It all started in the year 2000 when a pop culture-obsessed eighth grader signed up for a free gURLpage under the screenname dramaqueen2004. Cat's Celeb News was born, and when I changed it to a "more credible" Yahoo! GeoCities page in 2002, I gave it a manifesto:
Movies: My Passion
By Catherine Krummey
For as long as I can remember, I've had a love for movies. Seeing people get to act like these extraordinary people and go to extraordinary places was something truly amazing for me. I had a passion for movies that hasn't quit yet. I've always felt like I could relate in some way to every movie I see. When I was younger, I wanted to be Belle in Beauty and the Beast. More recently, I've felt like I actually was the character Josie in Never Been Kissed or Bridget in Bridget Jones's Diary. From Beauty and the Beast to Bridget Jones, movies have had a deep impact on my life.
Movies portray the extraordinary and the ordinary. Most importantly, they portray humanity. Comedy movies extend those clutsy moments we know we all have or silly jokes we hear and can't stop laughing at. Action movies give us heroes and some really ridiculous macho stuff. Drama movies extend pain, sadness, joy, love - all the emotions that make life real. Horror movies, well, they let us make sure we have someone special to cling onto when we're scared. Sci-fi movies make us wonder if there really is intelligent life out there somewhere. Biopics show us real people, real lives to be inspired by and learn lessons from.
Moments that can last a lifetime are also created by movies. I will eternally remember Drew Barrymore's speech at prom in Never Been Kissed. Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor singing to each other in Moulin Rouge. George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez's conversation/love scene in Out of Sight. Renee Zellweger's one line to Tom Cruise at the end of Jerry Maguire. And too many more to count.
Movies also create icons: legends we all wish we could be or, at the very least, meet. Charlie Chaplin. Ingrid Bergman. Humphrey Bogart. James Stewart. Katharine Hepburn. Faye Dunaway. Jack Nicholson. Al Pacino. Susan Sarandon. Robert DeNiro. Michael Douglas. Julia Roberts. George Clooney. Renee Zellweger.
But the filmmakers and screenwriters that have visions and make them real - they're the extraordinary ones. Cecil B. DeMille. George Cukor. Howard Hawks. Alfred Hitchcock. Stanley Kubrick. Martin Scorsese. Woody Allen. Francis Ford Coppola. Steven Spielberg. Steven Soderbergh. Cameron Crowe.
Then it's what these extraordinary people come together to make: movies that stand out against the rest. Vertigo. A Clockwork Orange. Taxi Driver. Annie Hall. The Godfather. E.T. Out of Sight. Jerry Maguire.
Movies shape style, music, trends and lives. Movies are pop culture masterpieces that can draw tons of followers and publicity - both positive and negative.
I might be one of those people who always criticizes movies, but at the end of the day, I'm just sitting in the theater, waiting to be entertained.
And a cheesy little poem:
Just a flicker of the screen,
And I'm taken to New York or Paris or somewhere in between.
Stories of loved ones and times that pass us by
That make us laugh or smile or even cry.
I'm transported to different places,
Different eras, all with different faces.
I follow the hero
On his way up from zero,
Sharing his experiences,
His heartbreak, his grievances.
I'm told a story
That will leave my life changed.
A story that always
Keeps me engaged.
A story, a moment,
A quote, or a song,
From my memory
Will never be gone.
As I became increasingly interested in both writing and cinema, I decided that I would like to pursue a career as a film critic. So, I signed up for my high school's journalism classes, and before I knew it, I was editor-in-chief of the paper. I wrote for every section of the paper, but I did tend to focus on film reviews and arts and entertainment stories.
That same semester, I decided I should change my website to reflect my changed obsession, so I scrapped everything about Cat's Celeb News that wasn't movie-related and created MovieCat Cinema on November 4, 2003. I kept the manifesto and the poem, and began to show just how movie-mad I was through my writing. It paid off - I became a member of the Internet Entertainment Writers Association, and in March 2005, the Association of Young Journalists and Writers named me the Writer of the Month, making me a semi-finalist for that year's scholarship. That success kept me going - I kept writing for the site, even as I got a journalism internship and two paying jobs as a film critic.
