After close to 20 years in the ad business, my uncle John Farr left the 9 to 5 job to pursue what he’s always loved most, movies. With a new multi-media enterprise, Best Movies by Farr, he now promotes outstanding film via a website that already features more than 2,000 movie recommendations. As a result, he was recruited to be a featured weekly film blogger on the Huffington Post, and also provides branded film suggestions on video to WNET’s “Reel 13” program website. He has been interviewed on Westwood One Radio, WCBS Radio, as well as Air America’s “Ron Reagan Show”, and appeared recently on CNN. In an interview for Vicarious, he spills the beans on how to break into film journalism, interviewing Paul Newman and the rise of reality TV. Check out the interview on the Huffington Post.
Vicarious: When did your love affair with movies begin?John Farr:When I was about six, I fell in love with the Hollywood classics on old TV programs like “The 4:30 Movie” and “The Million Dollar Movie.” After that, I had to know everything about how those films were made, and about the stars…a lifelong love passion and fascination thus began.
Vicarious: Where do you find time to review 15 films a week?
John Farr: I watch two movies each night- it’s easy! Also, I always have my portable DVD player handy when travelling. From a sanity perspective, it’s also easier to watch a lot of movies when you’ve researched them for quality in advance.
Vicarious: Is there an actor or actress that you’ve most enjoyed interviewing?
John Farr: Without question, Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman. What a couple...and they complemented each other beautifully. She every inch the Southern lady, he the more unpredictable, iconoclastic type- sporting a motorcycle jacket at eighty!
Vicarious: It’s fair to say that you’ve made your name through forms of new media including YouTube, Twitter, blogging and a successful website. Would you recommend that path to budding journalists and film aficionados?
John Farr: I’d put it more emphatically than that: I can’t see how any up and coming person in these fields could succeed without new media…it represents a near revolutionary democratization in communication, which is why so much of traditional media is declining. Today, you can create your own channel to grow and build loyalty with your intended audience. It’s enormously exciting.
Vicarious: You write a regular column for the Huffington Post, how do you decide what to write?
John Farr: It might be a milestone birthday for a great actor or director, or a new film arriving on DVD that features a talent worth examining, or even something film-related I come across in the newspaper that I think warrants commentary or exploration. I think the idea of being topical still holds as a fundamental rule.
Vicarious: Is there a column that you’re most proud of and why?
John Farr: I really can’t name one, but I’m always proud when via feedback on my blog, I hear I’ve persuaded my readers to revisit a talent they haven’t considered for some time, and hopefully watch some great films they may not know or have forgotten about. That’s my ultimate goal- and greatest satisfaction.
Vicarious: You’ve achieved success with your website and columns at a more mature age, would you rather have been doing this at 21?
John Farr: Honestly, no. I would not have had the knowledge nor the confidence to do what I’m doing at 21. This pertains not just to my understanding of film itself but also the application of certain writing, speaking, and marketing techniques I picked up in my first career in advertising. These hard-won skills have contributed a lot to my effectiveness in this current endeavor, which makes me feel I didn’t totally waste my youth!
Vicarious: I've heard through the grapevine that you were on CNN recently. Spill...
John Farr: True. My Huffington Post blog arguing for a measure of leniency for director Roman Polanski drew over 700 comments, and created a firestorm of controversy which resulted in two radio interviews- one on Air America’s Ron Reagan Show, followed by a TV appearance on CNN-HL’s Joy Behar Show, debating two tough feminist lawyers. It was a gas, and I’m still around to tell the tale!
Vicarious: Can you recommend 3 Christmas movies that are worth seeing?
John Farr: “The Bishop’s Wife” (1947), “Scrooge” (1951), and “A Christmas Tale” (2008).
Vicarious: Favourite movie of all time?
John Farr: “Bringing Up Baby” (1938)- as close to a perfect screen comedy as I can think of, and strangely enough, a relative flop when first released.
Vicarious: I remember the epic movie nights at your home in New York. What are the key ingredients to a successful movie night?
John Farr: Easier to state perhaps than execute, but you want a general air of informality and a group of fun, like-minded people who really enjoy and appreciate great film.
Vicarious: If you could interview a movie star dead or alive who would it be?
John Farr: Spencer Tracy, one of the finest screen actors ever, but a complex and contained human being who never gave away his secrets. I’d love to try to penetrate those walls he erected around himself to better understand the pure and distinctive approach that made him so arresting a presence on film.
Vicarious: What do you think of the rise of reality TV, which seems to have eclipsed movie watching in recent years?
John Farr: I think reality shows are a blight on our popular culture, and a major contributor to the “dumbing down” of entertainment. Still with TV viewership declining, I suppose it’s an economic necessity. Or that’s the excuse anyway. I also dislike the voyeuristic, exploitative nature of these programs. I hope fervently they become a rather regrettable fad, passing away like an unpleasant odor. Is that opinionated enough for you?
Vicarious: You have a fondness of old movies. Has the quality of movies gotten worse in the last 20 years?
John Farr: Movies have certainly evolved, both as a business and an entertainment form, and to my mind, not for the better. I’ve always valued subtlety, originality and intelligence in film, and find these qualities too often lacking, particularly in today’s mainstream Hollywood fare.
The reasons for this are varied: increasingly, Hollywood has focused on familiar, tried-and-true formulas aimed at their best audience- young people in their teens- who are less sensitive to reviews and happily go to the multiplexes to plunk down twelve dollars on a film’s opening weekend. The studios have learned how to make money without needing to worry too much about the classic and ever-challenging fundamentals of storytelling, script, and nuanced character development. Ever notice how all the best writers are now working for HBO?
Those incredible visual effects created inside a computer, along with breakneck pacing, help mask the banality of the movie itself and the “Barbie and Ken” blandness of all those buff yet shallow young performers.
My dream- and it may be just that- is that more intelligent consumers increasingly turn away from this dreck. There will always be a certain amount of purely escapist fare in the marketplace, and some of it is fun and well-done, but Hollywood, still the financial epicenter of the movie business, can and should do better overall. I think it owes that to its audience.
CF
To see more of the interview with John Farr on Huffington Post, click here
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