At a time when newspapers are folding and the “equality of the internet” implies that everyone’s opinion is equal, The Boston Phoenix’s own movie critic, Gerald Peary, has struck back with a wonderful movie about film critics. Of course, in so doing, Peary is talking about the wonder of films themselves, and For the Love of Movies is a great big cinematic birthday present for anyone who truly loves film. Taking the historical long view, Peary’s essential documentary chronicles a hundred years of passionate, movie-mad writers scribbling away in the dark. From the early days of Otis Ferguson and Manny Farber through that heated, legendary 1960s war of words between Andrew Sarris and Pauline Kael, all the way up to Harry Knowles and the democratizing dawn of the Internet critic, For the Love of Movies lobbies for your friendly neighborhood film reviewer—a reader’s last line of defense against the Hollywood marketing machine. And it also lobbies for movies—movies that matter, as one critic put it.

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