PremiereMagazine Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Who are these people who are mourning the loss of Premiere Magazine? I honestly don't get it, and I'm a guy who subscribed to Premiere for well over ten years. I have a strong memory of reading, cover-to-cover, the issue with Nicholson, Cruise and Moore on the cover, promoting the release of A Few Good Men way back in 1993, so I know whereof I speak. Look people, Premiere was entirely dependent on studio support in order to get its celebrity one-on-ones, which meant it hardly ever said anything negative or off-topic about anyone, except for this one time when they did a piece on The Govenator grabbing women's asses, so let's not pretend that they were our last best hope for movie journalism or something. They were Movieline with a better ad sales department. Also, in the age of blogging, everything they came to press with was almost two months old.

Anyway, over at Anne Thompson's blog, she's looking at the magazine's gallery of covers. My truckload of Premieres from the last fifteen years or so is carefully stored away in an attic in North Carolina, but the easy-to-access online gallery brings back a lot of memories. The June 2002 Natalie Portman futuristic nipple shirt cover is a keeper. Kirsten Dunst with short hair and backless dress from July-August 2004, also nice. Going way back to 1992, there's a weird one for Batman Returns, with Michael Keaton pointing a hitchhiking thumb towards the set of the movie he's apparently filming. Another good one from December 1992, with Gary Oldman out of costume for Dracula. The March 1995 cover is devoted to Cutthroat Island -- you gotta love that. Similarly, there's a Whitney Houston cover from January 1997, back when everyone thought she was going to be a movie star. There's an inexplicably shirtless and soaking wet Brad Pitt cover from November 1997 -- the less said about that the better. And the last one I'll mention, Gwyneth Paltrow from February 1998, with her hair done up like a little girl and her thumb in her mouth. Okay, maybe Premiere wasn't all bad.

In a depressing bit of news today, Hachette Filipacci Media US announced that the April issue of Premiere magazine will mark the last time the publication appears on newsstands; editor-in-chief Peter Herbst is leaving the company, and there's no word on where high-profile contributors like critic Glenn Kenny and Paul Rudnick's pseudonymous Libby Gelman-Waxner will wind up next. Apparently, Premiere will continue as an internet brand, but the print publication is dead -- which, of course, leaves even fewer alternatives for film fans in the US who like to, you know, actually read off of paper instead of the glow of their computer screen.

Premiere's folding pretty much leaves the movie magazine field in America barren on a consumer level but for Entertainment Weekly: Movieline's Hollywood Style has become a glossy consumerist piece of piffle, and publications like Moviemaker and Filmmaker are designed for a more discerning (and slender) audience. It's fascinating to me that the UK can support publications like Empire and Total Film, but any attempt to make a successful glossy consumer publication about movies in America fails with a rich, resounding thud. Will you miss Premiere? Or is the death of the print publication a good thing for the brand?