Jonathan Rosenbaum Retiring

By Rob Christopher in Arts & Entertainment on Jan 2, 2008 8:47PM

Courtesy of the TOC blog, we've learned that on February 27 (his 65th birthday) Jonathan Rosenbaum will retire as senior film reviewer at the Reader. Blogger Hank Sartin swears that it's not "one more sign of new Reader owners Creative Loafing trimming the budget. In fact, Rosenbaum tells us that his new bosses at Creative Loafing will be setting him up with a website of his own so that even in 'retirement' his writings on film will continue to be part of their franchise."

Smells fishy to us but we'll hafta take their word for it. One thing we can say for sure is that Jonathan will be keeping himself plenty busy. In addition to contributing numerous interesting articles for sites like cinema scope and STOPSMILING, which will surely continue, part two of his lecture series at the Siskel kicks off later this month. "The Great Transition: World Cinema in the 1960s" features a mouth-watering lineup of fourteen films from the likes of Buñuel, Ford, Malle, Godard, and Richard Lester.

As David Hudson points out, Rosenbaum's reviews often trigger equal parts admiration and derision. For us, his film writing is among the most stimulating out there; the fact that it's about to vanish from the Reader is frankly one more reason for us to tune out.