Dark Day for Movie Fans As 'The Dissolve' Announces It's Dissolving
By Sophie Day in Arts & Entertainment on Jul 8, 2015 8:40PM
At the end of April, readers of the film review site, The Dissolve, were confounded by the announcement that beloved culture critic Nathan Rabin had left the publication. In a heartfelt and somewhat cryptic Facebook post, Rabin compared working as a critic to a whirlwind game of musical chairs and reported that, sadly, this time he was the one left standing when the music stopped. The news seemed to have left Rabin reeling, and many of his fans feeling the same sense of uncertainty.
Today, another shock was delivered with the news that The Dissolve has found itself with no chair, so to speak. Just three days shy of their two year anniversary, the Chicago-based venture posted an entry written by Keith Phipps, announcing that the site was folding. Scott Tobias also posted a letter of acknowledgement on his personal Tumblr.
The Dissolve was a singularly unique and wonderful site. After years of working at The A.V. Club, Keith Phipps left left to found a place where he could spend his time writing exclusively about movies. Finding a supporter in Pitchfork Media, and collecting a merry band of fellow film geeks, The Dissolve could always be counted on for thoughtful reviews and articles on all things movies. The loss of this site will be sorely felt by all its readers, as well as all those who had yet to discover it.
In honor of this wonderful site and the people who made it so, here is a montage of movie goodbyes:
We wish all the best to the amazing writers who made The Dissolve so wonderful. Hopefully we will soon be reading their lively and insightful work in new places. We know that we'll be seeing them again—and that time can't come soon enough.