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Janet R. Maslin (born August 12, 1949) is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''. She served as a ''Times'' film critic from 1977 to 1999 and as a book critic from 2000 to 2015. In 2000 Maslin helped found the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, New York. She is president of its board of directors.


Education

Maslin graduated from the
University of Rochester The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The University of ...
in 1970 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics. She began her career as a rock music critic for '' The Boston Phoenix'' and became a film editor and critic for them. She also worked as a freelancer for '' Rolling Stone'' and worked at '' Newsweek''.


Career

Maslin became a film critic for ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' in 1977. From December 1, 1994, she replaced Vincent Canby as the chief film critic. She continued to review films for ''The Times'' until 1999. Her film-criticism career, including her embrace of American
independent cinema Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independen ...
, is discussed in the documentary '' For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism'' (2009). In the documentary, ''
Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular ...
'' critic Lisa Schwarzbaum recalls the excitement of having a woman as the lead reviewer at ''The New York Times''. From 1994 to 2003, Maslin was a frequent guest on '' Charlie Rose''. Overall she made 16 appearances on the program, giving her insights on the films of the day and predicting the Academy Awards. Maslin continues to review books for ''The New York Times''. Among her reviews are many enthusiastic discoveries of then-unknown crime writers, the first American assessment of an Elena Ferrante novel and a 2011 essay on the widowed Joyce Carol Oates' memoir, ''A Widow's Story,'' which offended some of Oates's admirers.


References


External links


Janet Maslin
at ''The New York Times'' - Archived articles written by Maslin. *
"Janet Maslin"
at Rotten Tomatoes – Includes links to full texts of reviews by Janet Maslin.
Interview with Janet Maslin
'' The Connection''. Broadcast on
WBUR WBUR-FM (90.9 FM) is a public radio station located in Boston, Massachusetts, owned by Boston University. It is the largest of three NPR member stations in Boston, along with WGBH and WUMB-FM and produces several nationally distributed program ...
(
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
), February 10, 2000. Accessed December 21, 2007. ( RealAudio format.)
Rockcritics.com interview
– May 2005 {{DEFAULTSORT:Maslin, Janet 1949 births Living people University of Rochester alumni American film critics American women film critics American literary critics American women literary critics American music critics American women music critics Critics employed by The New York Times People from Mount Pleasant, New York American women journalists Women writers about music 21st-century American women