Premiere magazine

Ed here: Looks like the early nineties were the last of the serious movie magazine days. Premiere and Movieline led the way in giving us a look at Hollywood as it really is rather than the fantasies spun by pr gurus and entertainment reporters. Premiere was more grown-up, dealing with facts, figures and the art of the deal. But in its often bitchy way Movieline managed to balance solid journalism with snarky columns. It was a true guilty pleasure with the emphasis on pleasure. Now comes words that Premiere has followed the long-gone Movieline into magazine hell. I'll miss it. There's a good deal of serious Hollywood journalism on the web these days. But I miss my magazines.

PREMIERE TAKES THE LOSS
From Chud.com

03.05.07
By Nick Nunziata
At next year's Oscars, I wonder if they'll have a syrupy little homage to the terminal patient known as Premiere magazine, a piece of the American film landscape about to uncork its very last issue ever.

I guess it makes sense. For the first time in ever, they started contacting us and considering us a legitimate source of film information and opinion. Of course they had to close shop.

I've been reading Premiere since the late 80's when it was a lot more like a trade publication and less like the somewhat glossy but still quite solid mainstream magazine it is today as it puffs a few more gasps of air before fucking right off to its home on the Internet, where apparently it appears there might be a future for film information and discussion. I haven't missed an issue since, except possibly when they ran their 'Women in Hollywood' issues because frankly, it keeps them out of the kitchen where they belong.

I felt bad when Movieline went from being good and ballsy to almost great (I was this close to becoming a columnist) to being worse than the filth in Ron Jeremy's unreachable places, but this is a real loss. America has nothing that comes close to EMPIRE and Total Film. Now it seems that the once lucrative soil of printed film material has become somewhat hostile, sending advertisers off to more digital pastures.