Karina Longworth (born July 10, 1980) is an American film critic, author, and journalist based in
Los Angeles. Longworth writes, hosts and produces the podcast You Must Remember This, about the "secret and/or forgotten histories of Hollywood's first century".
She is one of the founders of the film culture blog Cinematical[2][3] and formerly edited both Cinematical and the film blog SpoutBlog[1] and, while living in New York, was heard regularly on the
Public Radio International show The Takeaway.[4] From 2010 to 2012, she was the Film Editor and lead critic at LA Weekly.[1][5]
When she was still a web critic for SpoutBlog, Longworth appeared in the documentary For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism,[11] explaining the virtues of
blogging – for creating a back-and-forth dialogue with readers. About blogging she went on to say, "I have a Master's Degree in
Film Studies, but I’m no more qualified to blog than a high school student in Vermont." The New York Times has called Longworth "freakishly smart",[12] and Variety said, "... it's the ever-proliferating bloggers – Spout, Cinematical, Movie CityNews and Hollywood Elsewhere – that have become the instant barometers for how a film plays."[13]
In 2007, Variety said, "As the pool of well-paid print critics shrinks in size, the next generation of film fans may come to trust critic/bloggers like … Spout's Karina Longworth, who helped to create the major film blog Cinematical".[14]The New York Times has commented, "Are print critics really so all-important and sacrosanct with the Web full of debates about all manner of film in places like indiewire.com, cinematical.com and blog.spout.com?"[15]
You Must Remember This podcast
In April 2014, Longworth launched You Must Remember This, a
podcast that covers lesser-known Hollywood stories from the early- to mid-twentieth century. Distributed by the
Panoply network in association with
Slate Magazine, there have been 189 episodes so far, all written and narrated by Longworth.[16] It has become one of the top film podcasts; the Washington Post called it "knowledgeable and laceratingly funny".[17] Podcast Magazine gave the show five out of five mics.[18] The show won the 2016 award for "TV & Film" at the Academy of Podcasters Awards and was a finalist in the 2017.[19][20] The podcast's most talked about series to date was adapted from the unfinished memoir of
Academy Award nominated
production designer and
film producerPolly Platt. [21]
Personal life
Longworth was born to Duncan Longworth, a British father, and Joan Lee Sheiman, an American Jewish mother.[22] She married director
Rian Johnson in 2018.[23] She received a special thanks in the credits of Johnson's film Knives Out.
Works
The Portable SpoutBlog: Rants, reviews and reports from the film blog edited by Karina Longworth (2009),
ISBN1448695716