce. I went to Columbia to get my MFA, and I already read the New York Post and I got frustrated with what I was reading and I would send my quips to all these places. I kept knocking on doors. The Village Voice, New York Times, Daily News, and finally the New York Post opened the door slightly and I put my foot in it and I wouldn’t let go.

I learned the secret of being a movie critic: everyone has opinions about movies, and a lot of people could write one or two movie reviews but few could write more than that weekly. I found that I had a voice, and a consistent point of view.

SK: What are the elements that you look for in determining a “good” film?

Adams: Truth. I want an experience from beginning to end — that I am transported. Zero Dark Thirty transported me. What I love about that movie — it treated me as an adult; it didn’t tell me how to feel. Great subject, great direction, great visuals, sound, the whole package. It doesn’t have to be a drama; it can be a comedy as well. The thing I most hate is being told what to think, and to feel emotionally manipulated. I hate that Spielberg-erian type film (Lincoln) where there is no oxygen for your own thinking.

In Silver Linings Playbook there is a scene when Jennifer Lawrence storms into Cooper’s family home — there’s Cooper, Jackie Weaver, and supporting players, and they are all acting together; they’re all being their characters — that’s amazing to watch.

SK: What are your thoughts about this year’s Oscar contenders?

Adams: It’s the wackiest year. Oscars are trying to regain their ascendance so they are holding nominations before the DGA (Directors Guild of America). Lincoln is the head of the pack, but it’s likely that Silver Linings Playbook and Argo might unseat it. Zero Dark Thirty is my favorite, but the controversy might have punched a hole in their sail. It’s murky; there are so many good films. As much as you and I can question Lincoln, there is such a different bunch of high quality movies, like Amore, which are critically overwrought.

SK: Why do some of the good movies you screen at film festivals never find distributors?

Adams: Even those movies that find distributors, marketing is tricky. Movies that I most love, for example the movie Tabu, I saw at the Berlin and New York Film Festivals may have gotten a short release but people are bombarded, and movies that we like are not always mass market. To get Hurt Locker marketed — no one wanted to see it when it first came out. There are good movies that don’t get picked up. For example, one movie that Melissa Leo did with Jesse Eisenberg (Predisposed) went to VOD (Video on Demand) swiftly.

SK: When you and I first met, dare I say about 20 years ago, you were the development director of the Independent Feature Project (IFP) in New York. Since then, you continue to keep your finger on the pulse of independent films, attending film festivals worldwide as a reviewer and guest panelist. What do you see as the major positive and negative changes that have occurred in the independent film movement over the last two decades?

Adams: As a critic I am both outside and inside the industry. I started at the IFP and at the edge of filmmaking and then became a critic. I am a supporter of movies; Hollywood, Bollywood, indie films, all movies. For me, it’s a busman’s holiday — if I’m not reviewing films I’m going. I’ve done this for so long; my best friends are producers, writers, PR people, and so on — not just critics.

The major change: you and I used to be outsiders. The first year at Sundance in 1986, the biggest celebrity was John Sayles playing pool at the Elks Lounge; that is what it was like. There was no aura of what Sundance is today. It wasn’t the lottery. It was not a calling card film; that day is so far away from today. Even though you still have Lynn Shelton for example, who is working in the Pacific Northwest, writing and directing; even she is using Emily Blunt, using major calling card stars to do her story. In that day and age — that was before Harvey Weinstein — one movie could be a turning point, now everyone is at Sundance. It’s become this thing where everyone has to go. Everyone bitches if they’re there or not there; it’s become a real movement. Robert Redford says there are too many film festivals; every town all over has one. For me, in some ways, that whole term “Sundance” hasn’t been equated with true indie for a long time.

In this Girls generation — Lena Dunham generation — women won’t just be a PA or script assistants, they will pick up cameras and they will go out there and make films. They won’t wait for permission. They’ve grown up on Powerpuff Girls.

The biggest change I’ve seen this past year for me is the rediscovery of writing about films for women and advocating films for the 51 percent of the audience — women. I am writing on the web to do more about women directors, women stars, and help be part of a national dialogue that is going on.

SK: In addition to your successful career as a film critic and entertainment writer, your first novel Playdate garnered great success, including the O Magazine Top Ten Titles to Pick Up Now. Any chance we might see this book adapted for the silver screen?

Adams: I would love to. I was recently talking to two name actresses about Playdate. Agents can get in the way of interesting projects. I do know one thing about the process of writing a novel; it takes so much passion and focus that I just want to continue what I want to write — essays or novels, historical, contemporary. I don’t want to get into the Sex and the City model; it’s too hard to be creative. I love journalism and I try to squeeze time in for other writing.

SK: What advice do you have for aspiring filmmakers?

Adams: It’s a hard road you’re choosing. You’re up against Sofia Coppola, Ridley Scott’s kids — against people in the business and their connections. The best thing you can do is just love it; even the bad days — and it’s what you want to do, do it. It’s a life choice, not a goal.