Greetings fellow internet user. What you have just stumbled upon is a blog devoted entirely to cinema and the critiquing of said cinema. Wipe exists not to tell you what you should and shouldn’t watch, but rather as a critical guideline to the numerous films that exist, be they from the United States, Japan, Egypt or wherever. We at Wipe take our cinema seriously. We hold a deep and passionate love for all things cinematic and for the people who make the films that so engross us. Our dedicated staff is trained in one way or another to aptly discuss the value and drawbacks of any given film, while remaining open to the new experiences that every film brings. There will be no clever thumbs to indicate approval or disdain, nor will there be any sort of five star rating system or numeric equivalent. We at Wipe believe that the decision to watch a film rests and should rest strictly with the viewer and that no rating system should encourage or discourage a potential viewer from sitting down to any film, be it Free Willy or Last Year at Marienbad.
We at Wipe also strive to offer the reader a true variety of perspectives on cinema, and thus we hope to establish (in due time) a global network of writers to meet this goal. It is no doubt very convenient for average “cinephiles” and “legitimate” print journalists here in North America to lapse into America/Hollywood-worship; the current rash of year’s-best lists and awards-season postulating in our major publications and on our internet chat boards attest to this. Whether this is the result of limited exposure or willful ignorance to global cinema, we find the America-bias has no place in serious film criticism, and should be corrected (or at least put in proper perspective). Vital cinema has been made and is currently being made everywhere in the world–perhaps even beyond the borders of taste set by international film festivals. Wipe promises to find cinema that matters, and report on it, whatever corner of the globe it may be tucked away. In case you are worried, however, that Wipe has it out for Hollywood, and will not report fairly on its films, we have set aside positions on our staff for writers with a special passion for Hollywood fare, especially of the contemporary blockbuster variety. This means that you’re likely to find here at Wipe both ardent arthouse enthusiasts and, in coarse terms, maniacal fanboys/girls (and maybe even a mixture of the two breeds). This might make for a ragtag, at times polarized collective of critics and readers, but this is all part of Wipe’s mission to bring you a greater variety of opinions and views on cinema than is offered anywhere else. Welcome to Wipe.
Wipe. 