No, the fact is we don't know what the new economic model will look like. And that's why it behooves us to start asking serious questions about the very nature of film criticism itself.

This one Duke University study about the way Americans read film criticism was flawed (read criticisms by: David Poland, Mark Caro, and Roger Ebert), but that doesn't mean the idea of empirical research into film criticism is inherently doomed to failure. Let's research the criticism reading habits of the American movie going public. Let's consider the connection between positive and negative reviews and a film's eventual box office.

We should also begin to question some of our basic assumptions about criticism. Before we can argue that there should be paid film critics, we should first know what they do and why we have them.

I want to address my fellow young Turks. In the comments section of Kehr's Bernard post Luke Y. Thompson (LYT Rules.com) defends his qualifications as a film critic. But I don't know that it's just about qualifications any more. Let's go back to the beginning and ask questions like, What is the primary function of the film critic? "Consumer guide" to movies? Initiator and facilitator of discussion about film and individual films? Reporter about movies as events?

Let's go back to the silent era and ask where film criticism came from, starting with the first question of them all: What is film criticism? Let's first build a case that there should be professional film critics, if there's a case to be made, and then and only then let's make the case that it should be us.

We should try to make ourselves useful to the larger film community at every turn. Are there too few video game or DVD critics? Let's do that! Do we need people to sift through the thousands (millions? I dunno) of hours of short films now available online? Let's do that!

And let's keep an open mind to the fact that maybe, just maybe, we're all going to have to work for a living and do this in our free time. Cue the violins, folks: let's always remember that at the end of the day we're doing this not for money, but for love.