The Dissolve has shut down

brevity

https://twitter.com/edgarwright/status/618786634129997824

I've only started following the site in the last few months but enjoyed some of the articles.

I think I actually saw the site on here so some might be interested to know.

e_e

Sad, a rare place of interesting film news and discussion beyond all the superhero overhype you see elsewhere.

Tomagotchye

Only just started reading it. Typical.

Sad Professor

Very sad but unsurprising news. Good (paid staff!) writers who were passionate and knew their film history, non-abtrusive ads, articles about decades-old films (some of them silent or in another language!) and nothing about the latest superhero casting rumours, which if they were mentioned at all were relegated to the postscript in the daily essential film writings post. Simply put, it was a serious film site. It’s amazing it lasted this long. And it’s only fitting that they announced its closure the day before the start of Comic-con, which is bigger than ever.

johnny_ultimate

That's a damn shame, with the double catastrophe that the Dissolve's creation left the AV Club's film section a shadow of its former self.

Perhaps it was the imminent demise and dwindling resources, but I had found myself less engaged with the Dissolve in recent months. I think their focus had narrowed a bit, with more space for modern American cinema over everything else. But even then their allegiance to retrospective features, actual dialogue (with writers and the peculiarly civil community formed in the comment sections), and critical opinion pieces made it stand out as still something quite rare and very welcome. Above all the site achieved a much needed middle ground between serious, dense cinema criticism and a more accessible, casual style. There was a friendliness about the site that differentiated it from the norm, and all without just devoting all its space to the latest blockbuster marketing guff.

Also, Nathan Rabin needs more prominence - nobody writes better analyses of ****ty, ****ty films.

S.M.B.

Terrible news. It had become my go to site for film coverage and the podcast was always great.

Will have to keep track of where the key contributors end up now.

The Black Oil

Not a regular reader by any means, but that's a real shame.

Aj Furlong

Ya there podcast was really interesting and entertaining, can't believe this. They might do a spinoff podcast with Tasha robinson, Scott Tobias and a few others, who knows.

Harry Palmr

Never knew of it so never read it but that reflects poorly on me and not them I'm sure.

How much does it cost to run a website? These days you do it for the love not the money it seems, hardly anyone can make a living from just writing stuff no matter how good unless employed by one of the big boys, they have to be vloggers and freebie junkies on youtube or twitter.