Nathan Rabin

Shawn Donoghue

Time-Out Response: Nathan Rabin

Nathan Rabin is the head writer for The Onion’s A.V. Club, a non-satirical yet humorous newspaper and website that reviews books, films, games, TV, and DVDs. He was also a panelist on the show, “Movie Club with John Ridley” , and written a critically acclaimed memoir. He also writes a book called, “My Year of Flops” where he gives movies that were shunned by popular culture and critics a second chance. He also writes Silly Little Show-Biz Book Club, which looks at bad books.

Nathan’s approach on reviewing and critiquing seems to be one striped with humor. But, while his work is funny, he doesn’t seem to be making fun of the work or those that made it, per se. His willingness to look into cinematic flops and trashy books shows that he believes all things deserve to be looked more than once to not gloss over any of its potential finer points. Few things are ever entirely awful and Rabin seems to understand that and wants his readers to as well.

In the Time-Out article, Nathan mentioned that because of the comment box on the A.V. page, the website’s readers seemed much more real and accessible. Not only does this help keep his ego afloat, we assume, but it shows that he appreciates his readership and that his readers that feel strongly enough to voice their opinions, even if they may disagree with him. He also mentioned that his father considers him to be “brave” because he puts himself and his views out for the general public, making him vulnerable to others’ criticisms, but Nathan said he doesn’t even think about it because “if I did I’d have a hard time to putting anything to page.” So while he appreciates his readers potential negative commentary, he feels just as strongly about what he writes to defend it and to keep writing. So passionate in fact that, like the other critics interviewed, Nathan said he would continue writing even if he wasn’t bringing in an income from it.

In a Chicagoist interview, Nathan commented on the shift to the new digital world, and how the Internet has affected the exchange of information and ideas. “You don't have to be Peter Bogdanovich and interview Hitchcock and Welles and Ford to learn how they made films. Now you can just watch an audio commentary. You go online and there's information everywhere.” I think this quote shows that while excited about the vast amount of information and the accessibility to it, Nathan sort of mourns for the past. Because when he was growing up, you had to have passion to know all of the things that my generation could discover with the click of a mouse. Now everyone’s an expert, no one really has to have the same amount of fervor or enthusiasm that he had to have, to get to here he is today.