Thurs. Oct. 18

 Would you pay $9.75 to sit in a room and here film critics say things like "edgy," "must see" and "seat-of-your pants thrill ride?" You read those things. Heck, we've written words like that when we've written criticism here and elsewhere ... although he hope - hope, mind you - we've avoided the most egregious TV-quoted kind of blurbs. (The best critic quote we ever read came from old pal Betsy Sherman, who used to freelance at the Globe and wrote of Bobcat Goldthwait's "Shakes the Clown" as "the 'Citizen Kane' of alcoholic clown movies." Well, at the Coolidge Corner Theatre there's a two-day, three-session symposium called "Beyond Thumbs Up: A Critical Look at Film Criticism." It started yesterday Wed. Oct. 17 and concludes today Oct. 18, with sessions at 10:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. The first deals with "Tradition and Evolving Models of Film Criticism" and the latter is "The Outlook for US Film Criticism. It's put on in conjunction with Cineaste Magazine and you should expect to see and hear from two of my old pals, Ty Burr (in photo), at the Globe and Owen Gleiberman, who used to work with Ty at Entertainment Weekly. That is, Owen still does; he moved there from the Phoenix years ago. (Incidental note: Owen loved writing about exploitation junk for the Phoenix, but when he got named editor he didn't have the time,so he asked me to do so under a pseudonymn. I did. I was freelancing at the Globe at the time and didn't want to confuse the two lines of work, y'see.) Anyway, other critics include David Sterritt, chairman of the National Society of Film Critics, Armond White of the New York Press, Glenn Kenney, senior editor of Premiere, Kent Jones of Film Comment, Scott Foundas, film editor at the L.A. Weekly, and Cynthia Lucia and Richard Porton, both Cineaste editors. It's $9,75 per session.

290 Harvard St., 617-734-2501 x113 www.coolidge.org