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February 2005
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ALUMNI PROFILE |
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| Just in Time for the Oscars – Behind the Scenes with Washington Post Film Critic
Desson Thomson, SOC/BA ’80, sees an average of eight movies a week – sometimes three a day. He schedules his pre-screenings with any number of D.C.-area theatres, scribbles down a few notes in his trusty reporter's notebook during the show, and types up his takes on the latest and greatest (or less-than-great) features back in the newsroom at the Washington Post. Often, the movie reviewer writes on tight deadlines to make the cut for each Friday’s edition of D.C.'s going-out staple, the Weekend section. Sometimes he’s pleasantly surprised, as was the case a few weeks ago when he went to see Because of Winn Dixie about a girl and her dog, fearing the worst. “I thought it would be… (pause) cute, but I thought better of it after I saw it. It was really very entertaining,” he says. “You just don’t know what you’re going to get.” The British citizen, who moved to D.C. with his family “right off the boat” just before enrolling at AU in 1975, says 75 percent of the films he sees "are either mediocre or terrible." And knowing half of the movies he sees won’t even be around the following week can be depressing after he’s worked so hard to write the review in time. “But those 25 percent keep you going,” he says, noting that finding creativity on demand is a great challenge. “I’m always renewed by the thought that someone’s reading and enjoying it… I like reaching readers and amusing them at the same time; not just telling them about the movie, but telling in an entertaining way, making them smile at the breakfast table.” This Sunday night, February 27, Thomson hopes to keep hundreds of movie buffs entertained with his best Sean Connery impressions when he dons his tux and walks the red carpet to host the AFI Silver Theatre’s Oscar Night Party in Silver Spring, to benefit the AFI and a children’s charity called First Star. Thomson didn't want to make too many predictions for the biggest night in Hollywood, but he did mention thinking Jamie Foxx will get the Best Actor Oscar for his performance in Ray. Two of Thomson’s personal favorites this year are Alexander Payne’s Sideways, which has been nominated for five Academy Awards, and Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby, which has been nominated for seven. (Both are contenders for Best Picture, Director, and Writing/Adapted Screenplay.) As for Oscar snubs, “I would have liked to have seen Hotel Rwanda nominated as Best Picture,” he says. Thomson got his start as a film critic at the Washington Post the old fashioned way – by working through the ranks. “I got a job in 1983 as a copy aide in the days before voicemail – taking telephone messages for the staff members of the Style section.” In fact, one of the writers he used to take messages for was Tom Shales, SOC/BA ’67, the Post’s longtime television critic. After writing some free-lance articles for the Post, in 1985, Thomson was awarded a summer internship to really prove himself as a reporter. “Evidently I passed,” he deadpans. They hired him that fall, and Thomson worked as a Style section reporter for a couple years before moving on to the film beat in 1987. Now, despite the often later-than-preferred screenings, tight deadlines, editors who are “ruthless in the pursuit of truth and accuracy,” and some of the real howlers he finds himself sitting through unable to leave because he's there for work, Desson Thomson acknowledges he’s got a pretty good gig going. “I still get to sit down and say, ‘I’m watching a movie for a living.’ ... I certainly wouldn’t be having this much fun as an architecture critic.” -Melissa Reichley
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