As a growing tadpole in the 1970s, I remember discovering the mischievous humor of the NY Times capsule movie reviews. Buried in the TV listings, these one-line confections were whipped up by the legendary Timesman Howard Thompson. For millions of late night old-movie fans, Thompson’s opinions pretty much determined what you’d be watching after 11:30.
Hmm, incredibly terse reviews that grabbed people’s attention and influenced behavior. Could it be that proto-tweeting was taking place in the old media world? I thinks so, and Thompson gets the credit as the true inventor of the micro-blog genre. To get a feel for Thompson’s handiwork, I’ve listed a few examples with character counts (which are well below Twitter’s 140 limit).
Editor’s note: your movie going experience will have to pre-date Star Wars.