My internship at Louie Magazine in January 2006 mainly consisted of two things: doing clerical work and reviewing movies. The best part was when I went to a screening of Glory Road to find a seat marked off with a sign that said "Reserved for Press" and had my name on it. I was so excited that I took the sign home with me after the movie.
In the midst of my internship, I got an e-mail from MU Student News offering me a job as their female film critic. (Their reviews came in a He Said/She Said format.) It was only $10 a review (plus I got into the movie at the Forum theater in Columbia for free), but it was still something. It was bylines. The first film I did was Brokeback Mountain, and as the male critic I shared the space with was also somewhat into the Oscars, we also got to do another short piece on our picks for the winners. I was ecstatic. And it was about to get even better.
In March of 2006, through the School of Journalism's e-mail listserv, I got a job doing freelance arts and entertainment pieces for Funcoast.com, an arts and leisure website based in Sandusky, Ohio. After doing one story on twin illusionists, the editor offered me a job as their film critic - and I could review whatever I wanted, which made me pretty happy. We had to choose a film that came out at the Forum theater every week for the MUSN reviews, so that became quite limiting. And the Funcoast job was $25 a review, which had to include the price of admission - but it was still better than the MUSN post. So, for the majority of the year 2006, I saw at least two movies in the theater every weekend. It was bliss.
As the weeks went on, between having to see some of the worst movies imaginable due to Forum's limited new releases, the grammatical errors that were edited into my stories and the fact that the paper was no longer in print and only online, MUSN became a bit of a joke.
I was still enjoying the whole idea of being paid to write about movies, though. However, between those two jobs, school and other things I was in involved with, I did decide that it was time to say goodbye to MovieCat Cinema at the beginning of October.
Since I had deemed that part of my life to be in the past, I was really starting to rely heavily on the critic jobs as my creative outlet. Only a few days after I shut down MCC, I received an e-mail from my Funcoast editor letting me know that, starting in January, they were going to replace me with the AP (Associated Press) feed of film reviews.
January 2007 really marked the beginning of the end for me and my serious track to becoming a film critic. Between everyone and their brother going on and on about film criticism being a dying profession (the Funcoast situation was a prime example), and the fact that I went from having three venues to post my criticism to none, I felt pretty defeated. (In case you're wondering about the MUSN job - I had to give it up due to a certain journalism class I was taking starting in January 2007.)
Needless to say, I gave up on the whole film critic thing, and I didn't really write anything of any consequence about film until the summer of 2009. I started using my xanga, which I started back in March 2005 as a venue for me to write about everything but film, as an outlet for the opinions and essays I wanted to get out there about film.
On August 17, 2009, I created an online writing portfolio, which showcases my writings about film (and other topics), past and present.
To date, the Funcoast job is hands-down the best job I've had. I got paid to review films that I wanted to review, and as a bonus, the first editor I had at Funcoast used to come up with the most creative lines to go along with my contact information at the end of each published review. So, to end this part, I'm going to leave you with some witty one-liners (written about me, not by me):
Little Miss Sunshine: Catherine Krummey once was called "Little Miss Sunshine." Once and only once -- because after that she decked the person who called her that.
Cars: The cars in the film get their kicks on Route 66, Catherine Krummey gets hers from watching flicks.
The Da Vinci Code: Catherine Krummey's Holy Grail? The perfect movie.
The Devil Wears Prada: Catherine Krummey wears Old Navy. [This is true but my editor didn't know that.]
X-Men 3: The Last Stand: If Catherine Krummey were a mutant, her name would be ... oh wait, she already is one.
Lady in the Water: Catherine Krummey got "Goosebumps" from this film.
Idlewild: Catherine Krummey likes to walk on the (Idle)wild side.
Poseidon: The editor of this publication cannot believe that Catherine Krummey dissed a movie with Josh Lucas in it, but she'll forgive her...just this once.
The Break-Up: Catherine Krummey has never gone through a "crummy" breakup.
The Illusionist: Catherine Krummey loves a little magic.
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